Chapter 1
Desperation. It was the one thing that could drive people to do the unthinkable. To choose an option they’d sworn they would never choose. London Miller was beyond desperate. The proverbial wolf wasn’t just at her door anymore; the beast had torn it from the hinges and was ready to rip her to shreds.
There were debts. BIG debts owed to the kind of men the boogeyman checked under his bed for. They didn’t even belong to her but to her recently deceased father. To say the man had a gambling addiction was the understatement of the century.
The problem was these men didn’t care about his vital statistic update. They wanted their money, with interest, and they were more than willing to carve it out of London’s innocent flesh.
She had nothing to give aside from herself. But she already knew what they would do with that. London might only be nineteen, but she was utterly disenchanted when it came to things like fairness and justice. There was no mercy in the world these men ruled. Her father and older brother had already shown her that long ago.
In truth, London had lost her rose-colored glasses at the age of eight when her mom split town without a single goodbye and no forwarding address. Not long after that, London’s fifteen-year-old brother, Les, had forced their father into giving him emancipation, and he’d taken off just as quickly.
Her mom never came back, but Les did. Three years later, he’d returned with a whole new name and purpose. By then, he was making good money working for the same kind of men their father always borrowed from. Bookies, loan sharks, mobsters.
Les Miller had become Lex Blackwood, and he’d wanted to take London away to live with him, become her sole guardian. Their father had laughed his ass off, then slammed the door in his face.
London had been eleven at the time and just starting to develop, yet forced to squeeze into the same clothes she’d been wearing for a year. There was barely enough money for food or rent, so a new wardrobe was out of the question.
Lex had slipped her a hundred bucks and told her to spend it slowly. He’d advised her to buy one article of clothing at a time from the local thrift store. That way, if their dad noticed, she could claim she’d gotten the item from the clothes drive at church.
The following week, London started her period for the first time and had to buy tampons instead. Her dad found out about the money and took every last penny of what was left, raging about Lex giving it to a kid who didn’t need it while denying the father who’d given him life.
London took her brother’s unintentional advice and went to the nearest church, where she found clothes in newer condition that fit much better.
Every year, Lex showed up with the same demand. He wanted London to live with him and was waiting for their father to become desperate enough to hand her over.
By the time that happened, London had already turned fifteen, and she no longer recognized the man her brother had become. He was rich and intimidating, a hardened criminal. He made her nervous in the same way the bullies at school did—those boys who liked to trick girls into doing shameful, disgusting things they didn’t want to. So, she’d refused to go with Lex, and her father had backed her up, even if it was just to spite his son.
Lex never got deterred. He kept returning. Only, it was no longer to barter with their father but to convince London herself. But she wasn’t stupid. Her brother wasn’t the good guy—if he’d ever been. He’d long since become one of the very loan sharks who sent thugs out to bloody up his own father when he couldn’t pay fast enough.
As she got older, London noticed there was something else. Something unspoken, never hinted at. It was just an intuition. An instinct thriving inside, highly aware that her brother’s objective had changed somewhere along the line. Lex no longer wanted to be her guardian, to care for her as an older brother.
He wanted to own her. To possess her the way a man would with a lover—not a sibling.
And London knew that because it was alive in her blood, heating up and sparking with electricity whenever he was near. It was there whenever she would daydream about someone coming to save her. Lex’s face would pop into her mind, and she would dream of him taking her far away. In her secret, shameful fantasies, he would love her the way he wanted to and never let her be cold or scared ever again.
When Lex failed to show up for her eighteenth birthday, London was profoundly relieved because she knew she would’ve caved and accepted his offer. It felt like her soul had been saved from damnation. She’d cried her eyes out, then made herself a promise: no matter what it took, she would escape her father’s addiction and the sinful things her brother made her feel.
London had already started stashing money away from her part-time job at the roller skating rink. Her goal was to celebrate her twenty-first birthday in another state on the other side of the country.
But fate would ensure that never happened. Her father found her stash and took every last penny, then had the indecency to die of a heart attack, leaving her with all of his gambling debts.
Now, London had to choose between two evils.
She could give herself to the men her father owed money to without a single thing to barter with. They would put her to work as a stripper and a prostitute, then ensure she’d end up dead long before her debt was paid. Of that, she was certain.
Or, London could give her brother what he’d always wanted in exchange for help.
Neither of those choices promised any mercy. There wasn’t a single ounce of faith in her that Lex was the better option. It merely boiled down to knowing that she had something he wanted. London didn’t have anything the other men wanted, only everything they were willing to take.
The Vault was an exclusive club owned and operated by the infamous Lex Blackwood. It was also the well-known headquarters of his entire criminal empire. Wearing the same black dress and heels she’d worn to her father’s funeral a month before, London approached the bouncer at the front entrance.
The burly man let his eyes slide over her from the blond hair she’d painstakingly straightened to the three-inch heels peeling around the edges. Her second-hand dress was faded, but the clingy material hugged every curve of her body, and he looked his fill.
“Members only,” he stated before she could say a word.
“I need to talk to Lex,” she announced.
He humphed in amusement. “You and everybody else.”
“It’s about London,” she said. “Give him that message, and he’ll want to speak to me right away. If he finds out that you didn’t… Well, I don’t expect I’ll be seeing you the next time I come around.”
Narrowing his eyes, the man considered her words before pulling a flip phone from his pocket and sending a text. A second later, he got a reply that had his frown deepening.
With a surly expression, he tucked his phone away and opened the door for her. “Take the elevator to the top floor. Someone will be waiting for you.”
“Thanks, Lucky.”
“My name ain’t Lucky.” He scowled.
“It might be now,” she pointed out, then entered the club.
