Читать книгу Bound To Protect - Anya Summers - Страница 6

The penthouse on the fifth floor above Club Underworld boasted an unobstructed view of the Mississippi River Delta on its path to join the Gulf of Mexico. Michael stood at the window, as he had on countless occasions, watching the barges and Navy vessels, the daily pleasure cruises and cruise ships bound for a trip around the gulf as the setting sun cast a gleaming orange shadow on the wide berth of silver water. Spring bloomed in a rampage of color along the banks.

It only added to the festive nature of the Quarter and his city.

He stayed at the window, still as a statue, his thoughts tumbling in a riot through his mind while he waited for his friends—the founders of Club Underworld—to arrive to discuss the betrayer within their midst. If they had a breach, someone willing to disclose his private information for a price, then it meant they were all at risk of exposure. There were reasons why they had put the safeguards in place.

Who had Dan insinuated into Michael’s club? Quinten had some of the most high-tech background research programs available, on par with what the FBI and CIA used. But still they had missed this, allowed a snake into their private Eden.

And now, somehow, Michael needed to locate a willing female to pretend to be his fake fiancée until a decision on the board was reached. Just where in the hell would he find a woman who wouldn’t take her story to the press even with a solid non-disclose agreement? Especially since the façade of the engagement would need to extend past the thirty days—say, upwards of three months—otherwise it would look suspicious. Granted, she would only need to live with him and be seen with him at events over the next thirty days.

At the crowd of voices behind him, Michael turned. The elevator softly dinged, bringing with it the last of their founding members: eight in all, including himself. Dante handed out drinks as each member took a seat on the black leather Chesterfield sofas in the living room. Michael had already availed himself of a Scotch earlier in the day, and needed a clear head for this meeting. They were all tall, commanding men in their own right, and all were the best Doms he knew. Michael trusted the men in this room, bar none.

“What the hell is this about?” Graham asked with a tilt of his head, his face lined with dark chestnut scruff. At least he hadn’t shown up in his construction gear, and had opted for clean jeans and a tee.

“Yeah, I had to rearrange my shift tonight,” Killian stated, leaning back with an arm over the backrest. The pretty boy firefighter made the subs and female population swoon with his looks—something the man took full advantage of whenever he could.

The tallest in the bunch, with a power-packed build that made him a bruiser on the rugby field, Hudson’s bald dome gleamed in the light as he sipped his beer and shrugged. “Michael wouldn’t call us together like this unless it was of vital importance. Just be glad I’m here and not on the road.”

“If we could wrap it up quickly, I have an early surgical shift at the hospital,” Luc commented with a glance at his watch. Early shift at the hospital meant up before dawn and the rest of the world got out of bed.

“Thank you all for coming at such short notice,” Michael stated, taking a seat in one of the leather chairs as he addressed the room.

Ramsey, in cargo shorts that displayed his prosthetic leg, commented, “You can dispense with the formalities, Michael. Just tell us what the hell is going on.”

“But he likes to expound on formalities,” Quinten added. His badge still hung around his neck, which meant he’d not even made it home from his shift at the police department.

“Listen up, can we stop with the chit chat? We have a big fucking problem. Michael could get started a lot faster if you idiots would shut the fuck up for two seconds,” Dante snapped. The man was Michael’s best friend and partner in crime. This betrayal affected him as much as it did Michael—and the life they had created, topping submissives together. They tended to play up the angel and devil angle, since Dante was Michael’s opposite in looks, with his dark hair and eyes.

Eyebrows around the room rose at Dante’s outburst. Michael steepled his hands, with his elbows on his knees. “Dante isn’t wrong. We do have a big problem. I was called to an emergency board meeting at one of my companies this morning, where I heard it has been leaked that I like to top subs with Dante.”

“What the fuck?” Killian exclaimed.

“How?” Hudson commented.

Michael held up a hand. “That’s exactly what we need to figure out. The how and the why. Although, I have a feeling I know the why.”

Leaning forward with a hard glint in his gaze, Quinten said, “You think it was a club member.”

Michael nodded. “I do. And someone who has access to our VIP level, which should help narrow down the search.”

“Should we shut the club down for the next month—our level, at least?” Luc asked.

Ramsey shook his head. “No. I don’t think we should, not if we’re going to find the culprit. We shut it down, they will pass that along to whomever is behind the breach at your company.”

“You’re correct. The board is investigating, and we meet in thirty days. Which means we have less time than that to uncover who is leaking information, how they slipped past our radar, and how they are connected to members of the board. I hate to say it, Quinten, but a lot of the investigation will fall on your shoulders.”

Hudson said, “Well, Luc, Killian, and I could do private scenes with the subs, get answers from them that way, while they’re in subspace.”

“You just want to fuck your way through the sub pool,” Graham commented with a snort.

“Oh, and you think Phoebe will be all right with you scening with another sub, do you?” Killian asked, with exasperation clouding his features.

Graham winced. “No. Sorry. I can’t help you there. Phoebe would skin me alive.”

“Who do you think it is on the board that has it out for you?” Quinten asked. Removing his notebook from his front pocket, he opened it and retrieved a pen to take notes.

“Dan Vandersmoot. And yeah, he’s as big of a prick as the name suggests. But I don’t think we can or should shut down the club. We need it to appear as if I am unconcerned about the charges lobbied against me. Shutting things down would signal that I am running scared, to whoever has been spying on me. I won’t give them the fucking satisfaction. Nor will I allow anyone to steal the company my family built out from under me,” Michael swore with vehemence.

“Do you think it’s him?” Quinten asked.

Michael sighed. “Honestly, it could be any of those on the board. All I do know is that one of them is gunning for me, and not above infiltrating my private life to take me down.”

“Hudson, I like the idea you presented: for you, Luc, and Killian to start working on the subs, as many nights as possible. Take them to your private room on three, get them into subspace if necessary, and question them. Does it walk a gray area? Yes, but it’s not just Michael who could be hung out to dry in this scenario. We could all be exposed. And perhaps I can help on that angle,” Dante said.

“But you guys top subs together?” Killian said with a confused look.

Michael shook his head. “Not for the next thirty days at the club, we don’t. That’s what has come under fire: that I engage in threesomes with Dante, and practice what they consider sexually deviant behavior.”

“Yeah, he’s got to drum up a fake fiancée by the end of the week too.” Dante rolled his eyes.

“What the hell is he talking about, Michael?” Ramsey asked.

Michael glanced at the ceiling for strength. He couldn’t believe the gaffe he’d made when pressured. Then he looked back at his friends. “At the meeting today, they had me cornered, wanting answers to the charges that were lobbed against me—which basically were that I was actively engaged in perverted sexual acts with multiple partners. Meaning, whoever leaked the info saw a scene or two with Dante and me topping a sub in the club. And, in my defense, when they confronted me, I insinuated that I have been dating someone under the radar and recently became engaged, and planned to announce that engagement by the end of this week.”

Admitting his mistake drew a couple of laughs. And he supposed it was rather comical, only he didn’t have it in him to laugh at the situation, not when he could see his family’s company slipping away. He’d already made calls to his mom and sister, to give them a heads up on the situation and to warn them to be on their guard. Rachel would claw anyone’s eyes out if they tried to take Conmar off her hands.

“Could it be a submissive you guys brought up here for a private session?” Killian asked, rubbing his chin.

“No. It’s doubtful. We’ve not had a sub up here whom the two of us fucked in six months. We’ve kept our scenes strictly to the club,” Dante replied with a shake of his head.

“Well, that helps. I’ll comb through the video footage of the club for the last month, see if there was anyone watching your scenes, and note who you were with. It could be a sub you both scened with who was told to get close to you,” Quinten added thoughtfully as he took notes.

“Shit, I never thought of that.” Michael grimaced.

“We should look over the logs of who’s been in attendance in the last month or two as well,” Graham offered. “The facial recognition scanner we installed in the elevator a few months ago should be useful to that end.”

“And it might be helpful, now that they know you will be on your guard, to study who doesn’t show up at the club in the coming weeks,” Ramsey added.

“Who the hell are you going to get to play your fiancée now that the sub pool is in question?” Luc asked.

“Hell if I know,” Michael said with a scowl. Wasn’t that just the rub? Anyone they went with would need to be fully vetted, sworn to secrecy with a non-disclosure, and required to live here, with access to all of his files.

“I don’t think we should narrow it down to only the subs. I think we need to look at some of the other Doms too. See if any have run into financial trouble and then got a large payday.” Hudson spoke thoughtfully.

“He’s right. At this point, every member of the club not in this room is a suspect,” Quinten added.

“My wife is not a suspect,” Graham replied with a firm glint in his eyes, daring any man there to argue the point.

“Neither is mine,” Ram stated.

Quinten held up his hands in a defensive manner. “Nor is Becca. So it’s agreed by all here that Sadie, Phoebe, and Becca are in the clear?”

“We’re all on the same page there,” Dante conceded with a slight nod.

“Good. We should create a detailed plan. Michael, I will need to thoroughly vet whomever you select for the role of fiancée. It really does not make me happy that we’ll have an unknown individual brought in at a time like this,” Quinten stated.

Michael rubbed a frustrated hand over his face. “I know, but I never thought in a million years that my lifestyle would be called into question. That someone would go after the company my family built by attacking me in this fashion. I built Club Underworld—we built it—so that we had a place to go away from prying eyes.”

“That’s why we’re here tonight. You put out the bat signal, and we came,” Luc said.

They spent the next two hours debating, organizing, and delegating before they had a rock-solid plan to ferret out the spy and save Michael from being ousted from his company.

Dante was the only left after everyone else went on home.

“What the fuck was I thinking, tossing out a non-existent fake fiancée?” Michael asked him.

Dante sat on one of the couch arms, leaned on his elbows, and said, “Listen to me, Michael. You were blindsided. You did the best you could with the situation—better than I would have done, that’s for damn sure. I would have fired every one of them.”

“Boards of major public companies don’t work that way.” Michael sighed, more tired than he could ever remember being.

“Be that as it may, we will figure this out. We’ll find the spy and take a strip out of them. They will be sued and barred from entry.”

“True, but the damage might have already been done. I can’t lose my father’s company.” Michael’s mom and sister were firmly behind him on this, trusting his judgement to see it through to its conclusion and preserve the company. He knew Ram’s side of the family would be, as well. But it rubbed him raw that he never saw it coming.

“You won’t, you’re still the majority shareholder. Both your mom and sister have large controlling shares as well. If it comes down to it, the three of you might be forced to oust the current board. With your majority shares, it could legally be done,” Dante offered.

“There’s a thought. But they could still wrest control away before I did something that drastic, make it so that I don’t have any say in the direction of the company. Whoever did this, I worry that they won’t stop with just the board dismissing me, or removing me as CEO. There’s a huge possibility our lifestyle will go public. And I’ve put all of you at risk of exposure.”

“We’ll deal. We all knew the risks.”

“True, but I’m the one who put us in danger,” Michael said, reaching for the bottle of scotch and pouring a dram.

“Look, I need to head to Bayou Sin. There’s a coverage issue tonight. I just need to fill in for an hour until the replacement gets there. Will you be all right, or do I need to find someone else to cover it?” Dante asked.

Michael waved him off. “I’ve got a call to make. I’ll be fine.”

“Who are you calling at this hour?”

“Jared. He needs to look after his own with this,” Michael explained, swishing the scotch in his glass at the thought of the fucking mess of things he had to deal with.

Dante hissed. “Fuck, I didn’t think of that. Give him my best. Be back in a bit. And try not to drink your way through the bottle. We need you to keep a level head.”

Michael nodded as Dante sauntered out of the penthouse. With his scotch in hand, he trod back to the bank of windows—the night now full dark, with the bright lights of the Quarter illuminating the waterfront—and made the call.

“What the hell could be so important that you’re calling me at this hour, Michael?” Jared’s Scottish brogue filtered through the receiver of his cell.

“I wanted to give you a heads up about a debacle I’m facing with a spy in our midst. Just in case they have infiltrated your neck of the woods to expose us all.”

“Bloody hell, man. Go back to sleep, lass,” Jared said.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake your wife up.”

“It normally wouldn’t be an issue, except Shannon has been keeping her mum up, and we’re expecting another this autumn,” Jared explained, sounding tired.

“I didn’t know you two were expecting again. Congrats on that front.”

“Thanks. Shannon will have a little brother come September. But moving on, what’s this about a spy?”

“I’ll explain. You might want to pass it onto Declan and the rest of your group, as well,” Michael said, and proceeded to give Jared McTavish as much information as possible. Jared owned Pleasure Island in the Bahamas. The lifestyle resort was the premiere destination for billionaires, rock stars, and movies stars in the lifestyle who wanted to vacation with their submissive, or to meet submissives during their stay. Jared had met his wife, Naomi, there. Michael and Dante had entertained a plethora of submissives during their stays on the island.

The thing was, if one person in the scene was being attacked, they circled the wagons and protected others in the lifestyle. It was the only way they survived.

And by the time Michael ended the call, the only thing he had left on his mind was wondering where the hell he was going to find a woman to pose as his fiancée.