Page 88 of Auctioned Surrender

“I was going to disappear after I rescued my sister and take her with me until things cooled off. I was planning to use our passports, leave them behind for someone to find, for identification purposes. You know, when the time was right. Well, I can’t think of a better time than now. I’ll disappear, and no one will ever see or hear from me again. You can tell your boss whatever you want.” I gesture to my sister and take a deep breath because it is harder to say out loud than to think. “We’re the same size.” I shrug, the pieces now quickly falling in place in my mind. “My passport ends up on the ground alongside her body, and I’m officially dead. The girls and my sister go missing. We’ll change the girls’ identities, and my sister is dead. No one will be the wiser.”

“She may have a pretty good plan, Dereck. I mean, you know my boss. He’s gonna want confirmation nothing’s gonna blowback on the family. We got a body that looks like your girl, and the identification says she’s the Layla that took Bernatelli. The loose ends are nice and wrapped up, and then the way I see it, we got no problems,” Tommy says.

Dereck runs his fingers through the short dark hairs on his chin and then gestures to the van. “Bernatelli will search high and low for Luisa, and we’ll let him, but those girls aren’t going to get caught in the crossfire. They wouldn’t have been able totell with certainty who fired what shots from where they were standing. I’ll take personal responsibility for the silence of both them and Layla. They’ll need to disappear, a long way from here and fast. Marenah, is that something you and your team can do?” he says.

“Definitely. We’ll take care of it, Dereck,” Marenah says through the earpiece.

“Layla, is that something you can live with?”

I have nothing in my old life to go back to, and Bernatelli’s men all saw me walk out that door with a gun to their boss's head. I recall the cameras in the club I worked at, and all the bars are doing the same thing. There’s no choice but to trust him. Dereck told me that he would earn it in time and keep showing up, making good on his word and promises while protecting me against even myself when all I’ve ever known is having to do it myself. And I accepted his rules, all but one, and Dereck doesn’t even know the whole of it, and yet he still wants to keep me safe and protected.

I swallow back the emotion of wanting to give over to someone dominant and powerful for so long, having to be strong and to fight for so many reasons with no one that I could fully lean on and trust with every fiber of my being until now. “Yes.”

Dereck’s eyes blink, just once, a small tell of the emotion he tries to hide in his otherwise darkly hooded and controlled eyes. He turns them on Tommy. “Here’s the story. You and Marco took all six of Bernatelli’s goons out and rescued the girls. That will sit well with the Larussios. Layla got caught in the crossfire, and her sister took off in the boat, which exploded. Our team will set up the explosion and leave Layla’s passport next to her sister’s body with a few more personal pieces of Layla’s, which our cleanup crew will attend to tonight. The police will file it as her death, and we’ll have one of our own people manage the newspaper releases to ensure Bernatelli doesn’t suspect a thing.In the meantime, Layla and I will take the girls to Marenah, who will make sure they disappear safely.”

“I don’t have an issue with that,” Tommy says, and Marco nods.

Liam and Trent reappear, assessing the situation and letting us know the men on the boat have been dealt with and that they’re taking them to join Bernatelli.

“Roger that,” Dereck says, as Trent and Liam head out.

“My guys have Bernatelli right now, and he’s unconscious. When he wakes, it would be better for everyone concerned if he woke to your team giving him a message about trafficking in your territory, let him know the girls are gone, and let him think it was your doing. He needs to hear a strong message from you and your partners about the ills of running girls in this city with the full weight of the Larussios behind it, and I’ll take care of Layla.”

Chapter 24

Dereck

Tommy looks from me to Layla, then to Marco, and then back to me and breaks into a wide grin. “That works all away around. I would have hated to take the girl out after she saved my life, but rules are rules,” Tommy says.

“Good, and Tommy, for the record, if you ever even think about disrespecting Layla again after she saved your lives, I will personally make you regret it. Do you understand, my friend?”

He nods. “Yeah, yeah. I got it, and for the record, I am sorry,” Tommy says, looking toward Layla, who is watching the entire exchange with widened, questioning eyes, just letting it all sink in after a night that couldn’t have been easy and isn’t half over.

Layla appears contemplative like she’s thinking of something to say, but I don’t let her answer because it’s not worth her time. “Good. I’ll get our cleanup crew out here, and they’ll handle the details if you and Marco want to get someone over to where we have Bernatelli,” I say, removing Marco’s restraints.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“I’ll have someone get ahold of you with the address. In the meantime, Layla and I will take the girls and get them to safety. Oh and, Tommy. Just in case you get any other ideas, remember, my friend, the earpieces we wear double as recording devices.We find the feature comes in extremely handy from time to time.”

Tommy gestures his hand in a mock truce, wincing with movement as he and Marco head out, shuffling with the handcuffed traitor in tow.

“I’m sending a message to Marenah to find out where she wants us to bring the girls for the night,” I tell Layla, pounding out a message, and she’s quick to reply. “Marenah has a safe house set up for the girls and will have one of our physicians meet us there, along with someone to care for them for the evening; fresh clothes, and everything they’ll need until she gets paperwork and everything they need organized.”

Layla nods, soaking it all in. She must be mentally and physically exhausted, and it will take a while after the trauma of this night before she will even start to heal, but it doesn’t show. She is good at hiding her emotions, and this is one of those times. “Come on, princess.” I take her hand, guiding her toward the van before opening it to find no middle or back seat, and the girls all huddled together on the floor.

Layla and I get in, and she immediately turns to the women, talking with

them, making sure no one has any injuries that need medical attention right away, explaining the plan.

Her voice is calm and soothing, but their eyes look weary and unsure in the rearview. Layla

doesn’t let that deter her any. She continues assuring them that everything will be okay as we

make our way through the city, toward the outskirts, and to one of our safe houses tucked away

in one of the nicer neighborhoods in the area. The garage door is already up and comes down

after I’ve pulled in.

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