Dirty News (Dirty Network Book 1)

by Michelle Love

  Anger is flowing through me as it seems the woman I love is into something she can’t manage to get out of and I’m growing angrier with each passing moment.

  “I was not aware of that. I suppose her father wasn’t either,” she says, then I hear a door close. “He’s home. Can I call you back, Nic?”

  “Please do,” I tell her then she hangs up the phone. I suppose she doesn’t want her husband to know she’s talking to me.

  I need to know the name of the man who hired her and took her with him. All of that is unbelievable and I don’t see how her father approved of that at all.

  My cell rings and I see it’s my father. “Hello, Father.”

  “Hello. I wanted you to be the first to know. Your mother and I talked and we are separating. We came to an agreement that she’s very happy with. She’s keeping the house and the cars she likes. I’m going to pay her a tidy sum in alimony each month too. She seems happy. For the first time in a long time, she had a smile on her face.”

  I stand perfectly still, more than a bit stunned. “She’s happy?”

  “She is. She told me to tell you she’s going to take a trip to start her new life. She wants you to call her so you two can talk a bit about her plans,” he says then clears his throat. “I talked to Stacy.”

  “I can see that. Are you two going to be a thing now?” I ask as I take a seat in my chair.

  “No,” he says, surprising me. “We’re going to talk now and then, she said. I just wanted to let your mother out of this loveless marriage we’re in. I wanted to let us both out of it. I recalled feeling love, once upon a time, and it gave me the idea that if it happened once, it could happen again. Maybe not with Stacy. But it could happen again.”

  “Wow!” I say. I am rendered speechless.

  “Yes, wow,” he says then clears his throat again. “About your woman, Nicholai. What have you heard on her?”

  “It’s still the same as what I told you three days ago. She’s here, in New York. She has some internship and an apartment. But she has no cell phone that her mother is aware of. I still can’t believe she wouldn’t take a cab to my home or office, though.” I turn my chair to look out the window again and find the city looking gorgeous with the fresh dusting of snow.

  “I know I’ve been against you and that woman. But I am beginning to realize I’ve shut myself off for far too long. I’m butting out, son. And there’s something else I want to tell you. Stacy brought to my attention that I have never told you that I love you. I do. I do love all of my sons. And I’m going to make some changes. Get ready for a new father, Nicholai.”

  Tears sting my eyes as he finally says the words to me I had come to think I’d never hear come out of his mouth. “I love you too, Father.”

  “Good! We can start moving forward. Change is in the air, Nicholai. And I feel it’s all for the good. I will not be attending the ceremony for Hawthorne tonight. It’s at midnight and I plan on being in bed by that time. You understand, don’t you?” he asks.

  He’s never cared if I understood a thing before. I guess things are going to change. “I do. I’m not sure if I’ll be attending or not, myself. If by some miracle, Natasha comes to me, then I certainly won’t.”

  “You know, Nicholai, I think it’s time I left that life behind me. I will never find a nice woman to love and who can love me if I am into that life. I won’t judge you if you stay with the club, though.”

  “Good to know. I really have no idea what I’ll do. It all depends on Natasha. If she comes back to me, I think I’m going to scoop her ass up and marry the woman. If she leaves me high and dry without so much as a single word from her, it will cut me to the quick. And I have no idea how I will handle myself if that happens. I suppose I’ll go back to not believing love exists. For myself, anyway.”

  “I understand. And I hope she shows up. You know, maybe she was waiting until tonight or even tomorrow to come to you. As a Christmas surprise, you know?”

  Closing my eyes, I picture her showing up on my doorstep. A red corset on and a Santa hat. A bottle of wine in one hand and her lips pursed for a kiss.

  “I hope like hell, you’re right, Father. You have a Merry Christmas. I will talk to you tomorrow.”

  “You too, Nicholai.”

  Our call is ended and I am left wondering what in the hell I can do to make sure I get to spend Christmas with the woman I love.

  Where in the hell could she be?

  NATASHA

  James came sometime during the night and left the things I am to wear to the ceremony tonight. I found the box on the coffee table in the living room. A note was on top of the red box.

  I am to fast today. Eat and drink nothing until he comes for me. I know that’s because he wants to make sure I am too weak to put up a fight. He’s a smart man, never underestimating my power at all times.

  It’s almost as if he can read my mind. I had planned to go through with actually trying to kill the man. With a solid hit to his nose, the way my father taught me to. But he’s placed a set of handcuffs in the box and I am to cuff my hands before his arrival.

  The attire he’s making me wear is more than I am comfortable with. Or perhaps I should say less. It’s merely straps of black leather that run under my breasts and around my upper thighs. I will be completely exposed.

  A red cloak will cover me as he transports me to wherever this ceremony will occur. I will wear no shoes, it seems, as none were in the box.

  I am to wash my hair and put it into a slicked back ponytail. The mask I have to wear is huge, covering my entire face. I will not be recognizable at all.

  Looking at my reflection in the full-length mirror in the bedroom, I’m shaking my head as I look at my body in this so-called outfit. The scar from where I fell out of a tree when I was twelve shows. It’s under my left breast and is quite large as I was impaled by a limb and had to go to the hospital with the injury.

  The limb barely missed piercing my heart. It was a miracle, the doctors all said. Running my hand over the large scar, I recall it was also on Christmas Eve when it happened all those years back.

  I was climbing the tree with my cousins in our grandmother’s backyard. When I fell, it pretty much ruined that Christmas. But all of my family came to see me at the hospital and I got way more presents than anyone else did.

  I’ve always worn bathing suits that hid the scar. I hate it. And now I have to go out in front of a bunch of people, completely bared to them, including my ugly scar.

  Unable to fight it back any longer, the desperateness of the situation overwhelms me. I fall to the floor and hide my face on the carpet. I can’t stop the sobs from coming out of me.

  Loudly, I wail. I’ve never felt more hopeless. No one can save me!

  No matter how loud I cry, all will think it’s an act. No matter how much I beg for help, they will think I am adding to the drama of the act.

  The squeal of the intercom draws my attention and I raise my head to look up at the camera in my room as James’ voice fills it. “Finally, I thought you’d never crack.”

  “Please, James. Please, let me go,” I beg as I look into the camera. “I can’t go through with this. I can’t!”

  “You can go free. It will mean Nicholai will be ruined. Get dressed and I will let you out,” he says.

  “What will you do to ruin Nic?” I ask, as maybe I can get away from him and go to my father and let him know what he’s doing to Nic.

  “I have seven different ways to send the man to prison. Hell, I’ll let you choose the method of his demise if you’d like. All can be immediately deployed. He will be picked up by the authorities before I let you go free.”

  My heart falls and I know I can’t let that happen to Nic. “I will stay. Leave him alone. I will honor the bond we signed.”

  “Good to hear. Now, please, feel free to cry some more. It gets me off and I’m bored at the moment. If it makes you feel any better, Nicholai has been at the club every night and I think during the days t
oo. He’s kept a redhead with him everywhere he goes. I do believe you’ve been replaced.”

  Not able to take it any longer, I pull my body up off the floor and throw myself onto the bed. He may be lying to me or he may be telling me the truth. I have no idea. I just know I will be at the mercy of the man on the damn intercom sometime tonight and I can already feel the burning flesh on the back of my neck from the brand he’ll be putting on me.

  As I cry into the pillow, I have to wonder why my father doesn’t have people looking for me. Surely, my parents know I’m the kind of woman who calls when I get to places I’m going. I’m the kind of person who checks in on a daily basis.

  With no money, phone, or even decent clothes to go outside in, even if I could get out of the apartment, I am stuck. I suppose I could get out but it would set off alarms, and most likely send one of James’ plans against Nic into action. So, I sit here, waiting for the inevitable. Waiting to become James Hawthorne’s very real sex slave.

  All hope is gone of being saved. No one will ever recognize me. My fate has been set. One I never saw coming.

  I should’ve never stepped foot in the fucking Billionaire Bad Boy Club!

  NICHOLAI

  After making repeated phone calls to Natasha’s parents without getting any answer, I’ve decided they must be on their way to New York to see if they can find her. Leaving me out of everything.

  But that was to be expected. The day has come and gone and the eleven o’clock hour has just rolled in. My cell lights up with a text and I see it’s from Hawthorne. ‘Will you be at the ceremony?’

  His insistence on me being at his damn ceremony to welcome his new slave to our society is annoying, to say the least. After spending a few hours at the club that night after the FBI interrogation, attempting to occupy my mind with poker and failing miserably, I’ve stayed home only to have repeated texts from him to join him at the club.

  Why he wants to suddenly be best buddies is a thing I not only do not understand but am growing tired of, quite rapidly. I place the phone on the table beside my bed where I have already retreated to. There is the slightest hope Natasha will surprise me at midnight, so I want to be all ready for her arrival. If that happens.

  My screen lights up again and I grab it up, ready to pound out a text for him to leave me the fuck alone. Only it’s a number I don’t recognize and it says, ‘Something’s not right about Natasha.’

  ‘Who is this?’ I text back.

  ‘Her mother. Her father and I came to look for her but she’s not in the apartment the man gave us as her address. The doorman has never seen her, as we showed him a picture. I’ve asked Norman if we could call you but he’s told me to leave you out of it. I’m worried, though.’

  After a long moment, I text back, ‘I need to know the name of the man who gave her the job and apartment.’

  ‘He said not to tell you that. He also told me not to tell her father. I’m acting like I don’t know his name. Ask me anything else,’ she texts back.

  ‘What company is she interning for?’ I ask in hopes of that helping me in some way to find her.

  ‘They’re closed for the holidays. So how will that help? I’m worried that we might mess this job up for her. I don’t want to jump the gun.’

  The woman is trying my patience. ‘Tell me the name of the company!’

  ‘Hawthorne Publications.’

  As my eyes focus on the name of the company, my heart pounds like a sledgehammer in my chest. Tossing the blankets off me, I haul ass to the bathroom to get ready.

  Before I dress, I tap out a text to James Hawthorne to throw his ass off. ‘I’m not coming. Thanks for the invitation, though.’

  Then I send one to Natasha’s mother. ‘Go to the Central Park Zoo. Wear masquerade masks and speak to no one. Make sure your husband has his gun with him. And be prepared to see things you’ve never seen before. I will be there in a black tux with a Phantom of the Opera mask on.’

  Praying I am way off, I hurry to get ready and head down to take off for the zoo. It’s beyond my imagination that Natasha would purposely make a bond with that man to be his slave. Not that woman!

  But he may be holding something over her head. Maybe telling her father about her involvement with the club. Or maybe something even worse. The fact the doorman of the apartment building said he didn’t recognize her is giving me an eerie feeling.

  The woman I saved from him said James would leave her alone in the apartment he set her up in and made her wear an ankle bracelet that would go off if she left it. He has the means and the ingenuity to take Natasha somewhere and stash her until he is ready for her.

  If that man thinks he can take that woman, he is sadly mistaken!

  NATASHA

  With the mask and cloak on, James whisks me out of the apartment building after sending the doorman on an errand for him. He’s been extremely careful about not having me seen at all.

  His driver opens the door of the town car and I slip into the back, then James comes in after me. “On the floor, Slave.”

  I quickly comply, trying to reserve my energy for a fight later, when I’ll need every ounce of energy I can muster. “Yes, Master.” I move to the floor and take a position of submission.

  Although my body has been ravaged by the drugs my father had me on for over a year and then the fasting James has made me do, my mind is sharper than ever. There has to be at least one man in the audience tonight who will listen to me when I shout to call Nic.

  I’m prepared to take all I can before the actual branding occurs. I will fight to my death to stop that from happening. James Hawthorne is in for a rude awakening. I did warn him about myself.

  After I fell apart and cried for over an hour, I found a reserve of strength and faith hidden deep inside of myself. I also recalled some things about the people I’ve met at the club. Though not many, I did manage to meet a few and I have faith those people will step up and help me when I ask for it.

  With James’ confession of having quite a few irons in the fire, ready to be aimed at Nic, I have all I need to have the man arrested for blackmail. When you add in the fact he has to have the bonds he has with his other slaves on file with the BBC, that should be all anyone needs to put the man away for a very long time.

  There’s no way more than a few of his other slaves hasn't found the way they’re being treated unfair and inhumane. Perhaps my fate was to walk into the club that night for the other women and future women James Hawthorn would torture and terrorize.

  I’d like to think it was merely to meet Nic, the man I love, even though I never saw that coming. It seems my reason may have been two-fold for following Dani’s advice and joining her that night. The night that changed my life.

  The car stops and James pulls my leash that’s attached to the collar he has tightly wrapped around my neck. He’s never gentle about anything he does. When he gets out of the car, he jerks the leash, making me run forward and nearly fall.

  My bare feet are what helps me not to get tripped up and I walk quickly behind him with my head down. The smells of hay, animal shit, and cotton candy hit my nose as he hurries along with me into a large wooden gate.

  As we walk inside, I can tell we’re at a zoo. It’s dark but the half-moon’s light glows off the white snow-covered walkway. My feet are freezing but that’s okay. It’s making my mind sharp as the snow bites at the soles of my feet.

  We meet a man who unlocks a cage and I am placed inside of it. “You will wait here until the show begins,” James tells me as he takes my cuffed hands and pulls them up, looping them over a screw that’s jutting out of the enclosure.

  My toes barely touch the snow-covered ground as my body is stretched to its limits. Then he does something I did not see coming. My mask is pulled off and he puts a gag-ball in my mouth and ties the straps so tightly, I can’t make more than a slight sound. My mask is put back on with no one the wiser that I am unable to scream or make loud noises.

  I had relied on his des
ire to hear my screams and cries so I could shout for someone to get Nic. Now that’s gone. He must’ve thought about it and decided it was too risky to expect me to comply with the bond.

  Growls fill the air behind me. Large cats, lions perhaps. Bears, for certain. And wolves howl in the darkness behind me. My body heats with the terror I’m feeling. I am at the mercy of the animals in the position I’m in.

  Would he really allow the animals to rip me apart? Would any of the members who will soon be here allow that kind of show to be put on?

  I have no idea to what extremes any of the people, who make the BBC their hobby, will go to in order to push the envelope. James seems to want to scare the shit out of them all. Especially me.

  I watch as other women are brought into the cage. They all give me sorrowful gazes as they enter the cage, all wearing the same thing I am. Some of their red cloaks blow apart as they walk in, showing me the same little leather straps I have on, that merely accent their private areas, covering none.

  All the other women, who are around my size, have their hair pulled back into a high ponytail and we all wear the same full facial mask to hide our identity to the maximum effect.

  I, alone, am cuffed and hanging up. Dropping my head lower, I can see out of the corners of my eyes they are being placed on either side of me. Six on one side and six on the other.

  The animals who I hear have to be in other cages behind this one or we’d have been attacked by now. Two gurneys are brought in and I have to wonder why that is. Does he plan to kill a couple of the women tonight?

  The gurneys are put at the end of each line of the other slaves and then two chairs are brought in and placed at the front of each line. My heart starts to beat harder as music begins to well up and I hear claps and cheers.

  Looking up for a moment, I realize a heavy black curtain is shielding us from the audience’s view. The members of the BBC and their slaves are waiting on the other side of the curtain for the show to begin.