Highest Bidder Collection

by Lauren Landish

  My heart skips a beat at the sight of him. Dressed in dark slacks, a crisp, black dress shirt and coat, he looks pale and a little rough around the edges with a day’s worth of coarse stubble around his jawline, but he’s never look so damn good to me. I’m so relieved to see him after being secluded in this room for hours.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him, immediately going to him.

  He looks at me, holding me as I put my hands on his chest. But he doesn’t answer me. My skin pricks with a chill. I know he’s hiding a gunshot wound under his shirt. He has to be in pain. But I want to beat the shit out of him. Tell me what’s going on!

  I cross my arms over my chest, moving away from him and shoving the emotions down.

  “You don’t need to worry about it,” he says finally, walking over to stand in front of Madame Lynn’s desk. There’s exhaustion in his voice, but he’s doing his best to hide it. My eyes feel heavy and raw. I swallow thickly, not knowing what to do or say.

  “You owe me more than that,” I say warily. “You almost died. I –” I swallow thickly.

  And now I’ll never be the same. The room is filled with nothing but the sound of my beating heart as he stares back at me, saying nothing. Offering me nothing.

  I gesture sharply at him, pointing my finger at my chest. “I deserve to know.”

  Joseph shakes his head. “You don’t need to know anything.” His words are hard, but his eyes are soft. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “Keeping me in the dark is not keeping me safe,” I say with every ounce of sincerity I have.

  When that doesn’t get through to him, I add, “And I absolutely hate it here.” I sound like a petulant child and I hate it. But I really can’t stand it here. I’d almost rather be in my fucking cage. And that’s saying something.

  His eyes study my face for a moment, and a twinge of hope goes through me. Maybe he’ll change his mind. But when he speaks, his voice is firm. “It’s the best place for you right now.”

  I start to argue with him when the door swings open and in walks a man I met when Joseph brought me in here. Zander.

  I turn in his direction, taking in his appearance. With chiseled features, dark blonde hair, he’s a handsome man, dressed in a black suit with a white dress shirt. Tall and noble-looking, but with eyes like his, he looks like he holds just as many secrets as Joseph does. It makes me wonder if this club is filled with men like them.

  I guess it would make sense. Men like these don’t become rich and powerful without accumulating secrets.

  Joseph turns away from me to meet Zander’s gaze. “What did you find out?” he asks him.

  Zander glances at me for a moment, as if debating if he should talk in front of me. But Joseph gives him a slight nod to go ahead. The pain in my chest loosens from his gesture. At least he trusts me with somethings.

  “I know for a fact it was your brother,” Zander says. Like Joseph, his voice deep and rich, and it has a kind of calming quality to it. He stares at Joseph as if waiting for a violent reaction. “He set you up.”

  Joseph’s quiet for a moment, and I can only wonder what he’s feeling right now. His own brother tried to have him killed? It’s not hard for me to comprehend after reading his journal. I know it still hurts him though. It makes my heart ache for him. I couldn’t begin to comprehend being in such a position.

  There’s a coldness in Joseph’s eyes that scares me when he answers, “I already know that.” It reminds me of death.

  “Good, then you’ll be taking care of that matter soon?” Zander asks, taking a seat in the corner of the room as if we were talking about a sale on dry cleaning.

  My heart skips a beat as I realize what this is about.

  I don’t even have to hear him say it. I know he’s going to kill his own brother. His own flesh and blood. Joseph’s answer is short, “yes.”

  “When you go,” Zander says, crossing his left ankle over his right knee, “check your father’s closet.” Zander’s words are firm as he stares at Joseph with a hard look.

  I stand there numb, not believing the casual tone of this conversation.

  God, I feel sick. I walk slowly behind Joseph to the far end of the room, wishing I could disappear.

  “I will,” Joseph replies firmly.

  Both men stare at each other for a moment, and then Zander gives Joseph a slight nod before leaving without another word.

  As soon as the door click shuts, I feel Joseph’s eyes on me, waiting for my reaction.

  “Please don’t go,” I plead, my voice nearly a croak, “you don’t have to do this.” My eyes are wide and begging for him to have mercy on me. I can’t let him go. I don’t know if he’ll come back.

  Joseph takes me in his arms, but he doesn’t answer me. He holds on to me as I feel every last bit of hope slipping away. My nails dig into his shirt. “Please,” I whisper. But there is no softening in his position. He’s going whether I like it or not.

  “I’ll have tracking on my phone so you will be able to see where I am,” Joseph says, his voice soft, nearly sympathetic.

  “I don’t want to have to track you,” I cry beneath my breath. “Just don’t go! Please. Think about what you’re about to do.”

  Joseph’s voice remains firm. “I have. And that’s why I have to do this.” Kill them. The words seem to leap into my mind.

  I sag against his firm body, tears burning my eyes. I don’t want him to leave. I saw him shot, wounded and about to die. Now he’s stepping in the line of danger again.

  And it scares me like fuck that he might not come back. I cling onto him harder, feeling desperate and vulnerable and foolish, but I want him to stay. I want him to live. I can’t save him if he leaves me.

  “Please,” I whisper against his hard chest as he tries hopelessly to soothe me.. “I’m begging you.”

  Joseph’s silent as he holds me.

  “I have to go,” Joseph tells me after a while, pulling back from me. Oh my God. It hurts like hell.

  I try to cling to him, but he pries my fingers away from him, pushing me back against Madam Lynn’s desk. I instantly feel cold. Abandoned.

  “Let me go, Lilly,” he says, his voice cold. God, he’s breaking my heart. He’s ripping it apart.

  I shake my head, my throat throbbing from the aching pain. “No, you don’t have to go.”

  “I’m leaving.” His words are so cold now that I’m sure this time he means it. I take a step back, wrapping my arms around myself and trying to hold myself together.

  He gives me a kiss on the cheek that makes me close my eyes, the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. “I gave myself to you,” I speak just above a murmur.

  He pauses at the door, his hand on the doorknob, and turns to look at me. My skin pricks under his gaze as the tears roll down my face.

  I try to say more. I try to explain what I’m feeling. But all I can think about is the first night he took me. I brush away the bastard tears.

  Through my hazy vision, I see Joseph staring back at me. He looks like he wants to tell me something. For the first time since he’s walked in the room, I see something in his eyes. That same look I saw when he comforted me over Zach’s death.

  Tell me, I urge him silently.Tell me that you love me.

  I want him to say it. Because I know I love him.

  Say it! My mind screams.

  And it looks like he’s about to do it.

  I part my lips expectantly, ready to say it back.

  But then he turns away and walks out, not saying a word as he shuts the door behind him.

  It’s not till he’s gone that I realize I never told him either. I whisper in the empty room. “I love you Joseph. You better come back to me.”

  Chapter 28

  Joseph

  I stalk through the dark hallways of the home I grew up in. If one could call it home. The memories that haunt my dreams flash before my eyes as my quiet footsteps creek the hardwood floors beneath my boots.

  I expected to be
nervous. I anticipated my heart beating radically with a cold sweat swarming over my body. Instead there’s nothing. I hold the hand gun in my gloved hand, the silencer pointing down to the floor. As I step closer and closer to the room my brother stays in.

  The Levi household is practically a mansion. A lonely one, full of empty rooms. The screams when I grew up used to fill the halls, I’ll never forget that. I know every inch of this place

  I also know the escape route and where it leads. I learned it when I was young, it was something that we all needed to know. My father taught me the layout for my own safety. It’s probably the one good thing he ever did for me. And now I’m using it against him.

  I used the escape route to come into the kitchen, completely undetected. There are no alarms from there up to here, there’s nothing standing in my way of creeping into their bedrooms and killing them in their sleep.

  A small part of me wishes I would only kill my brother. My father never came after me. It’s all my brother.

  At the thought of leaving my father alive, my heart finally races and adrenaline courses through my blood. That’s not something I can do. He will come for me. He may not know it was me, but he would come for me anyway. He would come to force me to take over the business. He’s getting old, and there needs to be a Levi to carry on the name. But when the night is through, there will be none left.

  I’ll make sure of that.

  I adjust my grip as I approach my brother’s door, my heart pounding in my ears. All I need to do is shoot him in his sleep. He’s an easy target, a simple kill. He deserves a much worse death. I’d like to wake him; I’d like to beat him into a bloody pulp with my bare hands.

  Killing him this way isn’t justice, but I can’t afford risks.

  Not when I have Lilly waiting for me.

  I imagined his door will be locked, and testing the doorknob proves that much true. It doesn’t take me long to pick it though. He was in the habit of locking his door when we grew up. He was also in the habit of stealing from me. And of hurting women in the middle of the night. The memories flash before my eyes as the lock clicks, and the doorknob turns.

  The memories make me sick. Not just because of what I’ve witnessed, that because of what I allowed to happen. I didn’t have to, I could have fought. I would have lost, but I could have at least tried.

  I open the door so slowly that it barely makes a sound. But every tiny noise forces my heart to jump in my chest. I know for a fact that he’ll have a gun near him. We all did growing up. That was the only way to ensure our safety. I can’t afford to wake him.

  I can barely breathe as I stalk into his room, placing each step as silently as possible. My eyes had already adjusted to the darkness in the hallway and the faint light from his windows only adds to my ease of seeing in the dark.

  The covers are loose around his hips. His body visible. An easy target. I get closer than I need to, just to get a better look at him as I steal the life from him.

  There’s no bang to my gun. No sound other than the harsh breeze of the bullet whipping through the air. His body jolts once. As the bullet enters his head and then another. And then another. I waste three bullets on him, staring at his dead body without feeling as though it’s real. The last two were unnecessary, only a result of my anger. Each time I pull the trigger, I think of the look on her face as she stared down at the man who tried to kill her. The man she killed. I put the gun to his head, and pull the trigger again.

  Looking down at my brother, even dead, he looks cruel. There was never any hope for him, no saving him.

  My father’s next. It’s the only thought in my mind and the only thing that keeps me from putting a fifth bullet into his skull as I leave my brothers room. My father’s suite is at the other end of the hallway. I don’t hesitate to go to him next. My brothers death doesn’t faze me in the least. If anything, it gives me more strength to put my father into the ground next to him. That’s where they belong.

  My heart stops when I walk into the room, not needing to pick the lock, it opened easily. My feet halting when the floor creaks beneath my weight. I’m unsteady as I count two bodies in the bed. One is my father, the closest to me. His breathing coming in heavy as he faintly snores in his sleep.

  The other body is much smaller. A woman. And as the sound of my weight on the floorboards creaking through the night, she turns in her sleep. My heart beats erotically. My body heating and every tiny hair standing upright. I only planned on two deaths tonight. I don’t want an innocent life caught in the crossfires. There’s no way I can leave without seeing this through though. And leaving no witnesses.

  I take one more step, pointing my gun at my father. I’m a few feet away, but all I need to do is put a bullet in his skull and I can leave. Leaving the woman unharmed. She doesn’t have to die.

  My heart refuses to beat as the one last step I take is enough to wake the woman. She groans, stretching her arms and sitting up in the bed with a sleepy yawn, her eyes closed tight. Fuck! She rubs the sleep from her eyes as I take two steps forward.

  The sound of my jeans scraping against one another filling the room and waking her further. The silencer points directly at my father’s head, I get one bullet off, before the woman screams. It’s all I need though; my father’s head jolts as the bullet leaves a neat hole just to the right of the center of his forehead.

  I can’t think; I can’t breathe. My body heating to an unbearable degree. I don’t know how I can save her. As I try to think, she does something she should know not to do. She turns her back to me, grabbing the gun off the nightstand. She grips it with both hands, turning towards me, ready to shoot me.

  And for a split second I consider letting her.

  What good have I done the world? Killing my father and brother were the last good things I could ever do. The best things I’ve done with my life. I’ve lived with no purpose for years.

  The sound of her pulling the cock back, the cold steel shaking in her trembling hands, loading the barrel of the gun with the bullet she intends to kill me with, triggers the memory of her, Lilly. Of my flower.

  I need to live for her.

  Without another thought, I pull the trigger. The bullet whizzes through the air, hitting her in her throat. She falls off the bed, the gun leaving her hand and falling with a thump onto the padded carpet.

  I’m quick to go to her side, now that she’s unarmed. I kick the gun to the side as both of her hands press against her throat, trying to stop the blood. My initial reaction is to save her. I kneel on the ground; she looks at me with wide eyes filled with fear. I press my palm to the wound in her neck even as she tries to helplessly push me away. The woman has fight, but there’s too much blood. It pains my heart. I didn’t want this.

  “I’m sorry,” I barely get the words out as her hot blood covers both of my gloved hands and soaks into the cream carpet.

  I stare down at the dying woman. Her innocent blood on my hands as I try to stop the wound from gushing blood. The pumps of hot liquid become weaker and weaker as her heart slows, and the life falls from her eyes. One deep breath leaves her, and she’s gone. Another victim. I don’t know who she is, but her death is on my hands.

  The sick fuck that my father is, he had to tie me to a chair before he did it. I struggle against the blinds at my wrists, but it’s useless. My ankles are bound and my thighs are strapped to the chair beneath me. So is my chest. I scream until my throat is raw and hoarse. For the first time in my life, my cheeks are wet with tears.

  He’s punishing me, for not doing his will. For disobeying an order. I was trying to do what was right. I was trying to save the woman he wanted me to torture. And now I have no choice but to watch as he beats my mother in front of me. I look up at my brother pleading with him to help.

  “He’s killing her!” I scream at him. Mother isn’t even crying anymore. At first, she tried not to scream. She didn’t want to see me upset. She told me it was okay. She told me she loved me. Even as my father slapped h
er across the face with the butt of the gun. But as he continued, his brutal hits coming with more force, she couldn’t hold it back any longer. She begged him just as I am now.

  My brother looks back at me with the same look that my father’s always had. Eyes filled with malice. The breath leaves my lungs and my voice is lost as a shrill bang echoes in the small room. I hang my head low.

  I was only 12, and that was the last time anyone called me little sparrow. And the last time anyone told me they loved me.

  I look down at the woman one last time, wiping her blood on the sheets as I stand, towering over her and glancing back at my father. Her eyes are closed and she’s covered in blood. My father’s eyes are opened and cold and that's how they always were, staring at nothing. Beneath him blood pools into the mattress. The sheet soaks up the dark red liquid.

  She may have died because I came tonight. To finish this.

  I almost leave without heeding Zander’s words. That I need to check the closet. My eyes dart to the double doors, and I take cautious steps to see what lies behind them. My body heats, knowing I’m trusting him. A man I don’t know.

  The door squeaked open slowly, the only sound in the room other than my own shallow breathing. The blood rushes in my ears drowning out all other sounds as I stare at the monitors and video recordings of every inch of this house. Some areas I don’t recognize. The screens flicker and move to rooms I’ve never seen before. It’s surveillance, of this house and of somewhere else.

  I watch them for a moment, each second passing, my body chills and my heart pounds. I remove the tapes, one by one. There are eight of them and I stop the recordings before leaving. Had Zander not told me, there’s no doubt in my mind I would’ve gone away for murder this time. The hard evidence is undeniable.

  I walk to the door stepping over the poor woman’s dead body and turning my back to my father.

  It’s over now.

  And not another body will be put in the ground because of that man. I close the door behind me and leave the way I came.