King's Capture: A Dark Captive Billionaire Romance (Lyon Dynasty World Book 1) Read online

  King’s Capture

  A Dark Captive Romance

  Vivian Wood

  Contents

  Author’s Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About Vivian Wood

  Author’s Copyright

  Copyright Vivian Wood 2022

  May not be replicated or reproduced in any manner without express and written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to author and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Trigger warning: this book contains graphic depictions of sexual situations, physical abuse, and both non-sexual and sexual violence. It is intended for mature audiences and lovers of dark romance.

  This book is dedicated (as usual) to my beta readers: Patricia, Rachael, Angela, and Jenn. Thanks also to the ever-vigilant Sammye, Bev, and Belinda.

  This book has a number of secret, sneaky details suggested by fellow fans to form a scavenger hunt! You can win cool prizes by playing along.

  Chapter One

  Hades

  In a small, dark room near the Turkmeni shipping docks, I huddle. Dust drifts around the dank space, pervading it as it does every single place I’ve been in this damned country. Eros fidgets and looks toward the back of the room, pulling out his weapon. He’s not especially trigger happy, so I am not particularly concerned. It just tells me that the tension is getting to my brothers too as we stand at the ready.

  There is little to do now but wait to see how everything that I have planned plays out.

  “Hades…” Ares warns, his voice low. “We shouldn’t wait.”

  His Highland Scots accent is as strong as ever. My brothers and I will always sound rough and coarse, as though we were all born in the middle of a Highland winter storm.

  I lift a hand in response, watching the video camera intently. Behind me, my two brothers stand and await my orders. They silently sweat in their black suits, Eros clearly the more nervous of the two.

  It’s unseasonably hot today, even for a Turkmeni summer. I can feel the perspiration dampening my expensive white button-up shirt on my lower back, sticking it to my skin. The need to take off my black Brioni suit jacket and roll up my sleeves presses down on me.

  I dart a glance at Eros. His expression is drawn, his high cheekbones and smattering of freckles across his nose and below his eyes less striking than the grimace on his pouty lips. Eros is the bonniest of the three of us, his dark-haired good looks almost feminine, his striking features carved from the finest marble.

  Ares leans forward, his eyes on the video screen. If Eros is a finely carved marble statue, then the same artist surely formed Ares by bluntly bashing a piece of rock until the edges are roughly hewn into shape. He’s all sharp edges and craggy flesh stretched over bone.

  And me? I’m somewhere in between.

  “Oi.” Eros calls my attention, snapping me out of my thoughts. “There’s movement.”

  My eyes travel back to the screen. I need to focus now. This deal has the potential to make me over a hundred million dollars and it will be my largest international arms deal to date.

  Assuming that this doesn’t suddenly go very, very wrong.

  I tuck one hand under my chin and watch the figures on the dingy little screen in front of me. Two suited men stand on one side, the posture standoffish. Those are the agents I’ve hired to conduct today’s business.

  Mateen Abdul and Soban Sadat make perfect straw men. They have immaculate criminal records. They also have a small shipping business that has existed in Turkmenbashi for several years prior.

  They are currently squaring off with several men in uniform, members of the police force that watch over the shipping docks. I hold my breath as one of the policemen examines a thick sheaf of papers. He frowns, looking up at Mateen. He asks a pointed question, jabbing his finger to indicate the papers.

  I turn my head, looking past my brothers to the local man I’ve hired as an interpreter. He looks to me automatically, even though there has been no explicit mention of which of the brothers Lyon is in power here. I’m the oldest brother. In personality, the natural leader.

  Ares is the bravest brother but also the hastiest, prone to bloodthirst.

  Eros is smarter than the two of us combined. But he also lets his heart and his libido lead in lieu of his head.

  Which leaves only me. I think everything through, seeing everything from multiple angles. I am the most intractable of the three of us, the most decisive.

  The interpreter senses that I am the one he needs to please. He scuttles forward, bowing his head.

  “What did he say?” I demand.

  The man seals his lips and looks at the video camera screen. The policeman asks another question, and I can tell by the anxious look on our interpreter’s face that the answer isn’t good.

  “He is saying that the documents are a mess. That…” He pauses, listening. “He asks for identification from both men. And he just told his men to open the first shipping container.”

  “That should be fine,” Eros says. “We have made plans for our cargo to be searched.”

  Ares shoots him a quelling glance. “We made plans to have it searched by friendly agents that we have paid off. Not by some random police. The cargo is barely hidden by a few inches of rice. It gives way to what’s underneath with a quickness.”

  “There is another contingency if the shipment is discovered.” Eros fidgets. “Right, Hades?”

  My brothers usually like to argue. But just now, it is raising my blood pressure and making it hard for me to listen to what is going on.

  “Haud yer wheesht. Shut the fuck up.”

  Ares chafes at my order, his body tensing. But he and Eros both fall silent at once. This is exactly the reason we have a chain of command. At this exact moment, we are arms dealers first, family second.

  Looking at the screen again, I watch as the policeman dispatches his associates to look in the container. Few things have the power to enthrall me. But we have spent months putting this deal together. Tens of millions of dollars are riding on this moment.

  And the people involved in the deal? They are not the kind of clients that I want to let down. I crack my knuckles as a trickle of sweat slips down the side of my face.

  This must go well.

  A few seconds later, there is a shout that comes from one of the men.

  My
whole body tenses up, my eyes narrow, and my jaw juts out. Here it comes.

  That’s the moment that Mateen straightens his tie pin, a signal. Mateen is saying that he plans to abort.

  “Fuck,” I mutter. I watch, brooding.

  Even though I already know what’s going to happen.

  The main policeman waves the sheaf of paper in Mateen’s face again and shouts something. A lot of it sounds like gibberish to me. I speak a little Farsi, I’m fairly well-versed in a stilted form of Arabic, and I’m almost conversational in Hebrew. But Turkmenistan has its own language, Turkmen. And I’ll be damned if I can make heads or tails of it.

  Out of that, I can make out one two word name. Clear as a bell, I hear it.

  Henri Constantine.

  My heart starts to beat double time.

  “Nae!” I snap, clenching my fists.

  As if I, from the safe distance that I’ve chosen to watch, can affect what is about to happen.

  The interpreter goes white as a sheet.

  “He says that he knows that the men are not legitimate. He says he can tell that their papers are forged. Says that the person they got them from was very sloppy. And now he is going to— “

  He’s cut off by a gunshot. The policeman flails and falls backward. It takes me a second to realize that the shot came from Mateen.

  That’s when shit really starts going sideways. Granted, the second I heard that name — Constantine — I saw this outcome clearly. He’s been trying to fuck me over from the jump.

  Several more shots are fired from the police and my two agents. The straw men are excitedly good shots because they take down the other cops while sustaining no damage themselves.

  “Hades!” Ares grabs my arm, shaking me. “The deal is buggered. We must move. We have to start tying up loose ends.”

  There is a moment in which the tension in the air escalates. The interpreter suddenly turns to flee the room. Eros pulls out his gun, silencer already attached, and shoots him in the back of the head.

  “Jesus,” I curse, looking at the interpreter’s body, and yank my arm from Ares’s grip. “Let me think for a minute.”

  He hisses. “The gunshots will draw more police. If we contain this now— “

  I point at the screen. As Ares turns to watch, the straw men go down in a hail of bullets. The police swarm in and they are alerted by their associates that they should take a look inside the shipping containers.

  I take a breath, the gears in my head clanking to life. “Eros, blow up the cargo. If the client can’t have it, neither can anyone else.”

  Eros fishes his phone from his jacket pocket, still gripping his gun. “On it.”

  I turn to Ares. His look is eager, the look in his pale green eyes hungry.

  “Is that a kill order?”

  I nod. “Kill everyone that isn’t dead from the bombs we have planted in the shipping containers.”

  A second later, there is a blast so loud that it rocks the whole entire building we are in. Everything seems to skitter to the side.

  Silence reigns for a count of three.

  Then car alarms start going off, people start screaming, babies start crying. Walking toward the room’s exit into the street, I can already smell the tinge of acridity of the smoke.

  It’s definitely time to go. I wave to my brothers, motioning them forward. Sirens wail distantly as we step outside. The air is full of sooty smoke that smells heavily of chemicals. A young boy calls for someone as he stands is the middle of the street, disoriented.

  It will only be a few minutes before this place is crawling with government agents. Ares tugs at my elbow and jerks his head. I nod at him as he slinks off, pulling a kufiyah over his head and covering his face.

  In all the chaos, I feel my satellite phone vibrating in my pocket. I have absolutely no doubt that the Ukrainian nationalists that are my would-be clients are now calling me, wondering what went wrong. They probably would be surprised to hear the sounds of the melee as Eros and I slip through the crowded streets, tucking our red and white patterned headscarves on as well.

  Soon, Eros waves me into the backseat of a black Mercedes sedan. I sit down and Eros slides in beside me. When he closes the door with a thunk, the sound outside is instantly muted.

  “Go,” Eros tells the driver. The sedan pulls away from the curb, driving us away from the smoking, noisy mess that we have just created.

  “Fucking forger,” Eros says, watching out the window as the city passes by. “Did ye hear the guy say that that’s how he knew that the papers were fake?”

  I press my fingers into my temple, where a low throb has only just begun. “He also mentioned Constantine.”

  “Fucking sleekit bastard. He’s not the only other person…” He licks his lips, darting a look at the driver. He disguises his next words, but I know the meaning all too well. “Person who does what we do. But that motherfucker is everywhere recently. He’s messed with at least three other deals in the past year.”

  I ignore the vibration of my sat phone and crack my neck. “He’s going to have to be taken care of.”

  Eros steals a sideways glance at me. “Ye know that Ares has been chomping at the bit. All ye have to do is say the word. Hell, even think it.”

  I draw my hand in a line across my throat. “Ares is bloodthirsty.”

  “Yeah, well. Every family has to have their rabid dog. Yer the cautious one. Always thinking things through, planning and making backups for when that plan fails. And I’m the clever one.”

  “Turn on the air conditioning,” I say to the driver. I don’t know if he speaks English or not, but he stares at me in his rearview mirror for a moment and then flicks the air on.

  I lick my top lip, tasting sweat. “Is that how ye see us?”

  Eros shrugs a shoulder. “It’s the truth. I’m the smartest one of the three of us. Yer the most decisive. And Ares… well, Ares is always spoiling for a fight.”

  “Hm.” I look out the window, a frown on my face.

  “Yer phone is ringing,” Eros points out.

  “I know.” My face tightens. “This cannae happen again. We have to figure out a plan for dealing with Constantine.” I narrow my eyes, absentmindedly reaching in my sleeve to stroke a scar that peeks out. “We need a whole new crew. And for god’s sake, a better fucking…” I pause, looking at the driver for a second. “Document artist.”

  He nods, his expression unreadable. I look away then, wondering how I’m going to kill Henri Constantine and burn his fucking empire to the ground.

  Chapter Two

  Persephone

  A hundred and fifteen dollars.

  I count out the bills, mostly in ones. They are bent and folded every which way. So smoothing them out on the side of a table is an absolute must if I hope anyone will accept them as legal tender later. I flex my right hand a few times, grimacing.

  My right hand is slower to open and close than it should be. It’s a partially healed over wound from a different time in my life.

  Constantine’s last gift.

  One that will stay with me forever.

  The music throbs, growing more frenetic as the door is opened. I turn to find my shift manager Mike closing the door to the dressing room behind him.

  I straighten and stash my earnings in the bra slash top, my lips thinning as I survey Mike. “Slow night tonight.”

  Mike crosses his arms and gives a half shrug. “Rules are rules, baby. I’m still going to need twenty five bucks. That’s my part of your take, sugar.”

  The way he says it, so cocky and selfsame, really pisses me off. “I thought you said I would be rolling in the money I make here. You come around, asking me for the money I made busting my ass, passing out drinks while these guys fucking leer at me…”

  He smacks his lips. “When I said that, I thought you would be working the pole. If you would just agree to dance two or three times a week you would make a killing. That face? That body?”

  He sucks in his lower li
p, looks at my body, and makes a sound. “You would kill it, baby girl.”

  It’s everything I can do not to glare at him. I dart my tongue out, wetting my lips. “And what percentage would you make from me then? Hmm?”

  He smirks. “You’d still be making more money.”

  I pull out the wad of cash and count out his twenty five bucks. It hurts to see the money leaving my possession so soon. But I have better things to do than stick around and argue with Mike.

  “Here.” I hand it to him. “I have to get going. I have a long walk home.”

  He catches my wrist, tugging me closer. He has my right hand in his grip, my damaged hand. If I wasn’t already on edge, that fact makes me out-and-out defensive. I tug my hand, but he doesn’t let go.

  Instead, he gives me what he must think passes for a sultry look. “If you won’t make me money, why should I even keep you on the payroll? Huh? Unless you can think of some other way that you could convince me to let you stay?”

  My heart leaps into my throat. I rip my arm from his grasp, on high alert. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

  “Come on, now.” He chuckles and saunters toward me.

  My heart thrums. Prickles of sensation run across my skin. I step backward and my ass hits the wall.

  Shit, he’s got me trapped.

  Mike just has the same stupid smirk on his face. “Don’t act like nobody has ever asked you to get on your knees for them before— “