Collar (Changing Roles Book 3)

by Ellie Masters

  I didn’t understand why blood clotted my eyes. The sweat I pieced together. It was sweltering inside the warehouse. Perspiration dripped from my pores, collected under my breasts, trickled down my temples, and stung my eyes. A steady stream ran down my back.

  Blinking, I attempted to clear my vision, but blood and sweat created a blurry veil. The men stood a little ways off, joking and slapping one another on the back, acting as if they were waiting for something to begin. Or someone else to arrive. Their eager eyes turned to me with my groan.

  “Ah, awake, and right on time. Father should be here any minute.”

  The calm, dispassionate voice, which sounded so much like Jake’s but was now tempered in timbre by evil, made violent shudders wrack my body. He chuckled with anticipation.

  “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”

  Desperate to clear my cloudy vision, I blinked furiously until Josh’s face became clear. “Josh Davenport, I’m going to cut off your balls and feed them to you.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Oh my. I’d like to see you try.” He gestured to my bound state. “Tell me, have you missed me?”

  “Missed you?” Bile came to the back of my throat. That night with the belt hadn’t been Jake at all.

  I gagged at the memory of me on my knees. I hadn’t been raped in the traditional sense, but the vileness of what he had done washed through me, making my stomach churn with the violation.

  He leaned in, gripping my cheeks and puckering my lips. Pressing his mouth to mine, he gave me a long, hard kiss.

  His tongue demanded entrance, but I clamped my jaw shut and jerked my head to break the kiss.

  “Tsk, tsk. That’s not allowed.” His grip on my jaw intensified, and he dug his hands into my hair, controlling my head. With another press of his lips, I endured a slobbery kiss. His tongue laved my lips but couldn’t breach the barrier of my teeth.

  When he broke away, he glared down at me. “I’ve missed you. We spent such a wonderful night together.” Cruel eyes regarded me. “You were so pretty, begging on your knees.” His gaze latched on to mine, then dropped to my lips.

  I didn’t want to think about that night. I had had my suspicions earlier, at the Edge, but now the pieces were falling into place, jarring with each revelation. Jake’s confusion about the markings on my ass, his comments concerning the use of a belt. Even my struggles to process the pain made sense now. I hadn’t known, but my body did. Josh had violated me in the worst possible way.

  He smiled and pinched my nipple, twisting it hard.

  I sucked in the pain through gritted teeth. I dug deep to uncover the training beat into me by my past sadistic Master. I would not give Josh the satisfaction of my screams. A whisper of wind tickled my skin and danced across my nipples.

  “What are you waiting for?” The man responsible for those girls’ deaths stood before me. “If you’re going to kill me, then do it.” Why wasn’t I dead yet?

  “Oh, you’ll see. He comes even now.” The croak in his voice filled me with unease, exactly what he wanted me to feel. “We’re going to have a party.”

  I needed to find an edge, some angle I could use to turn the tide of power between us, but I was too afraid to think constructively. Despite the heat and my sweat, that clammy feeling of impending shock had begun to settle over me, chilling me and making me shudder. My heart hammered in my chest, and my words were not spoken with the force of my will, but rather with the desperate plea of a victim.

  A victim. I had sworn to never be a victim again.

  Twisting my wrists, I tested the integrity of my bonds. My feet were spread, separated by a bar. For now my footing was secure, but I was no fool. With a swift kick, he could have me swinging, my body weight supported by my arms alone. Already my arm sockets burned.

  Josh moved behind me, his hand caressing my ass. “Are my marks still upon you?”

  The bruising from his belt had faded, just like the marks Jake had placed. The only thing I had to remember Jake by was the small healing cut from his whip.

  “Don’t worry, Mistress Kate. I will have ample opportunity to inflict more.”

  I swallowed the urge to scream and tell him to stop. He wanted to goad me, but I refused to show my fear. Instead, I let my head fall forward, allowing my long hair to cover my face, providing a veil to hide behind while I got my shit together.

  “Why?” I whispered the word. “Why are you doing this?”

  Another chuckle. “Because my brothers have a debt to pay.”

  His brothers? Not just Jake, then, but Kevin too?

  A horn blared outside, and the men standing idly by ogling me strode to the large doors, unlocked them, and drew them open. A white van pulled in, its engine chugging in the warm spring evening air.

  “Ah. Our final guest has arrived.”

  Chapter Ten

  Jake

  A fire burned in my gut, and bile filled the back of my throat. This was bad, very bad. I set the playback timer back half an hour. My heart thumped with the pressing need to go after Kate, but I needed to know what happened to Lily, and that sinking feeling had me believing I already knew. I slammed my fist into the table, seething with fury and the repressed need to do something.

  Anything.

  But where to go? Caged by a lack of knowledge, I struggled for the next step. Racing through the streets in my Mercedes would accomplish nothing. Josh could have taken her anywhere.

  The drive with Kate in that van came to mind. I tapped the side of my temple, trying to remember anything that would be useful. We’d followed the sounds on that recording, trying to narrow down a search corridor.

  Shit!

  I needed help.

  Desperate to do something, the best thing I could do was remain here, gather resources, and track her down. A reckless move on my part could spell disaster for Kate and for Lily. I forced myself to do nothing and slow down my thinking to a methodical pace. I needed to strategize.

  Pete and the police. They were first on my list. They had the results from the search Kate and I had done. They were on their way.

  Thomas had resources. Some were legal, others not so much. I needed access to his people.

  What else?

  I bit on my knuckle, trying to think about what I knew of Josh. Where would he take her?

  On the screen before me, the recording showed Lily scooting around to the receptionist’s desk to work on the computer.

  Her head popped up when a man entered, a man with the same height and build as me. My insides churned as I watched the man with dark salted hair move with a lethal prowl. There was no mistaking my father, Jack Davenport. BlackJack had no business walking this earth.

  My chest constricted with the knowledge he still lived. The first question in my mind was why show his face now?

  He stared straight into the nearest hidden video camera and winked.

  I didn’t even want to consider how he knew where our cameras were placed. How long had he been planning these abductions? What was his endgame?

  My gut froze with the answer. Rushing blood pounded past my ears because I knew. The vindictive bastard had come to make me pay.

  “Turn up the sound,” I said to Bryce.

  On screen, Lily glanced up. “Hello.” Her sweet, innocent voice carried through the air. So fragile and unaware. “Can I help you, Sir?”

  Another killer smile flashed from BlackJack. “Yes, darlin’. I’m new in town, and I’m looking for a new home if you know what I mean.” With each word, his long legs strode across the ground, descending upon Lily.

  My mind screamed for her to stand, to flee, but she sat there with her dark, gentle eyes, her easy smile drawing him in.

  “I heard Stripes is a discriminating club for a man with my particular tastes.”

  “Oh yes, Sir.” Her smile lit up the room with its radiance. “I can give you an application form. It explains all the rules. We require two sets of references. If you bring it back tomorrow
, we can arrange an introductory tour.”

  He had reached the desk, but instead of stopping in front of it, he moved around the curve of the counter to stand beside her.

  Her eyes widened at the breach of her personal space, but she seemed to relax when he stopped and hitched his hip on the edge of the desk.

  “I would love that packet.” He leaned back, giving her room. His hand went to an inside pocket of his coat and rested there while she turned to open the file drawer. With her back to him, he pulled out a white cloth. Lunging forward, he pressed it to her face.

  Bryce gasped, making a strangled sound beside me.

  Lily’s struggles lasted mere seconds before she crumpled in his arms. My father retrieved two items from his breast pocket. He placed the Black Lotus matchbook and the note on the counter, then tossed Lily over his shoulder and walked toward the exit. At the door, he paused to stare into the camera and mouthed one word.

  Mine.

  I switched the feed to the outside, to a white, unmarked van. He loaded Lily into the back and drove away. Eyes wild, I scanned for the license, then cursed when muddy plates met my eyes. The letters and numbers were unreadable.

  Ragged breaths sawed in and out of my lungs.

  Father and brother.

  Kate and Lily, both gone.

  Life meant nothing without Kate. I wasn’t ready to lose her before we really found each other. A burning rage tore through me, and I fisted impotent hands.

  He’d taken Lily in broad daylight without a care for being caught. How did he know that no one would be at the club? How long had he been preparing for this? Damn. My father had a compulsion for being thorough.

  I swallowed hard. “I plan to kill that bastard. Him and my brother.”

  Bryce stood beside me, stoic and silent. Neither agreeing nor refuting my plans.

  I pulled out my phone to dial Thomas. With his resources, we could cover more ground. The dead screen of my phone mocked me. “Dammit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  My shoulders slumped, and I gave a frustrated growl, slapping the dead weight on the table. “My fucking phone’s dead.”

  He handed me his. “Use mine.”

  “I can’t. You don’t have my contacts and numbers.” I stared at the ceiling with the enormity of the task ahead of me. How was I to find Kate?

  My phone!

  Lily said Kate had received a text from me. Was it possible my phone had been compromised? I knew nothing about that kind of crap, but Kevin did, or at least our tech team would.

  “I need my contact list.” I pulled Bryce back to the foyer to grab Kevin and plan out our next move.

  Only Kevin wasn’t out front.

  “Where’d he go?” Bryce glanced around the empty room.

  “Probably upstairs.” A desperate urgency built within me, and I had no outlet to let it loose. A dead phone. Kevin missing. I had a million things to do. A vicious instinct to protect Kate propelled me to take action. I didn’t have time to deal with Kevin’s grief.

  And where the fuck was Pete? He should’ve been here by now.

  “Do you know Detective Pete Lawry?” Pete had been showing up at Stripes to play with Mandy. I assumed as a fellow male submissive, the two had met.

  Bryce nodded. “We’ve met.”

  “Good. Wait for Pete while I grab Kevin.”

  Bryce nodded, and I headed upstairs. Without bothering to knock, I let myself into Kevin’s suite. Down the hallway, light spilled out from the open doorway leading into Lily’s room.

  “Kevin, you in there?”

  His gruff voice called out, breaking on each word. “I couldn’t sit in that room, knowing he took her.” Kevin leaned over Lily’s bed, where an explosion of fashion magazines threatened to spill over and cascade to the floor. There was barely a clear space to step.

  “Look, my phone is dead. Pete is on his way. We need to call Thomas. And I think Josh hacked my phone. We need to call everyone in.”

  “Everyone?” Kevin fished out his phone and tossed it to me.

  I snatched the phone out of the air. “Well, at least the tech guys.” From listening to Kate these past few days, I knew we could track the van. I had no idea how to access the grid of traffic cameras girding the city, but our technical crew should be able to help.

  My heart rate slowed a notch. What would Kate do? I tried to think like her, but all I could see was her stretched out before me at Aunt Mel’s Diner. The first time we’d made love.

  I smacked my palm against my forehead. Our travels in the back of that damn van had petered out a few miles from the diner. I needed to tell Pete.

  Hitching my hip against Lily’s makeup table, I scrolled through Kevin’s contacts, found Thomas’s number, and dialed. Thomas didn’t answer until the fifth ring, but when he did, I told him everything in one mad rush.

  “Hey, slow down there,” he said in a calming tone. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

  I paced the length of Lily’s small room, biting out each of my words while Kevin listened, his face hollowed-out by grief. He picked up the mess of bridal magazines and sorted them into neat stacks. His eyes cut to mine when I described the security footage of BlackJack taking Lily, but otherwise he remained silent in his stoicism.

  A box lay on the bed, its contents strewn over the frilly comforter. Kevin reached for it but paused halfway to pick up a shiny slave collar instead.

  My recitation of the events ended, and silence hung over the phone while Thomas processed my words. Kevin traced the metal band of the collar, his brows pinching together. He grabbed the box and reverently placed the collar inside.

  “Shit,” said Thomas. “I have no words. Hang on. When did you get out? Oh, never mind! I’m putting on clothes.”

  Kevin tilted his head and sighed. “Lily bought this collar, trying to entice me to put it on her.” A soft chuckle escaped his lips. “She got into so much trouble that day.” He made another stack of magazines. “You wouldn’t believe what she got next. I paddled her ass so hard she couldn’t sit for two days.” He dug through the box, searching.

  Thomas’s growly voice returned, and I turned my attention to him. “Okay, I’m back. I moved to my office downstairs. I’m calling people in. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “I don’t even know where to start looking, but I think it might be somewhere near a diner we used to hang out at.” I explained to him about following the road sounds in the van. “Shit, Thomas. My father has Kate and Lily.”

  “You said he left in a van?”

  “Yeah, but the plates were covered in mud. We didn’t get the license number to trace it. I was hoping to follow the traffic cams.”

  “Great idea.” The steady assurance carried in his tone settled my nerves. “I’m sure one of my people can get into the system.”

  We needed a hacker. Thomas and his crew were a couple of hours away. “Shit, Kate’s assistant is supposed to be good at that kind of crap.”

  “We need someone with real skills, not some office wannabe.”

  “You don’t know Mitzy.”

  I prayed Mitzy was at Kate’s office, as I had no other way of getting a hold of the young woman. I remembered how much faith Kate put into Mitzy’s abilities with infiltrating computer systems.

  “And Kate’s old partner is on his way over.” I spoke as much to Thomas as I did to Kevin, filling them both in at the same time. “He’s a cop. The police will give us all the access we need.”

  “I’m sure they will,” said Thomas with a sigh, “right after it goes through proper channels and gets approved. I don’t mind having them help, but if you have someone and I have someone, and we’re all working on the problem, that’s better than relying on the police and their red tape.”

  I had to agree with his logic. “Great. What else?” What more did Thomas have to offer? That’s what I wanted to know.

  “I don’t see it,” said Kevin. His search had now extended to the table beside the bed. A
quizzical expression filled his face. “Not like her not to have it all in one place. It’s all supposed to be in the box.”

  Thomas continued talking, brainstorming ideas.

  My fingers brushed one of Kevin’s money clips. Elegant scrollwork decorated the platinum surface. A kneeling woman had been etched into the metal. An emerald was embedded in the top.

  “Heads-up.” I tossed it to him. A green LED blinked on the edge of the clip. He snagged the clip out of the air. Thomas pulled me back into our conversation.

  “I’m already on my way. Michael is staying here. He’s got a list of who to call.”

  He paused, and his deep indrawn breath reached through the call. Calm and focused, I believed his next words.

  “We’ll find them, Jake. It’s going to be all right.”

  But we weren’t any closer to finding the girls.

  The constriction in my chest tightened, despite knowing others were there to help. I needed to call Kate’s office and let Mitzy know what was happening.

  Kevin sat on the bed, his stare fixed on the money clip.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go back downstairs.”

  “It can’t be,” he breathed out on a whisper.

  I paused and turned back. “What?”

  He shoved all the magazines back on the floor, his voice rising in rushed fervor. “Help me look.”

  “For what?”

  “The bracelet this belongs too. It matches the clip.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Lifting the money clip high, he rifled through her bed. “It wasn’t in the box. It’s supposed to be in the box.” His eyes lit with excitement. “Dammit, Lily, if you put that thing on, I’m going to smack your ass, then marry you tomorrow.”

  “Kevin!” I shouted to get his attention. “What the fuck?”

  “This is how we’re going to find them.” He tossed me the money clip, elation shining in his eyes. “It’s linked to a tracking bracelet. She’s not allowed to wear it, but I can’t find the bracelet. I bet she was showing it to Kate and put it on.” With a deep breath, he seemed to calm down. “Don’t you see? It’ll lead us right to them.”