"Fuck, I'm going to kill that bastard," Aiden vowed.
"Not if I get to him first."
"So why are you telling me this now?"
"Because the situation is heating up, and Davenport is wily. I have a whole team out here in California with me trying to get enough dirt on him to put him behind bars, but he's making new threats. The closer we get to him, the more he's feeling the heat and the more dangerous he gets. I have the girls on lockdown at my loft, where I know they're safe. I have a guard with them 24/7, and Markus is staying down there with them while I'm out of town. Still, I decided I'd feel better with you knowing what's going on. Maybe do a drive-by. Check in on them after you get off work. That kind of thing. I know you hate the idea of seeing her at The Punishment Pit, but you could visit Tiff up in our loft. You're welcome to even stay over in one of the guest rooms while I'm out of town," Lukus offered.
The silence stretched between the men for so long, Lukus wondered if they'd been disconnected.
"Why me? You know I hate you, right?" Aiden said at length.
"Yeah, I know. But I also know you love Tiffany enough that you'd give your life for her. Right now, that makes you a damn fine bodyguard."
Aiden's awkward chuckle was the first sign that he might be softening to Lukus. "You'd just love it if I got plugged, wouldn't you?"
Lukus didn't joke back. "Unfortunately, no. I know you don't believe me, but Tiffany's safety and happiness are all I care about. She loves you. You make her happy, so that means that, like it or not, I'm gonna play nice with you until you realize how much I love your sister."
Silence stretched between the men again until Aiden asked, "So, you gonna give me a code to get in, or what?"
"I already programmed one for you. I'll text it to you." Lukus was about to hang up when he snuck in a final thought. "And, Aiden... thanks."
"Don't thank me yet. I'm still not sold on this whole marriage thing."
Lukus finally chuckled. "Yeah, well, I guess I can't blame you. If you'd have told me a few months ago that I'd fall in love and be getting married, I'd have thought it was crazy, too."
Chapter Four
Dylan
The scream of the naked woman being tortured filled the interior of Dylan Parker's rental car as he sat outside the Four Seasons hotel. He wasn't sure what had compelled him to fill the boring hours spent doing surveillance in his car by watching the very websites being broadcast from inside the seedy warehouse owned by their mark.
He was intimately aware of the heinous actions being perpetrated against the unfortunate women working inside the windowless building they'd been watching round the clock for the last few weeks. The fact that most of the employees voluntarily entered and exited the warehouse, as if they were going to work on a production line versus participating in sex for hire, didn't make what happened inside seem any less depraved to Dylan.
On the screen of his iPad, an overweight man in his forties was applying brutal nipple clamps to the pebbled tits of a twenty-something blonde who looked like she could have been the prom queen or perhaps the head cheerleader of her high school just a few years before. She'd fallen from her glory days, taking a wrong turn as she'd chased fame and fortune. Dylan wondered what was going through the woman's mind as she lay tied across a piece of heavy wooden furniture with one purpose; holding victims immobile so they could be punished, humiliated, and eventually fucked by dominant men acting at the direction of paying customers.
This site was just one of the many sites under Jake Davenport's lucrative 'Strictly Disciplined' umbrella of sexually explicit websites featuring live, hardcore discipline sessions in return for hefty subscription fees.
The thought that hundreds, possibly thousands, of assholes were sitting at home in their dark dens, their dicks in their hands, getting off on the tears and sobs of the not-so-innocent woman on the screen turned Dylan's stomach.
The fact that his own cock strained for release from his too-tight jeans as he played voyeur pissed him off.
He'd tried to talk to his brother, Derek, about it earlier, but in the end hadn't found the words. Dylan just couldn't reconcile how close the activities on the tablet's screen were to those his brother and sister-in-law participated in at The Punishment Pit back in Chicago.
A loud, late-model Corvette pulled into the parking lot and dragged his attention away from the flogging on the screen. Dylan went on high alert, recognizing the devil's car boldly parking beside the employee entrance of the Four Seasons hotel.
"Shit," he whispered to the empty car. The arrival of Jake Davenport had screwed up his plan to approach their prime witness as she left her part-time job. Dylan wasn't sure how he knew, but Hannah Martine was the key to their investigation. She was different from every other woman they'd seen interacting with their mark.
Dylan had only worked for Lukus Mitchell's security firm for a few weeks, but he was in complete agreement with his boss that Jake Davenport needed to be in jail, and the sooner the better. Hannah was going to give them the break they were looking for. He was sure of it.
He was about to exit his car to go in and escort Hannah out to safety, when the employee entrance opened and the
