Page 1 of Auctioned Surrender

Chapter 1

Damian

I walk out of the upscale high-rise which houses one of the most exclusive restaurants in Chicago and slide into the back seat of the sleek black limo. It’s one of the many perks for being top security to the billionaires we protect.

Evers, one of the team drivers, knows exactly where I’m going without me saying a word. Home, alone, just like every night; unless, of course, the mood strikes to let off a little steam at the local BDSM club, but that’s the last thing on my mind tonight.

Evers is winding his way slowly through the brightly lit streets and congestion of Chicago when my cell dings with an incoming message. The beautiful young woman who I’ve been looking for, have had numerous members of our intel team working round the clock to find, is staring at me through the screen with a wide set of brilliantly colored green eyes.

Bryanna Foster, Jenny Torzial’s niece. The one who’s been an enigma, the one I’ve been assigned to find by Brian Carrington, one of the richest men in the world and Jenny’s extremely protective boyfriend. The niece that is now sitting on the lap of a man old enough to be her goddamn father, sliding around hisgroin as he places money in her skimpy little showgirl top, which looks like any minute it’s going to slip right the fuck off.

After the picture arrives, the security team sends an address. Un-fucking-believable! She’s still in the city, but the address of the bar this picture was taken from is at least an hour or so away with traffic. I give Evers the location, and he quickly flips directions at the next intersection, and we begin making our way to the other side of Chicago.

When Bryanna first went missing, almost three weeks ago to the day, Brian asked me to find her, and every single lead we got came up empty. Jenny described her niece as smart, shy, and a hard worker. She was in her last year of college, living in Jenny’s rental house close to the university campus, when she disappeared.

I was beginning to think we were never going to find her, and here she is, right under our damn noses. I shake my head, glancing at the picture on my phone. She definitely doesn’t look like the innocent I thought she was; that’s for goddamn sure. I’m relieved we found her, but a part of me is irritated that I spent so much emotional energy worrying about her when she doesn’t look like she has a fucking care in the world.

Intel sends message after message, and ten minutes later I have an entire photo album filled with images of this little seductress. The one I’m apparently supposed to save from herself. In one of the next pictures, Bryanna is sitting on a different man’s lap. I let my gaze travel down the length of her unclothed spine, taking in the lacy material of her thong-decorated ass cheeks, unable to help admiring her sleek fitness and form.

I haven’t been able to get this woman off my mind for weeks, and the next picture they send leaves me absolutely riveted. Bryanna’s dark brown shoulder-length hair is wispy and swirls around her. Her long bangs frame her heart-shaped face,showing off those incredibly large doll-like green eyes, the very ones that seem to burn right through the camera and straight into my own, making it almost impossible to look away.

When we reach the club, I tell Evers to wait for me in the car. I should have followed protocol and called for back-up, but I don’t want anyone else to see Jenny’s half-naked niece in this sordid little club. I’m also fairly certain that Brian’s not going to want any of this leaking to the public.

I walk up to the small building and stop at the door to pay, waiting for the man to ask me for a form of identification, but that never comes. Clearly it doesn’t matter how old you are as long as you pay the fucking cover. I peel off a ten, hand it to the burly dude at the door, and he marks my hand with some cheap-ass stamp, allowing me to enter the seedy little joint.

I scan the relatively small and dimly lit bar for Bryanna. A tall blonde is on a semi-circular stage, dressed only in a lacy white g-string, and the men around the bar are hooting and hollering, encouraging her to take it all off, but the woman I’m looking for is absolutely nowhere to be seen.

I slowly head for the back, checking nonchalantly to make sure I’m not being observed, before slipping through the door, down a small hallway, and toward the sound of women’s laughter. I turn the corner, and the door’s wide open. It’s immediately clear I’ve unintentionally entered the establishment’s high-end dressing room, with one mirror, a little sink, a few metal lockers hung on the dirty yellowing walls, and a line of ladies in various states of dress.

A tall brunette dressed in a pair of red lace panties with matching pasties plastered to her breasts and red spike heels bats her stark-black fake eyelashes at me as I survey the room. “Well, well, handsome. Did you come for a private show?”

“I’m looking for a friend.”

“You need to get out of here before someone comes back here and finds you.”

“I’m not leaving without the lady,” I say, walking toward the half-naked broad. As I get closer and the light shines down on her face, it would take a blind man not to notice the fading bruises just underneath her eye and the caked-on makeup she wears, intending to cover it up.

She physically cringes as I get close, so I step back, not wanting to frighten her further. “I’m not here to cause trouble, just looking for the girl.”

“Mister, you better leave now, or all hell’s going to break loose for you and for us. Get the fuck out! Our lives are tough enough,” the brunette says, and all the ladies nod in agreement.

I’m empathetic to their situation, but I came for a reason, and I haven’t found her yet. I approach the ladies with gentle ease, slowly showing them the picture on my phone. “Anyone know her? If so, I’ll make it worth your while.”

“How much you talking, papi?” a beautiful woman with dark, wavy, lush hair, wearing only a pair of red spike high heels and the same color smile asks.

I don’t get a chance to tell her before the blonde next to her elbows the woman in the arm. “You take that money, and we’re all going to pay for it, Layla.” The blonde woman glares at me through bloodshot eyes. “Get the fuck out!” she says.

I pull out a roll of bills and start counting them off—one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred. When I reach five, the one they call Layla steps forward. “They’re right. Get out! We can’t have any trouble!” she says, glancing fleetingly upward.

I follow her gaze, but just briefly. The sons of bitches have a camera on the girls, and I can’t tell if Layla is looking to them for help or trying to warn me that they exist. “I’ll go. I just thought someone might have seen her. Clearly I’ve come to thewrong place,” I say, deciding to slip out before someone comes to physically remove me.

I steal down the hall and have just ducked behind a closed door midway when a barrage of boots passes me, making their way toward the dressing room.

This is turning out to be more than a crappy night. I slip back down another hall and make my way out the side door of the establishment, walking a good half mile before sending a text to Evers with my location and instructions to pick me up. He pulls into a little area partly secluded by hedges, and I jump into the back seat after checking to make sure there are no signs of anyone trailing me.

“Let me see if I can get another car and do a little recon,” I say to Evers, who just nods. I text Keith, one of our security team who is always in the city when not helping to protect Jenny and Brian, to see if he can get a Q car sent to our destination as quick as possible.

He responds, letting us know he has a friend a few blocks away with an average looking car that was just completely overhauled and modified with an amazing engine and lots of power under the hood.

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