Ruthless King (New Orleans Malones #4)

Chapter 44

44

“ I really think I should come,” she said as she stood at the base of the staircase while Regent got ready to leave.

He turned to face her. “No.”

This had been an ongoing argument since last night. One that she wasn’t winning, much to her consternation.

“But you said you’d be safe. That you would be sitting in a car a block away with Victor.”

“ I will be safe. Not you.”

“How will it be any different for me?” she asked with exasperation, putting her hands on her hips.

This last week in his house had been almost idyllic. Aside from being ill and having an overprotective criminal lord forcing her to rest every two seconds. Once he got over that . . . well, let’s just say the swimming pool interlude the other night had just been the tip of the iceberg.

Victor walked in from outside, staring at them both.

She saw his lips twitched. “Everything all right?”

“Yes,” Regent replied.

“No!” she cried, stomping her foot.

Immediately, she felt like an idiot. Her cheeks grew red as she gaped at the two men.

Wow, way to act all sophisticated. To show Regent that you can fit into his world.

Acting like a two-year-old is not attractive.

“Sorry,” she whispered, backing away.

Tears filled her eyes. This was awful.

“Let me guess,” Victor said. “Jilly wants to come and you won’t let her because it’s too dangerous.”

“Exactly,” Regent muttered, but without taking his eyes from her. “Jilly, are you all right?”

Nope. Not even slightly.

“Of course she isn’t. Some asshole is blackmailing her. Another asshole left her in mountains of debt. And you’re being an overprotective caveman.”

Regent sent a glare to Victor. “Like you would bring Gracen.”

Victor scowled. “Hmm. Jilly, you need to stay home.”

She nodded with a sigh. What could she really do anyway?

“Victor, wait in the car.”

Wow. That was kind of rude. Regent walked toward her as Victor turned and left.

“That wasn’t very nice. You should have said please,” she scolded.

Regent paused. “What?”

“You should have said please when you asked him to sit in the car.”

“Baby, I didn’t ask him. And Victor works for me.”

“But he’s your brother first. Right?”

“Of course,” he said promptly. “But he is used to doing things this way.”

Did that mean they couldn’t change?

What are you doing, Jilly? You’re the one who needs to change. Not Regent. This is his world now.

“I’m sorry I acted like a toddler.”

He cupped her cheeks. “It was a bit cute.”

It was?

He ran a finger down her nose. “I’m sorry I can’t bring you. But I cannot have you that close to danger. It would be a distraction.”

Jilly nodded. “I know. I understand. It’s just hard to wait at home.”

He fingered the top of her dress. “This is new.”

She’d managed to get a couple of items sent overnight. Today she thought she’d try to dress classier.

So she was wearing a black, fitted dress with a beige band around the waist. It was expensive and made from gorgeous fabric. It reached just below her knees and had a sweetheart neckline.

But she wasn’t sure this dress was her.

However, if Regent liked it . . .

“Do you like it?” she whispered.

“Baby, you’d look beautiful in whatever you wore.”

Jeez. That was smooth.

Hopefully, the other clothes she’d ordered would feel more like her. She’d also bought a few sexy negligees.

Those were the things she was most excited about. And she hoped Regent liked them too.

“It’s just hard to wait here, worrying,” she whispered.

“How about if I call you from the car and keep you on speaker phone?”

“You’d do that?”

“I need you to be safe for my peace of mind. I couldn’t survive anything happening to you. However, I don’t like the idea of you worrying the whole time.”

“That works for me. Thank you.” She leaned up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

His eyebrows rose. “Is that the way you kiss me?”

Then his arms were around her and he was kissing her like he wanted to consume her. Which left her trembling with need as he left. It took her a long while to walk into the solarium where her phone was. Sitting, she waited for his call.

Nerves filled her as she stared at the time for what felt like the hundredth time.

The pick-up should have happened by now.

Linny, pretending to be her, had dropped the bag of money off. When Regent told her about the plan, she’d worried for Linny’s safety. He’d ended up calling the other woman so she could reassure Jilly herself.

She sounded like a character and as though she could protect herself.

Getting up, Jilly paced up and down.

She’d borrowed another book from the library here. She was starting to think that perhaps she shouldn’t be plotting out a romance book. Maybe she should be writing something similar to this book.

Urgh, who was she kidding? She couldn’t even stand to read this book!

“There’s movement,” Victor said. “Slim-built, short person heading to the garbage bin. They have a hoodie on. Hard to make out their features. They’ve got the bag.”

“Basilien, Henri, follow discreetly,” Regent barked. She guessed he had another way to speak to his men since he was still on the phone with her. “Thea, did you get any good images?”

Thea was there?

She couldn’t hear Thea’s reply.

“Good. Thanks. Jardin, get Thea home and send those images to me,” Regent said. “Basilien, as soon as you can, quietly grab the blackmailer.”

There was silence.

“Regent?” she asked. “I didn’t know Thea would be there. What’s happening? Who was it in the photos?”

Regent sighed. “Thea was far away, in a secure location with Jardin. She can take photos from a long distance. But, baby, it doesn’t look like our blackmailer is a man.”

A woman? Well, she guessed that women could be as awful as men.

“They’ve got her!” Victor said. “Basilien has her subdued and in a car.”

“Jilly, I’ve got to go and deal with this now.”

“But I . . . I need to know who it was and why.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I know. Try and do something to distract yourself.”

“All right, I love you,” she whispered.

“I know.”

It didn’t matter that he didn’t say it back.

Everything was fine.

Everything would be all right.

“I know?” Victor gaped at him.

Regent’s guts were already in a knot and he didn’t need Victor staring at him like he was an idiot.

“She said I love you, and you said?—”

“I know what I said,” he snapped. “Jilly knows how I feel about her.”

“Does she? I’m surprised you’d move a woman in with you that you didn’t love.”

“Who said I don’t love her?”

“Then you need to tell her.”

“I show her.”

“Women need the words,” Victor told him.

Since when had he become an expert on women?

Regent turned away from him, but that knot in his stomach grew.

He cared about Jilly. He didn’t want to live without her. Would kill anyone who touched her . . .

He loved Jilly.

And that terrified him.

Regent still felt off as he walked into what was known as the torture chamber.

It was a storm shelter in an old building that he owned. Not that anyone would be able to figure out he was the owner. That was well buried.

“Have we got an ID?” he snapped at Basilien as he stared at the woman swinging in the air, her hands secured above her head with a rope that was attached to the ceiling.

She was slight with dark hair.

“She lives across the street from Jilly,” Jose said. “I saw her the night the older lady gave me that bag of stuff for Jilly.”

Right.

“Sasha Andrews,” Victor said, looking at his phone. “Jardin sent me information on her when you wanted Jilly’s friends vetted. Nothing interesting came back. Comes from a small town in Indiana. Single mom raised her. Sends money back to her. Been stripping at Sexy Sins for nearly two years. Pretty clean.”

“So either no one has ever caught her or something changed. What changed, Sasha? Why did you betray Jilly? She thought you were a friend.”

“Fuck you!” Sasha spat at him. “Let me go! You can’t do this!”

“You were blackmailing Jilly. You’ve known her secret since the beginning. You had easy access to her. What I can’t understand is why now? Why not months ago?”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

“Why did you do it, Sasha?”

Still nothing.

Hmm. Give her a few hours and she’d break. His men wouldn’t even need to touch her.

“Basilien?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get her to talk.” Basilien cracked his knuckles and stepped forward. “And Linny will gladly rough her up a bit.”

Regent nodded as though contemplating that.

Sasha let out a sob. Yeah, she’d break soon.

“Tell Jardin to dig deeper. Get Angel to help him. I want everything on her and something we can use against her.”

Victor nodded. “I’ll stay here. You’re going to Jilly?”

Yeah. And he wasn’t looking forward to it.

Jilly shook her head. She couldn’t believe this.

“There has to be some mistake.”

Regent had come home ten minutes ago to tell her what they’d found. She was sitting in the solarium, her laptop open in front of her, sticky notes everywhere, along with a really dull book from the library that she’d been attempting to read.

Yet she could see none of it.

All she heard were his words.

Sasha was the blackmailer.

Sasha.

Sasha, who’d helped her become a stripper in the first place. It had been her plan.

“But she was my friend.”

“I know, baby. Come here.” He sat beside her and drew her onto his lap so she faced him.

God, she felt so stupid. “There has to be some explanation. Why would she do this? She’s the one who got me the job. Who helped me with my routines. She came up with the whole plan. And she knows why I’m doing it. I have no money! I was living on ramen noodles. Why . . . why . . .”

His face was dark and cold. “I don’t know. But I will make her pay.”

“Was it something I did?” she asked.

Regent grasped hold of her chin. “No, baby. It wasn’t you. It was all her.”

“But why?”

He drew her against him as she shuddered. She thought she would cry, but she couldn’t. Her mind was racing with possibilities.

One thing kept coming back to her.

Pulling back, she stared at him. “I want to see her.”

He shook his head. “Not happening.”

“Please. I have to, Regent. I think . . . I think I can get her to talk. Please.”

“No. It’s dangerous.”

“You’ll keep me safe. I know you will.”

He still shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you upset!”

Strangely, his anger didn’t upset her. She just breathed happily. “I’m already upset. And I don’t think I will feel better without closure. Please let me talk to her.”

He glanced away, but at least he was thinking about it.

He ran a hand over his head and picked up his phone, tapping on it. Finally, he put it down. “Fine.”

“I can go?” she asked in shock.

“Yes, but you will do everything I say. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” she whispered. She was dealing with Regent the Ruthless King right now.

“You will not allow her to upset you.”

“I won’t.” That was going to be harder to do.

“And I am going to spank you every night for a week for this.”

She squirmed. He’d given her the remainder of her spankings last night after she couldn’t settle into sleep. Despite him also giving her three orgasms and fucking her while she was bent over the bed.

Could she take a spanking every night?

Um, yeah.

“Yes, Sir.”

Nerves filled her as they walked into a warehouse located in a quiet industrial area of town.

The warehouse wasn’t rundown or anything. It was surprisingly clean and filled with crates.

She thought about asking what he used it for but decided there were some questions that you shouldn’t ask.

And she didn’t want to push her luck. She was in enough trouble.

He’d tipped her over his knee to give her a spanking as she’d been getting changed into black pants and an oversized black shirt.

Black seemed appropriate.

Jilly followed Regent around some crates and nearly gasped as she took in Sasha. The woman was tied to a chair. Her mouth was gagged and her hair was a mess. She was dressed all in black as well and there were mascara marks on her cheeks.

Had she been crying?

Jilly felt bad. She wanted to rush to her friend and help her.

Maybe coming here hadn’t been a good idea.

Regent stopped several feet away and held out his arm, preventing Jilly from going any farther.

“Sure about this, boss?”

She glanced over to see a man with blond hair step forward. He was well-built with sleeves of tattoos on his arms.

Attractive but terrifying.

Movement at her other side made her jump, but it was just Victor. He stared down at her sternly.

Right. No one wanted her here.

Cool. Cool.

Everything is fine.

Everything is good.

“Yes. Remove the gag.”

Sasha was glaring at her. What right did she have to be so angry when it was Jilly that she’d wronged?

“What are you doing here? Come to gloat?” Sasha asked.

“I will warn you. If you speak badly to Jilly or upset her, you will die,” Regent told her coldly.

Sasha stared at him wide-eyed. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that you were involved with criminals?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were going to betray me?” Jilly asked. “How could you do this to me, Sasha? Why would you do it? I thought we were friends.”

Sasha sneered. “You’re pathetic, Jilly. Do you know that? So self-sacrificing. You let people walk all over you, so why shouldn’t I get my cut? I made you into what you are. Into Nyx. Everyone should have laughed at you! Instead, you make more in tips than I do! And I let men paw me! I do disgusting things to get them to give me money and all you do is dance and show your unimpressive boobs.”

“There will be no more warnings,” Regent told her.

Sasha gulped. “Why shouldn’t I get my share of your money? Do you know what Santé did when I told him that I wanted to change my routine so it was more like yours? He laughed. Said I didn’t have the class to pull it off and to stay in my lane.”

“You did this because you thought I was more successful than you?”

“I made you! That money is mine too!” Sasha cried.

“I don’t have any money! I barely had enough food to eat. Where did you think I would find the money?”

“Not my problem. Santé would have lent it to you. Or Mrs. Y. Bitch has plenty of money, you know.”

She was delusional.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“She’s got you all fooled. But she’s rich. She just took me in because my mom is her niece and she had to. Mom told me to search for money, said the old lady would keep it hidden in the house. But I never found it. So I went looking for money somewhere else.”

“She didn’t know what you were doing?” Jilly whispered.

“Of course not. She thinks the sun rises out of your ass. But I needed that money!”

“Why?”

“My mom got herself into lots of debt. She’s living in a trailer. You have that big house. Why the fuck didn’t you just sell it? Stupid, selfish cow. I was only asking for ten thousand. It’s not too much to ask for putting up with your stupid ass.”

“That’s it. We’re done.” Regent nodded to Basilien, then he wrapped an arm around Jilly.

“No, wait. Please,” Jilly said. While Sasha obviously hated her, Jilly couldn’t stand to see her die. “Don’t kill her. Please.”

Regent stared down at her, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “She has to be punished, and she was warned.”

She heard Sasha sob.

“Please. I can’t live with her blood on my hands.”

“It will be on my hands.”

Jilly shook her head. “Please, Regent. For me.”

He was silent for a long time, thinking. Then a wicked look filled his face. “Fine. She can live. But she might wish we had killed her by the time I’m through with her.”

He swept her up in his arms and carried her to the car. Jilly should probably protest that she could walk.

But her legs weren’t feeling all that steady and right now, she needed him to touch her, surrounding her safety.

He was her anchor in a world gone crazy.