Auctioned To Daddy: BDSM Romance

by Amy Faye

  Then again, we both knew that the job involved some risks. Not, I think to myself, that he had much choice in whether or not to take them. It doesn't matter now, though. Nobody has any choice in the matter.

  I take a deep breath. Nothing I can do but wait. If things go well, then we're in the game. If they don't go well—

  I don't think I'd rather think about that. I can still feel a little buzz of arousal at the thought of what happened earlier that night.

  The warehouse was a setup. It was a strange setup, in my opinion, but a setup nonetheless. If it was a setup, why waste your men, knowing they're going to die?

  That part makes no sense to me, but then again I suppose it's not as if I'm a gangster. Maybe they needed people there to play it to the hilt.

  The problem being, even from what I was able to tell, the plan had never been to hit them so soon. It was barely six hours between when they'd changed the plan and when they'd hit the place. Barely six hours to warn them, and barely six hours to get the plan in motion.

  The car bomb by itself takes a while to set up, especially so that nobody will notice. With the rush they were in, there was always good odds that nobody would even check for something like that.

  But why leave it up to chance? It seems like a big risk for surprisingly little reward. Too much of the plan was left up to chance, no matter how the setup was supposed to work.

  Say they took their own truck, and loaded it that way. What would have happened then?

  Suppose that they'd found the bomb. What would have happened then? The whole plan relies on nobody checking anything, and sure—it had worked out. This time.

  Something about it was nagging at me, and it had been all night. Now, as the sun sits high in the sky, I have nothing but time to think about it, and it isn't making any more sense than it was before.

  Unless they knew the details of the plan, there was no way to be sure. There simply was no way that they could have found anything.

  I know I didn't report the job in. I couldn't have. I only had twenty minutes to myself the whole time, and if I did, there's no way that Donaldsen would have given me the go-ahead on pulling a job like that.

  He'd have given me an unfathomable amount of grief about it, and then told me to just pick Ryan up and come back.

  Of course, that wouldn't have killed his gang. It never does. But that's exactly the sort of thinking that they have on Capital Hill—you can't win the war, so you might as well not try.

  I suck in a breath. I don't think that way, that's for fucking sure. If I can take one off the street, I will. But if I can cut the head off the whole snake, it doesn't matter that another one will just take its place eventually.

  That's time where, even if it's only for an instant, a girl won't have to cope with her mother's dope habits. That's not nothing. It's not a win, not completely, but it's a damn sight better than just getting rid of one low-level guy.

  I can't believe that Ryan did it himself. Not with the way that he reacted. Though, I've seen people's own problems come back to bite them in the ass before, and they always take it damn hard. So maybe I shouldn't take him off the list.

  Another instant, and I take him off the list again. No, he couldn't have. Wouldn't have. He's clever enough, sure. But I don't believe he'd sacrifice a man just to play off a charade for me.

  Which leaves three others. Hawkins, the brother, and the guy who got burned up.

  If he knew about the job being a setup, he wouldn't have gone into that truck. I've been on the inside of setups before. Maybe you don't know everything, but you know something's fishy.

  And the first thing you learn, nobody even needs to tell you: don't go first. Not ever.

  It doesn't take long to wipe Logan off the list, either. He's Beauchamp's brother, and he's got about as much pull with the gang as anyone. Maybe as much as Ryan. Maybe more, even. I can't say for sure, but I know that he's well-respected. I was able to see it in an instant.

  Hawkins, on the other hand—

  He'd have gotten the call before long. There's no way that he wouldn't have reported it in. He has to. Every job that he does gets called in. Danny takes the call, and that gets passed along. Double quick, no doubt, because Donaldsen is breathing down his neck.

  My face starts to twist up in annoyance and frustration. There's a leak somewhere. Command is a big totem pole, and things get shouted up and down it. Not much in the Bureau is a secret, not when orders are getting passed around.

  So I have to figure, anyone who wanted to know about the job knew that Hawkins was going on that job. They wouldn't necessarily know that I was going, especially since I kept quiet about it.

  No doubt there wasn't any reason to communicate to Hawkins. He looked as surprised to see me as anyone. Unlike me, he didn't have the benefit of being there for the change-of-plans meeting.

  I suck in a breath of air. If there's a leak, it could be anyone. But someone must be in contact with the Crazy Horses. Someone inside A.T.F., someone who apparently decided that the money was just too good to pass up.

  It's not hard to understand the reasoning. I wouldn't go for the money. Not in a hundred million years. But not everyone who gets into the business we're in, does it because they're true believers.

  You run into a lot of big damn heroes, as well. People who want recognition. They want to get famous, to get ahead. Money doesn't just grease palms in the Capital building, it works the same way in the Bureau.

  I can't get around one thing, though. I personally vetted every one of the people under me. There's always a chance that someone's dirty. Always, especially when there's boys working undercover.

  But you always know. I had feelings. Plenty of times, I thought that I knew a guy was dirty. I get rid of them. It's not as hard as it might seem, especially when you're dealing with stone-cold killers day in and day out.

  I always knew, every time. Every time someone was dirty, it didn't take more than a long, hard look at them to know that they were playing both sides of the field.

  I imagine every face in my unit. All fifteen of them.

  Not a one of them stands out to me. They're clean. Each and every one of them. And that's what bothers me the most.

  I can't think of a single person who might have done it, not in my unit. Which means that there's someone who's much smarter than I'm giving them credit for, out there fucking with my operation.

  Someone who is looking from the inside, out, and nobody knows that they're a snake in the grass.

  Someone who's got me totally outsmarted.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  RYAN

  I don't know how long they had me in there, but the question of whether or not I'd die from it had been bothering me as long as I could remember. I can barely recall a time that someone wasn't putting the screws to me.

  My entire body hurts. It feels strange to say that I've gotten used to it, but I had, like you got used to the cold during an Ohio winter. One day you just wake up, and you're sitting in a room ten degrees colder than you'd like and it's fine.

  Not hurting feels strange. I feel it more where they haven't hit me. In my calves and thighs. The feeling is a strange one.

  Finally they let me down. My head's still swimming, but I'm not in danger of passing out. Unlike the first crew, these guys seem to know what they're doing. They don't want me to pass out, so I won't.

  Maybe they screw it up, sometimes. You never know, with some guys. They go down fast and easy. I've never had a glass jaw, but then again I've never taken a beating so bad before, either.

  They pour my body into a chair. I feel as if my arms are going to melt right off, but they don't. Something in my body is still ready to fight to hold together in a human shape.

  "Why are you so insistent on seeing the boss?"

  I can't move enough to shrug. "I'm not."

  He doesn't like it when I lie, so I make sure to do it as often as possible. I don't brace for the hit because I can't. His hand doesn't move to str
ike me, which is good.

  "Beauchamp, you're a fucking idiot, you know that?"

  I can just about still move my face to smile up at the guy who's been working on me for what feels like weeks. It might have been three hours.

  "You're not going to meet McCallister."

  "I'll be alright," I assure him. "I mean, I got to meet you, which is just as good."

  The guy smiles. He's got a good sense of humor, this guy. I might be able to get along with him, in different circumstances. My body hurts too much not to get along with someone right now, though. "That's sweet. You know, you make it out of here, I'll have to put you on the Christmas card list."

  "That sounds lovely," I manage.

  He turns around and walks out of the room. I get a minute to breathe. Every time I take in a good breath, my ribs stab into my lung, so I take shallow breaths and try not to hurt myself. It doesn't work.

  I try to force myself to sit upright, but my body won't move right. I try to push myself upright with my legs. They're mostly unhurt, after all. My boots scrabble off the concrete floor, legs unable to handle even the slightest bit of weight.

  This time, my friend comes back in with a friend. A woman friend.

  "You're lucky, Beauchamp. Someone on high must like you."

  I smile at her. "Are you an angel?"

  She's got a sweet voice when she answers. "Is this a pickup line?"

  My head lolls to the side, in spite of my best efforts to keep myself looking like I can control my body in the least bit. "It doesn't have to be."

  Her big, round lips split into a smile. She's got a soft body with curves in all the right places, and none where you don't want any. Attractive doesn't begin to describe it. She looks like a Barbie doll came to life.

  "You think you're very clever, don't you?"

  My face hurts when I smile, but I do it. It hurts when I don't smile, anyways. "Ain't you heard? Cops tell it from one side of the country to the other. Criminals are stupid. All of 'em, dumb as rocks. I'm a crook—must be dumb as a rock."

  Her fingers burn where they touch my skin. It hurts just to be in the same room as her. Hurts to be in the same room as anything. I'm just not sure whether or not it would hurt to float in a sensory deprivation tank. Maybe not, after a while.

  "You're not going to meet McCallister," she says. Everyone has been telling me that since I got here. I'd think that eventually they would figure I heard the message, but they don't seem to get tired of hearing it.

  "I was just telling my friend here—I'm just here to make friends. He's my friend, aren't you, old buddy?"

  The big guy behind the woman makes a tight-lipped smile in response to her questioning look. "He's very friendly, Krissi."

  "I can see that," she says. She turns back to me and smiles. "You can be a real pain in the ass, you know that, Beauchamp?"

  "It's not my fault," I protest weakly. "I was just born with these natural good looks and charm."

  She pinches my cheek. It hurts like a son of a bitch and it's insulting to boot. I try not to let either show on my face, but my ability to hide the pain went out the door a long time ago. I decide to take a little risk.

  "Are you going to kill me, or no?"

  The woman looks over her shoulder. I can't tell who's in charge between them. Each seems to be answering to the other, in their minds. The guy shrugs, and the woman turns back to me.

  "No, you poor boy. We're not going to kill you. We need you."

  That's the best news I've heard all day. My body hurts too much for any sort of tough-guy act, but I manage to keep myself from having much of a reaction at all. At least long enough to hear what they had to say.

  "Why's that?"

  "You let us deal with that. You want to meet with McCallister, is that right?"

  "Not any more," I tell her. "I just want to have a beer with my two new best friends."

  "That's good," she says. The smile's disingenuous, but so is everything else about her.

  "Besides, everyone tells me I'm not going to. I figure, eventually I had better not get my hopes up."

  "See, Sasha? The boy can learn." Krissi looks back at me, stepping back. My hands aren't tied. If I wanted to, I could reach right out and grab her.

  I'd have to want it real bad, though, because my muscles wouldn't want to do it, and neither would the rest of me for that matter.

  "He can learn, sure. But why him?" He doesn't take his eyes off me for a minute.

  I was wrong, I realized, when I thought that I could have grabbed her easy. The big guy—Sasha, she says—wouldn't let me move more than six inches before he had me caught up again. I wouldn't like what came after that. It's a good thing for me, then, that I'm not too worried about moving.

  "You know why, Sasha. We can't afford to wait for another chance to come along, can we?"

  The big guy lets out a long breath and shifts his weight from one foot to the other, not taking his eyes off me. "We can always afford to wait."

  "You're right. Afford, that's not the right word. But why waste a golden opportunity?"

  I don't like the way they're talking about me. I don't like that they're doing it right in front of me, but I especially don't like the way that I seem to be someone's golden goose.

  I've had plenty of dupes. Known plenty of dupes. And I don't want to find myself in that position again.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  MAGUIRE

  The text is short and simple, and I might have ignored it if it didn't come from work, and I didn't have a bad feeling. From Danny Ball, 11:52 P.M. Only 8 minutes before midnight.

  "Come quick."

  My car is still sitting, turned off and dark inside, outside the warehouse where they took Ryan. He still hasn't come out. Nobody's left, and nobody's entered. Not for… I try to do the math, but my head's already fuzzy. Maybe 9 hours, maybe more.

  Come quick.

  That's not the sort of thing Danny would usually say. If he wanted me in the office, he'd just tell me so. Usually he'd be kissing ass while he did it, because he knows I can be testy. No ass-kissing. No asking, no telling.

  'Quick.'

  I turn the car on, frustrated that the lights immediately kick on automatically. As if I'm lighting a beacon that says 'I'm leaving now.'

  There's nothing else to be done, though.

  I push down the accelerator and start moving fast. 'Quick.' I already had a bad feeling. 9 hours is a long time. It's a very long time, indeed. Ryan can't be doing well, not after 9 hours. Something's going on inside that building, and I want to know what.

  But I can't ignore the text. Just two words, and they keep ringing in my head, over and over. Come quick. I don't like it. Something's gone wrong, and it's something that's worse than just a gangster getting beat to death in an industrial warehouse.

  It takes me twenty minutes to get back to the office, and by the time I'm there, my mind's turned back the other way.

  I shouldn't have left Ryan. He could be hurt. He could be hurt bad. Someone needs to be there to ensure he gets out alright, and if he doesn't get out alright—if they drag him out, throw him into a car trunk in two separate garbage bags, and drive out into the desert to dump him somewhere that nobody will ever see—well, someone needs to be there for that too.

  It's too late, now. I'll never be sure that the lost time didn't end up making all the difference in the world. Nobody will ever be completely sure.

  I swallow hard and put the car in park out front. It's not hard to figure out why I had to come. At least, I know where I'm going to find out. A small crowd has gathered right outside the door. Maybe a dozen people, most of them civilians, by the look of it.

  They're standing at a distance, like high school kids ringing around a fight, but they all look on with interest. Another dozen or so are standing further back, interested enough to watch, but not wanting anyone else to know about it.

  A heavy-set Latino man resumes walking his dog when my eyes pass over him as I get out of the car
.

  I muscle through the crowd, heading for the door rather than the center of the interest, but it's impossible not to look over my shoulder into the ring as I pass.

  I force myself to keep moving toward the door as if I hadn't seen anything. Hawkins's body can wait. I have to talk to someone, and I have to talk to them now. About what the hell happened, about how the body was found, about why it's still sitting there on the side of the road.

  Danny stands up as I walk in. He's sitting in the chair right by the door, waiting for me.

  "Boss, I know you're gonna have a lot of questions—"

  "You're God damned right I am," I growl. "Give me the details."

  "We found him about thirty seconds before I texted you. We heard a firearm discharged right outside, an engine speed off."

  "Did we get a shot of the guy who did it?"

  "We did," Danny confirms. He guides her over to a computer.

  "And why is Hawkins still outside?"

  "We can't move him, officially. Waiting on the lead Agent to make the decision, but officially this isn't a Bureau matter. We have to wait on the Sheriff's Office to come and get him. We've already put out calls through official channels."

  So it's either she breaks protocol, or they sit there with their thumbs up their asses and wait for the Sheriff to show up. I take a deep breath.

  "Show me the security footage."

  He nods and clicks a button. The image on screen cuts to life. The time stamp reads 11:51 P.M. and 36 seconds.

  At 41 seconds past the minute, a large motorcycle rides into frame. It appears to be two men on the motorcycle. The one in back appears to be driving.

  He pulls the bike to a stop, puts down the kick-stand, takes the weight of the guy in front. I'm not having trouble figuring out that the guy in front is dead, and he's our inside man.

  The place where the body gets dumped is just out of frame. As the guy leans down to place the body, he slips out of the shot, and then stands back up. You can see him just at the edge of the screen.