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  Books by Jaycee Clark

  Angel Eyes

  Firebird

  Talons (coauthored with Shannon Stacey, Mandy Roth, Michelle Pillow, and Sydney Somers)

  Black Aura

  Ghost Cats (coauthored with Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow)

  Ghost Cats: Revenge

  The Dream

  Deadly Shadows

  Deadly Ties

  Deadly Obsession

  Deadly Games

  Deadly Secrets

  Phoenix Rising II (coauthored with Donna Grant and Mandy Roth)

  Ghost Cats 2 (coauthored with Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow)

  Beyond the Page Books

  are published by

  Beyond the Page Publishing

  www.beyondthepagepub.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Jaycee Clark

  Excerpt from Deadly Shadows copyright © 2011 by Jaycee Clark

  Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-937349-53-0

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Deadly Shadows

  The Kinncaid Brothers Series

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Czech Republic; late summer

  The body landed in a tangle of naked bloody limbs.

  Mikhail Jezek watched. Dried, half-decayed leaves, dirt and other debris sticking to her body as the girl rolled over the ground. The summer night breathed hot and thick around them all.

  He sniffed and looked to the other woman who stood before him. Her face was bruised and battered, her lips split and cracked—from the beatings and the fact he’d denied her food or drink for days. Her eyes, those icy eyes, were blank, almost accepting, almost broken. Almost. She’d been a hellcat when he’d first found her. He’d tried to train her, to instruct her, to break her, but he was finally forced to teach her the hard way. Some had to learn the hard way. Mikhail brushed his finger down her bare arm. She was naked, but no one in their group noticed. No one cared, and no one else would pass by. It was desolate here.

  Goose bumps pricked her skin in his finger’s wake and he smiled.

  He hadn’t wanted to put this one in the brothels, she was a rare beauty. True grace and a face that rivaled those caught on priceless canvas, but she thought he was horrible. She would learn what true horror could be.

  Tonight was just that. A lesson.

  He looked from her averted face back to the still figure on the ground beside the open grave one of his men had dug earlier. They’d all known this was coming and he chose to end it now. Mikhail nodded once to his men. They stepped back, one pulling a gun free from a shoulder holster hidden beneath the dark jacket before looking back to Mikhail.

  Mikhail waited, studying the stupid girl’s prone body lying on the night-dewed grass. He’d given that one the name Ebony. Some of the girls came to them complete with identification, visas, passports, which were all quickly destroyed. Others, he or his contacts simply found and liked. Either way, the girls became his. Ebony was one of those who he’d seen, liked and took. He didn’t know her true identity and honestly didn’t care.

  You should, an inner voice warned him.

  He ruthlessly ignored it and took a deep breath.

  Stars glittered quietly from the dark sky. The headlights from his limo slashed across the quiet scene. The dark trees, still and silent, witnessed tonight’s events.

  The other woman, Dusk, trembled before him. In darkness, things looked different. Not colored, but in a macabre, harshly contrasted black and white. Two of his men, Ebony, and the empty grave. Black on white, gray on shadows.

  The leaves of the trees rustled near the wood’s edge. Creepy places, abandoned cemeteries, but it served its purpose. An old cemetery was a perfect place to dump a body. Rarely did anyone look for the dead if the place catered to that very need. His eyes stayed on the point of tonight’s venture.

  Ebony, a lovely little Italian piece, had been beautiful once, but not now. Now she was bloody, dirty, no longer graceful, but broken. He’d broken her, let his men break her. Not merely reining her in, not only teaching her her place, but breaking her. If she’d come around, she would have brought him a pretty price. However, he’d learned long ago some losses simply must be cut and the profit forgotten.

  Stupid bitch. She’d tried to escape.

  Her dark matted hair twisted around her neck and face, blood trickled in rivulets from various cuts and wounds inflicted on her. Her arm lay at an odd angle from her body where it had been broken hours before.

  Still she had whispered of vengeance, screamed it until her throat had been raw and hoarse.

  Mikhail took a deep breath in through his nose. The woman before him still didn’t look at Ebony. He grabbed her face, digging his fingers into her chin and forcing her to watch.

  “This is what I do to those who try to escape me,” he said softly.

  She shut her eyes, the bruises and swollen skin marring the beauty of those thick-lashed, icy blue eyes.

  He tsked and tightened his hold on her chin until she opened her eyes. “You. Will. Watch.”

  Her eyes weren’t blank now, but shadowed with fear . . .

  Good, she should fear him.

  He nodded to one of the guards, who pointed the gun at Ebony’s still figure on the ground and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Then his man moved the gun a fraction lower and fired off two more rounds into Ebony’s heart. The woman he held flinched with each bullet. He waited until those wide, tear-filled eyes rose from the girl’s body on the ground to him.

  He smiled, shoved her forward and waited, made her watch while his men rolled Ebony’s body into the grave. He shoved her harder and she
went down on her knees beside the grave, a small whimper moaning through the night, her fingers flexing in the loose dirt.

  He pulled his own gun free—a wonderful CZ75. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Would you like to join Ebony?”

  Her body trembled, her breath wheezed out.

  He waited.

  Her chest shook as she inhaled. She appeared as broken as the one they’d just disposed of, but he knew better.

  Her hands were fisted in her lap, the knuckles marred and dirty on those long lean thighs.

  Still a bit of anger left in her, was there?

  He put the barrel of the gun at the base of her skull and waited.

  She flinched and her trembles increased.

  He could all but smell her fear. He smiled. “Would you like to join Ebony, Dusk?”

  Still she only trembled, her head bowing.

  He waited.

  “P-p-pl-please,” she whispered, so quietly he barely heard her.

  “What was that? I didn’t quiet catch it. Did you say something?”

  “P-please,” she said a bit louder.

  “Please what, Dusk?”

  Her body shook on another breath. “Please d-don-don’t kill me.”

  He pressed the gun harder against the base of her skull, and she threw her hands out with a small cry to keep from falling into the grave.

  A sob choked into the air, as the yawning grave waited . . .

  Slowly, he pulled the gun away.

  She didn’t move.

  He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “You see, I can be lenient.” He held his hand out, noting she winced as she stood, but then she would wince after the beating he’d given her.

  As she stood, she swayed, but he tightened his hand on her arm, watching her eyes.

  He waited until she looked at him, then he nodded back to the grave. “This is what happens to those who don’t listen, Dusk, to those who scorn what I provide them, to those who try to escape.”

  She glanced to the side, down into the grave, the dark shadow open wide as if waiting to be fed again, and shuddered.

  “You won’t ever try anything so foolish, will you?” he asked her softly.

  For a moment, she didn’t move, didn’t speak. Then those eyes rose back to him and he saw the acceptance in them. Slowly she licked her lips, then shook her head. “N-no. No, I promise, I won’t ever do that. I won’t ever escape.”

  He smiled. She was right. She wouldn’t escape him. No one ever escaped him.

  Chapter 1

  Cheb, Czech Republic; December 2

  The music pulsed through the floor into the room she’d been assigned. The body over her moved, plunging in and out in a purchased dance of relief.

  His relief, not hers.

  The music screamed in a language she couldn’t understand. She closed her eyes and wished for the end. The end of the music, the end of the job, just . . . the end.

  She no longer cared if she lived or if she died.

  He grunted, once, twice, and then stilled.

  Her mind focused on the music as she always did. It was the only way to survive. The foreign words and bass boomed through the floor, a male punching the air, the vibrations hitting her as surely as the man who climbed off of her to sit on the side of the bed. From the sound, the club below was all but raving tonight.

  She didn’t move.

  Why? Someone else would be in, in a few minutes anyway.

  She no longer cared if they killed her or not. At least then the torture would be over, an end to this hell of a nightmare from which she knew she’d never awaken.

  “Kurva,” he muttered.

  She knew what the Czech insult meant, but didn’t care as she rolled to her side, heard the snap of the used condom, the slide of his clothing, the rip of his zipper. She could smell his expensive Armani cologne, his heavy cigars, over the stench of the room, of used sex and rancid bodies.

  Sex sold. Always had, always would.

  He muttered something else and pulled the threadbare blanket over her, its dirty material stiff and musty against her skin. She might not understand the words, but the tone was easily enough understood. He slapped her hard before walking away. She didn’t even try to evade. His expensive shoes thumped on the bare wooden floor as he walked to the door. Red haze slashed across the bed from the open doorway. She heard the girl in the room, crib, next to hers crying. Women were always crying here. For a while. Forever.

  At least it was simply crying and not the tortured screams that the basement walls drank into their mortar. She would hear those screams even after she died.

  Don’t think about that . . . Not that . . .

  She didn’t look at him as he walked out the door. When it clicked shut, she sat up and looked around her room.

  The dingy cracked window let in more cold air. She rose and stumbled to it. Bars obstructed her view of the old Czech city in winter. From here, she could see the street below, the city square in the distance with St. Nicholas spearing up, calling forth the weary. The church might as well have been another planet. A car zoomed by below and another. People going about their lives. Did they know what they were so close to? Did they know of the slaves? Did they care, or know many of the women here didn’t want to be here? Would kill to be free?

  Biting December winds snaked through and around the small window. Wallpaper, yellowed and stained, probably with blood or semen or God only knew what, was peeled and ripped in places, hung down in others.

  She didn’t care.

  Caring would mean she’d have to face where she was. Another whimpering cry echoed through the thin walls. She tried to ignore it.

  Another new girl. The vague curiosity of who the newbie was flittered across her mind, but it hardly mattered. American, British, French, Romanian, Croatian, Armenian, Italian, it didn’t matter. They liked girls here. Any age, any nationality, then again, any sex too. She’d seen the young men and boys down the street in another house.

  The window was cool against her forehead.

  This place gave them all a commonality. Humility. Shame. Though she knew the club owners did like the few Western women in their hold. It gave them a chance to demean and humiliate those who thought they were too good for places like this. Those who, in their normal suburban, SUV-driving, environmentally conscience, latté-drinking lives did not know hells like this still existed.

  She had no idea how many Western women were here. She knew of two, maybe three of them for certain. There were women, and young men, from all over, mostly from war-savaged Eastern Europe. Others had simply been the lost, too forgotten for anyone to notice they were missing.

  It didn’t matter.

  Blood and nationality were stripped away. Status and wealth meant nothing here.

  They were all the same.

  They were all whores.

  If she had anything left inside her, she might cry, but her tears had been beaten out of her, even drugged out of her, terrorized out of her long ago. Or it seemed long ago.

  She’d had no idea of the month, though she now knew it was December because one of the johns told her Merry Christmas. When she’d looked at him blankly, he’d muttered it gutturally in English. He’d been pretending he was Saint Nicholas. She hoped his dick rotted off.

  She’d last known it was the end of October because of the Czech Independence celebrations that had lasted all night with revelries in the streets. Then again, here, things tended to last all night anyway.

  The light this time of year was a bit softer, the air colder. Though the last time she’d smelled clean air, seen an unbarred sky, was weeks and weeks and weeks ago. It could be Christmas today for all she knew.

  The cracked dirty glass was cold against her forehead. She ran her forefinger over the crack.

  November . . . December . . . Lots of embers here for her. There was no way out, no way out. There was a reason these places were historically called hells.

  The afterlife held no fear for her.
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  She already burned. Burned with hatred at what was done to her. With pain they liked to arbitrarily inflict. With shame at what she couldn’t control.

  At least they only used beatings and fear on her. Some were punished on drugs, addicted in the end and sooner or later died. What better way to control someone than to hold what they needed. It was all part of Mikhail’s punishment. He liked to use drugs as a punishment, just enough to get a girl hooked, and then take them away.

  And right now, she wondered if it would be better in this hell if she went floating and jittering through on a fog of addiction.

  Her hands shook as the hatred welled up in her. At herself. She was stronger than this, wasn’t she? Or was she? She no longer knew who she was.

  Some part of her, some small part that she tried to ignore, knew, knew the drugs were simply a way for the bastards to control the girls more, a way to keep them in line and a way to make more money. Mikhail could easily keep the money for a screw, a job, and give enough dope to keep a girl doing anything for the next fix.

  Need six cocks sucked?

  Fine, so long as the fix came.

  No, drugs were not for her. That would make it easier for her, and God knew Mikhail didn’t want it to be easy. Especially not for her. A hit of X would make her actually enjoy what was going on, and Mikhail wouldn’t allow that . . .

  Fear trickled through her at the thought of what Mikhail was capable of, but it was quickly swallowed by a short burst of hatred, black and roiling, clawing up in her.

  She hated herself to the point that the idea of breaking the window and slicing her wrists held a bright ray of hope.

  Bright rays?

  Hope?

  There was neither for her. She was either too strong or too weak to kill herself. Like everything else in her life, she was in some fogged limbo.

  A knock sounded before Dame came in.

  “You should be cleaned and dressed.”

  She should. “When’s my next appointment?”

  Dame made a noise in her throat. “You don’t have one, yet. Mikhail called.”