Collared (Vegas Nights Book 1) Read online

  “Shit!” Beside him, Jason swore, running to kneel at Will’s feet, his hands quickly working the knots that bound him.

  Pax shook his head. “Loosen them, and remove the gag. Make sure he doesn’t yell. We’ll get him in a minute. I need backup inside.”

  As soon as he said it there was a loud crash inside the suite. Jase sprang to his feet, pulling his gun from its holster and standing behind Pax.

  Both men held their guns out in front of them as they entered, and it was all Pax could do not to pull the trigger as the door opened slowly, and he caught the glint of metal. His finger to his lips warned the other two men to be quiet.

  He sent up a silent prayer and shoved the door open, entering SWAT team style with Jase behind him. Diamond was holding the gun, pointed at the floor. She was shaking like a leaf. Shit. Training his gun at the man on the floor—whom he assumed was Fitch—he slowly walked to stand beside her.

  “Put the gun down.” He had his dom voice on even as it killed him. There was a fury in her glazed eyes, and she looked at him sideways—not fully registering his command, or even his presence.

  Jase moved into the line of fire—covering the body on the floor with his own—and binding Fitch with the same rope that hand bound Will’s arms to the chair. He looked over his shoulder at Pax, nodding towards Diamond. “I’ve got him. You deal with her.”

  Placing his own gun on the table, he quickly disarmed her, prying the cold metal from her hands as he whispered promises and praises in her ear.

  She was completely zoned out—her arms still out in front of her, positioned to grip the gun that she no longer held.

  His heart was breaking as his instincts took over. Now that he was certain she couldn’t shoot him, he stepped in front of her, grabbing her by the shoulders.

  “Look at me,” he barked.

  By some miracle, she did. When she finally looked in his eyes, it was like a spell broke. Her arms dropped to her sides, and her body slumped against his in wracking sobs.

  “It’s okay, you’re safe. I’ve got you,” he whispered.

  The story came out in a rush, strangled frantic sentences that made very little sense on their own. Spoken through heaving sobs, they were completely nonsensical.

  He turned to Jase who had moved to the doorway, and was working quickly at freeing Will. “Did you catch any of that?” he asked helplessly over the top of her head. Jase shrugged.

  “Did she shoot him?”

  “Naw, it looks like she just hit him upside the head. There’s a bullet lodged in the window over there. Maybe a struggle? There’s a broken lamp on the floor, too. I’m guessing she struggled to get the gun from him, and then knocked him upside the head with the lamp. There’s a cut on his head, but it’s not too big or deep. He’ll probably come to soon.”

  Pax nodded. “Call downstairs. Tell them what’s happened. Luckily, the place is already crawling with cops. In the meantime, let’s get her out of here.”

  “Take her to her room. I’ll stay up here until they get here, and take care of Will. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Jase preferred to do anything that kept him out of the line of hysterical females. That was just how he worked. But really, he was taking the harder job, and had been Pax’s rock since the ordeal began. Nodding his thanks, he scooped Diamond into his arms and carried her out of the room. If Fitch was coming to soon, as Jase predicted, he didn’t want her anywhere in the vicinity.

  * * *

  Within minutes, he had her at the door to her suite.

  She wouldn’t let go of his neck, even though somewhere along the way, she had stopped crying. So he pulled her into his arms and carried her like a bride on her wedding day to the bed where he sat down with her on his lap, rubbing her back, and kissing her head, trying to calm her.

  There was a pounding on the door, and he tensed, until Jase announced himself, striding in quickly and locking the door behind him. His friend took in the sight of the two of them, and turned out of the bedroom area, coming back shortly with two bottles of water from the mini bar. He handed one to Pax, for Diamond, and popped the lid of the other, guzzling like a man who had just spent a week in the desert.

  “I spoke to the police. They have the situation under control, but they’ll want to talk to us all later. They said it could wait a bit.”

  “Don’t let them shoot him!” Diamond cried frantically. It was the first coherent words she had spoken.

  “Diamond,” Pax stated calmly. “They aren’t going to shoot him. They have no reason to now. But, I’m not sure why you’re defending him. He’s stalking you. It’s one thing to hang out in a tree on the other side of the property line at your dad’s house, taking pictures of strange cars, or Emmy without her make-up, or even us kissing. It’s quite another to look me up online, follow us here, stalk us on a date, and then break a story that puts us on the news and puts your life in danger. He called in a bomb threat this morning, to get us out of the room. Why? What was he planning to do? We don’t know. I’m just thankful that you were quick thinking on your feet, and managed to get the hell out of there. Not only were you in danger, there were one thousand people downstairs scared out of their wits, thinking there was a bomb on the premises while a dozen men in full swat gear and a dozen bomb dogs scoured the place for hours. And your dad thinks this Fitch guy is harmless? These last few days have proven that he is anything but.”

  Pax was getting more and more agitated with every word, until finally, Jase stepped forward, putting his hands up in an attempt to stop Pax, and to breathe some sense into the atmosphere of hysteria that the two of them were creating.

  His friend took one look at the expression on his face and wisely chose to address Diamond first. “Diamond, Pax has several good points. But, the fact remains, nobody is shooting anybody. He’s still unconscious, and he’s now handcuffed as well. He’s going to jail.”

  Diamond’s breathing was labored, Lamaze style as Jason spoke, but her eyes began to look less frantic, and her gaze never wavered from Jason’s face. Pax had never been more thankful for his friend than he was at this moment, and this whole week actually. Maybe Jason was finally growing up and becoming less of an asshole. Or maybe he had always had this side in him, and Pax had never noticed because they had never been in a crisis situation. Either way, as soon as this was over, Pax was treating him to a giant steak and the most expensive bottle of scotch he could find.

  By the time Jason stopped speaking, Diamond was breathing normally and sipping from the water bottle that he had given her earlier. Which was good, because she wasn’t going to like what he had to say next.

  “Diamond,” Pax began very carefully, taking her chin in his hands, lifting it so that she met his gaze. “I’ve called your father. He’s coming to get you. This isn’t a safe place for you anymore.”

  She immediately went on the defensive, attempting to jerk out of his grasp, but he held on tightly, forcing her to listen and really hear what he was saying.

  “This situation isn’t getting any better, and I don’t want to have to worry about your safety right now.”

  “So, you’re sending me home, genius? That doesn’t make any fucking sense! Home is where Fitch is from! Going back to LA is what started this mess. I’ve been safe and incognito here for four years—four!”

  “Fitch is going to be in jail,” he reminded her calmly. “He won’t bother you there anymore.”

  “Even better!” she shouted. “He’s not here; he’s not there. I’m safe wherever I want to be and I want to be here with you!”

  She was shouting, and cursing at him in a way that normally would have had her flipped over his knee by now, audience or no, but that was over.

  “Your dad isn’t taking you home. He’s taking you to the summer home of an associate somewhere back east. You’ll be safe there while this mess dies down.”

  “Pax! No! That’s too far away! I can’t go! I won’t go! I need you right now. I’m fine here. You always keep me
safe. It’s your job!” she cried.

  She was right. It was his job. He had told her that over and over. He had told himself that over and over, and then he had failed.

  “I’m sorry, princess. You have to go. It’s for the best.”

  His heart broke as a fresh flow of tears poured down her cheeks. She stared at him piteously, as if willing him to change his mind. Finding him unwavering, she got up and ran to the bathroom.

  “Pax,” Jason asked carefully, walking right up to where he was still seated on the bed, and speaking in a low voice. “What was that about?”

  “She needs to go. She needs to be safe. This isn’t safe for her right now.”

  “I get that, but why did it just feel like you handed her walking papers and put her on a plane to the other side of the country? For good?”

  “Because I did.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Oh, my god,” Jason moaned happily a week later as they sat together in a steakhouse across town. “It’s so nice to be finally getting away from the hotels. That was a seriously intense week, man.”

  “Yes,” Pax agreed woodenly, poking lethargically at his salad. The ordeal was finally and officially over. The news vans had stopped coming, the reporters had stopped calling, and the paparazzi had finally accepted Diamond’s absence and gone home.

  “Thank you for bringing me here tonight, and for the scotch, and treating me to dinner, bro. Seriously. This is exactly what I needed.”

  Pax’s smile was genuine for the first time all night. “It’s the least I could do to thank you. Seriously, I don’t know what I would have done without you last week. You went above and beyond.”

  “I always got your back,” Jason stated simply, pausing and regarding Pax as he chewed. “And because I have your back, I’m going to say something you’re not going to like. You’re an idiot.”

  “You always say that. I’m immune to it.”

  “Well, I really mean it this time. Have you called Diamond?”

  “There’s no point. I can’t be what she needs. I tried to have everything and be everything, and I failed.”

  Jase rolled his eyes, looking very much like he wanted nothing more than to grab Pax by the shirt and smack the shit out of him. “This again?”

  Pax shrugged. “It’s just the way it is, Jase. I’ll call Martin and let him know that the situation has been resolved and things are back to normal, so they can head home soon, but her home is in LA with her family, not at Rojo. It was fun while it lasted but it wasn’t meant to be. Business and pleasure do not mix,” he stated simply, tossing out a common cliché in place of an explanation.

  “All work and no play makes Pax an asshole,” Jason rebutted.

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “You know, you don’t have to mix business and pleasure. You could bring her back as your submissive but not your employee. It’s not like the girl needs to work.”

  “Drop it.” Pax’s voice was a low growl.

  Jason didn’t drop it. “Keep this in mind too. It wasn’t so long ago you were lecturing me about second chances. You’re quick to give them to everybody but yourself.”

  “Enough.”

  Jase shrugged exasperatedly, and went back to enjoying his steak, but the look on his face told Pax that the conversation wasn’t over.

  * * *

  Diamond had been home in LA for less than twenty-four hours when her old boss showed up at her door. And by old boss, she meant Jase, not Paxton.

  Emmy let him in with an expression of amusement and curiosity. Her family had never been to Aubergine, and they didn’t know Jase.

  “What do you want, Jase?” She stood near the door in the large foyer, her arms crossed over her chest, looking at him with anger. She wasn’t pissed at Jase, truth be told. She was just pissed at the world.

  Jase remained unfazed by her attitude. “I just thought I would come check on you, see how you were holding up.”

  “I don’t even know how to answer that question,” she deadpanned.

  “Well, Pax is miserable, and he’s driving everybody crazy. Three of his girls have come to me asking if I had any job openings just this week.”

  “I don’t care. He brought it on himself.”

  “Pax,” Jason started to speak, his mouth twisted into a grimace. “Well, there’s no other way to put this. I love the guy like a brother, but he can be a rigid and unflappable asshole at times. This whole obsession he has with rules and order can truly do more harm than good. And beyond that, the expectations that he puts on himself are insane. And when he fails to meet those expectations, he takes it way too hard. So this whole thing with the paparazzi, and the bomb threats, and the crazy stalker, he feels like it is all his fault. That he somehow brought it on the two of you by hooking up with you in the first place even though it went against his rules. He’s taking it really hard.”

  She shrugged. “So am I, Jase. I don’t know why you’re telling me all this honestly. If he’s really as big of a jackass as you say, then I guess I’m better off.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed amicably, for about two seconds. “Or maybe not. Everything I said about Pax is true. But what I didn’t say is this. Pax is one of my favorite people in the world. Second only to my mom and my own brother. He had a hard life—a really horribly sucky life—the kind of horrible life that a lot of people don’t recover from, and look at what he made out of it. He owns two flourishing casinos. He’s a damn good business man, a damn good boss, and you won’t ever find a better friend. I can’t speak to how he is as a boyfriend, or a dominant, obviously, but if he’s committed to it the way he is everything else in his life, my money’s on him.”

  “Well, he sent me across the country with a broken heart, and fired me in an email. So, he’s obviously not as good as you want to claim.” Jase’s speech had cracked the walls around her heart, but not broken them. She was still spitting mad.

  “Good point. Let me start over. When you came into his life, you turned it upside down in a hot minute. I’ve never seen Pax fall so fast and so hard, period. He broke every single one of his stupid rules to be with you, and for Pax, that says a lot. And when he failed to protect you, and literally had a hand in bringing danger to your doorstep, he couldn’t forgive himself. And I don’t know how to help him do that. I don’t think I can. It has to be you. He’s a mess without you, Diamond. Truthfully, I can barely stand the guy these days.”

  “I don’t know what I can do, Jase. I honestly don’t. What am I supposed to do? Get a room there and follow him around like a lost puppy until he agrees to speak with me? I don’t think so, and it would be too painful to be there anyway. Vegas was a good chapter in my life for many years. The goal was to hide in plain sight while getting over my mother’s death. The goal has been accomplished. It’s time for a new chapter.”

  “I agree that it’s time for a new chapter, but I don’t think it needs to be here in LA.”

  “I’m not going back to Vegas, Jase. I’m not. There is nothing for me there. No family, no place to stay, no boyfriend, and no job.”

  “What if I helped you with two out of four and gave you a job at Aubergine again?”

  “You fired me.”

  “That was then and this is now. Think of it as a strategic move in the game of life. I have a plan.”

  She shouldn’t consider even hearing him out, but he was being so sweet, and he had a lot of good points. And he was Pax’s best friend. And dammit, she just wanted to know. Where was the harm in hearing the plan? Just because she listened didn’t mean she had to participate, right?

  “Okay, fine,” she agreed reluctantly. “Tell me your plan.”

  Jason’s face broke into a huge grin. He leaned forward and began to whisper.

  * * *

  “What?” Pax barked into his phone.

  “I need you to bounce at Aubergine tonight, man. Jerry got food poisoning from some bad sushi or something.”

  “Pay your employees better. Then maybe the
y could afford the good sushi, and you wouldn’t have this problem. I’m busy.”

  He could hear his friend’s teeth grinding on the other end of the line. “Dude, you are an ass. You know we pay Aubergine employees only fifty cents less then you pay over there, so shove it up your ass. May I remind you that Aubergine is your club too, and we need to make up some of the money we lost last month with all the craziness. And we need a bouncer. I’ve got a big new event planned tomorrow night. Without a bouncer, I’m going to have to cancel, and refund all the tickets I sold.”

  At the mention of cold hard cash, Pax’s ears perked up. He did after all, have a vested interested in Aubergine’s funds. “Oh, yeah, what kind of event?”

  “Just a demonstration—Vegas style type of thing—hoping to bring in a new crowd, you know.”

  “Fine. I’ll do it. You owe me.” Pax hung up without saying goodbye. Jase was on his nerves lately. Of course, so was everyone else. It wouldn’t hurt for him to check out Jase’s new event. His own numbers were down since the incident as well, and he needed something new and exciting to draw the crowds back in.

  Tonight was Tuesday. Vanilla Night was on the roster, and as had happened before, none of his girls had any infractions. Jase said it was because he was such an ass lately that everyone was afraid to be around him, much less volunteer their ass to him and a paddle. Maybe Jase had a point, but it didn’t solve any of his problems.

  He stared out the window of his suite, letting the memories choke him. He could hardly look out his bedroom anymore without having a near anxiety attack, which was insane, because he hadn’t even been there. He didn’t even have the whole story. He had sent Diamond away before he had even bothered to get all the details. But it didn’t matter. To him, the room was a reminder of his failure. He had vowed to keep her safe from harm and he had failed. He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve to be a dom either.

  * * *

  Pax entered the nightclub at Aubergine the way he always did, through the back entrance, but when he got there, he stopped short. A huge poster covered the door advertising the night’s entertainment.