SELL YOUR SOUL
The last place Vaughn Westbrook expected to find himself was at a charity gala. But the dark path he’s walked since his discharge from the military led him into the upper echelons of society—where he hunts for the man behind a human trafficking ring.
Carissa Hastings lived a sheltered life in the lap of luxury. Forced to participate in a bachelorette auction, her parents expect the man of their choice to win a date with her.
Vaughn’s winning bid on Carissa was a tactical move, but logic is thrown out the window when he meets the innocent beauty.
Vaughn sold his soul long ago. There’s no way he’s going to let Carissa do the same.
SELL YOUR SOUL
PROLOGUE
CARISSA
“You want me to do what?” I couldn’t possibly have heard my mother correctly. She and my father had done everything they could to prevent me from dating, including shipping me off to an all-girls boarding school in Switzerland when I turned thirteen. They’d even extended my stay there by an extra nine months so that I could supposedly enjoy additional culture and travel before returning home to make a decision about my future.
I’d only been home for a few weeks, and they’d kept me sequestered on our family estate the entire time. Up until the moment my mother called me into her office to discuss my social obligations, I had been beginning to wonder if they were trying to hide me away from the world. Although I was excited about attending a charity gala with them, it was virtually impossible to believe they would want me to be so blatantly in the limelight during my re-introduction into society—especially not in a situation where men I’ve never met would have the opportunity to bid on a date with me.
“I’ve made appointments for you to have your hair and nails done the morning of the event, of course,” she continued,ignoring my question. My parents had never really listened to anything I had to say, so it didn’t come as a surprise. “We can’t have you embarrassing us during the bachelorette auction.”
And there it was—confirmation that I had in fact heard her correctly the first time around. Considering my inexperience with men, I was both thrilled and petrified by the very idea of going on a date with a stranger.
“Mother,” I snapped, glaring at her until she finally lifted her head. “A bachelorette auction? Really?”
“Oh, your father will make sure the winning bid is placed by someone of which he approves.” She waved off my concern. “And the proceeds will go towards a good cause, I’m sure. Several of my friends’ daughters are participating.”
It was almost as if I’d walked into an alternate universe. There had been so many times when I’d tried using the same kind of logic with her to get her to agree to let me do something all the other girls were doing. Wearing makeup when I turned fourteen, co-ed dances with an all-boys school, vacationing with friends during Spring break. Time and time again, I’d been told that just because my friends were doing something didn’t mean it was proper. Yet here she was, tossing me to the wolves with the excuse that the daughters of her friends were going to be up on that stage with me.
I wasn’t excited by the prospect of participating in the auction, but what could I do but meekly agree? I didn’t have any friends in town, my parents had kept me too isolated over the years to develop any relationships with anyone other than our long-term staff. Both of my best friends were thousands of miles away, with an ocean separating me from them.
I also didn’t have money of my own. Not yet. The funds from the trust my grandparents had setup for me before their deaths weren’t scheduled to come to me until my twenty-first birthday or upon my marriage, whichever came first. Since my parentshad been successful in keeping me away from most boys, I was fairly certain I was going to have to wait until I become of age before I’d have access to my money.
All appearances to the contrary, I was penniless and completely dependent on my parents for the next two years. It wasn’t something that had overly concerned me when I’d returned home because I figured they’d be content to ship me off to college to get me out of their hair. But my father had barely said a word when my acceptance letters to Brown, Wellesley and Bryn Mawr had come in the mail last week. He’d also studiously avoided any of my attempts to discuss my future plans with him.
Between him fobbing me off and the surprise my mother had just dropped in my lap, I was beginning to wonder if I’d have been better off staying in Europe with my friends. I wasn’t really close to my parents since there had always been distance between us, both physically and emotionally. But I knew them well enough to recognize that something was off with them… and to worry about what it might mean for all of us.
1
VAUGHN
I’d navigated my way through a wide variety of locations while on missions, both for the Army and then on my own after I discharged. Jungles, deserts, urban sprawl—been there, done that. But I never expected an op to take me to a charity gala so fancy I had to wear a custom tux to ensure I’d fit in without garnering unwanted attention. Then again, this wasn’t the usual job I took on as a paid mercenary. It was personal.
Or as close to personal as I ever got, considering I’d been accurately described as a killing machine more often than I liked to admit. The one thing killing machines didn’t do was allow their feelings to interfere with the job. But there were some things even a heartless man couldn’t let go.
Most people wouldn’t consider me to be a good man, not with the number of kills I’d racked up in my time in the Army. Certainly not with the amount I’d added to the tally after I left. But there were worse men in the world than me. Much, much worse. And sometimes it fell to me to ensure that those men were taken out of the equation. Permanently.
The dregs of society usually came to my attention when I was hired to hunt them down. Every great once in a while, it happened when someone called in a favor, an extremely rare occurrence since I worked hard to ensure I didn’t owe anything to anyone. Even rarer than that was the reason I found myself at a charity gala with my attention divided between the man I was hunting and a bevy of young socialites strutting across the stage for some ridiculous bachelorette auction. I found myself at the gala, restraining myself from tugging on the collar of my tux, because I was on a mission I’d taken upon myself—to hunt down the man who funded his place in high society with a human trafficking ring that had caught my attention when I’d stumbled across a dead girl’s body in the alley behind my favorite restaurant. Her emaciated body had been a far cry from the appearance of the pampered beauties strolling across the stage tonight.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen death up close, far from it considering the methods I’d employed in some of my kills. But I’d never been the one to call the cops in to investigate a homicide. Being on that end of a crime was a little odd, and the unusualness of the situation sparked a sense of curiosity in me. It was a good thing, too, considering the cops weren’t putting in their best efforts to figure out who killed the girl.
It didn’t sit right with me, so I stepped in. It wasn’t long before I stumbled across the ring of smugglers who’d brought her into the country. If someone with money needed something—literally anything—these guys found a way to get it. Only the money trail didn’t end with them. It didn’t really start with them, either, since they were thugs who didn’t have the right contacts to find the kind of clients who were wealthy enough to afford the prices some of their procurements pulled in.
The money led me straight to the crème de la crème of high society. To a suspect who was a challenge for me to pindown because it was difficult to employ my usual methods of reconnaissance on him. Approaching and observing an enemy who was always surrounded by other people who were in the limelight—each with their own security detail—required a shit ton of finesse. Utilizing long-distance observation equipment only got me so far with Alexander Bellamy. I needed a valid reason for a closer approach, and I was determined to find it at this damn party. Almost two hours into it, and I still hadn’t managed to get within spitting distance. But from the way his attention suddenly shifted towards the stage when they announced the next socialite up for bidding, I had a feeling I might have found a way to catch his interest.
Switching my focus in the same direction, I quickly understood his fascination. The girl on the stage was hot, no doubt about it. The innocence shining from her eyes and the blush on her cheeks was an intriguing contradiction to the lushness of her lips and the curves outlined by her tight, black lace dress. When the woman at the microphone who was running the auction circled her finger at her and the girl swiveled on her black stilettos, I felt like I’d been punched in the solar plexus. My breath caught in my lungs at the sight of her bare back. All those inches of skin revealed as the dress dipped down to just above the cheeks of her ass—I didn’t want anyone else to enjoy the sight but me.
The sound of my target’s voice ringing out with the highest bid of the night filled me with horror as I pictured the beauty on the stage ending up dead like the girl in the alley. There was no way in hell I was going to let him get his hands on her and destroy the innocence shining from her eyes. I’d kill him before that happened—but I’d much prefer that waited until I confirmed there wasn’t anyone higher up in the trafficking ring than him. Until then, I just had to figure out a way to keep her out of Bellamy’s orbit. Starting with outbidding him for the datewith her he was about to win. Lucky for me, wiping scum of the face of the planet paid well.
