Death's Desire, page 1
Death’s Desire
Club Apocalypse
Book Four
Raisa Greywood
© 2023 Raisa Greywood LLC
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise - without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is unintended and entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Wicked Smart Designs.
Editing provided by Red Quill Editing LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-952596-21-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-952596-22-3
Playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ueEesSNfD4RGqTZA9nwsi?si=faa8de3700d743e7
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About Raisa Greywood
Also by Raisa Greywood
Wicked Truth - Minette Moreau
Prologue
Sean
Gabby’s ass twitched as she walked toward the bathroom, making Sean want to trace the ornate tattoos covering her hip and thigh with his tongue. Rainbow hair trailed down her back, brushing the cute dimples at the base of her spine. The blinding multicolored hair still seemed odd to him. According to the neatly trimmed landing strip on her pussy, she was a platinum blonde.
“I trust you’ll return to your own room before I finish,” she murmured as she glanced over her shoulder at him.
“Just like always.”
When the bathroom door shut behind her, he fell back against the pillows and sighed. They went through this nearly every morning, and he was beginning to feel like a bar hookup she’d chew off her arm to escape.
She’d let him fuck her six ways from Sunday, but the minute he started talking about taking their relationship public and letting her be the little he knew hid inside, she would shut him down—and he let it happen.
Every. Single. Fucking. Night.
He’d never met anyone so insular and had no idea why he kept coming back for more. There were other women. He even knew more than a few who needed a Daddy Dom.
“I’m an idiot,” he muttered to himself. Still grumbling, he got up and dressed in the previous night’s clothes, then crept across the apartment to the kitchen for coffee. Fuck, it wasn’t even four in the morning. Until Gabby, he’d given up the dawn patrol the minute he left the Navy.
Not even Jake was awake, and he was usually in the restaurant kitchen before five to get the breakfast service going. Then again, Olivia was in town. She was busting her ass, studying for finals, and didn’t have much time to spare, but she always flew in on Friday after class to spend the weekend with Jake. Fortunately, she’d accepted Kendra’s job offer, so she’d be at Club Apocalypse permanently in less than a month. They’d needed a full-time accountant for some time, and even with a third-party vendor, Kendra couldn’t keep up with it forever.
Jake wasn’t the only one who wanted to keep Olivia close. With her cousin dead and her drug conviction overturned, she was probably safe, but they weren’t taking any chances.
That led him to the real reason he spent his nights with Gabby. She’d been specifically targeted with a bounty big enough to tempt a small-time crook. Had they thought she was an easy mark?
Maybe, but easy was the last word he’d use to describe Gabrielle Knox. He’d seen her spar with Sierra. She was vicious and deadly, and just as vulnerable to gunfire as anyone else—like Olivia, who was still getting therapy for her shoulder after taking a bullet meant for him.
He sat at the breakfast bar and sipped his coffee. Olivia’s cousin Berto had mentioned Sean by name before someone put a thirty-caliber round in his brain, meaning it was personal, and whoever it was didn’t want Berto to talk. Sean wondered if he was the sole target, or if someone was going after all the Horsemen.
Worse, whoever was after them was involving innocent people. He couldn’t say Berto’s gang, or the Shepherds of the Coming Peace cult were exactly innocent, but he was almost certain the two groups had been used as cat’s paws.
They’d all made enemies during their service. Gun runners, warlords with delusions of grandeur, terrorists… If he included the families of those people, the possibilities were endless, and he had no idea where to start looking. He hated the thought, but he’d almost considered asking Nicolo Bianchi for help.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the insufferable Italian was gone. He’d disappeared without a word to anyone but had left several guards for Gabby—not that she needed them since she never left the property. No, she spent her days staring at half a dozen computer screens and didn’t go to bed until he fucked her unconscious. Even then, she was up after only a few hours and didn’t even eat unless he forced her.
What did she see in those lines of code? He wasn’t a bad programmer, but the sheer volume of information on those screens staggered him. Sometimes, he thought she worked on the children’s games representing her bread and butter, but those weren’t even half. Hell, the woman’s sandbox computer for offline testing should have been considered a weapon of war.
If she ever put that thing online…
He shuddered, remembering the one time she’d hooked it up to an old laptop he’d intended to donate to the women’s shelter in Flagstaff. She’d sent it a single subroutine, and in less than ten minutes, the laptop caught fire. Of course, Gabby being Gabby, she’d giggled and danced around like a ferret on cocaine while he put the fire out, then donated a dozen new ones to the shelter.
He’d been right about her the day they met. She was a very dangerous woman, but contrary to what he’d originally thought, she was using her powers for good.
He hoped so anyway.
Sighing, he rested his forehead on the heels of his hands. He’d been an ass to her back then, and she hadn’t deserved it. At least he’d apologized.
Her bedroom door opened, surprising him from his funk. Instead of the pink plush onesie with cat ears and bunny slippers he’d come to expect as her normal work attire, she wore a tailored black pantsuit and heels Kendra would have salivated over. All her piercings were gone, and she’d covered her hair with an expertly wrapped hijab. Even the visible ink on her hands had been hidden with makeup. More strangely, she wore a plain gold band on her left ring finger.
He didn’t believe she was married. Not for a single minute. But what if he was wrong?
She looked professional and elegant, yet he hated it. It wasn’t her, and he missed the flamboyant color that reflected her personality. “What’s the occasion?” he asked.
Instead of answering right away, she poured herself a cup of coffee and drank it without the chocolate milk and sugar she usually took.
“Gabby?”
“I have a video conference, then I’ll be leaving for a few days. It might be as long as a week.”
He resisted the urge to tell her no. She wasn’t his little, and he had no business stopping her from doing whatever she wanted. “Where to?”
“I have business in Dubai.”
His Spidey senses tingled. Even if he could manage to ignore the clothes, her entire persona had changed, right down to her accent. The thick brogue was almost gone, replaced with a clipped Oxford drawl.
Even her destination was suspect. While Dubai was friendly territory, it was close to places that weren’t. Many were downright dangerous for a woman traveling by herself too.
“With whom?”
Her smile was the only thing vaguely familiar. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve sworn he was talking to a stranger.
“I’m afraid that’s none of your concern, Mr. Franklin. It has nothing to do with you or Club Apocalypse.”
“Meeting with your cuckolded husband?”
Frowning, she cocked her head. “I beg your pardon?”
“The wedding ring. That’s a new addition to your jewelry.”
He fucking hated how jealous he sounded. At best, they were frenemies who scratched an itch. She wasn’t his, and if she belonged to someone else, that brave soul had Sean’s sympathies.
“It’s from a discount store. I’m not married, but it’s easier to do business when I’m thought to be.”
“Good point.” He finished his coffee and rinsed the cup, wondering how much of what she said was the truth. “I’m going back to bed. Have a safe trip.”
“Thank you. It’s sure to be…productive.”
He nodded and went to his room, then waited until he heard her return to hers. Keeping his
Why, after weeks, had she suddenly decided to take a trip to the Middle East? Aside from that, what business was so critical that it required a personal visit? None of it sat well.
He stilled, hearing her side of what was probably a phone call. Although her accent was atrocious and she stumbled over several words, Gabrielle Knox was speaking Farsi. He kicked himself for not learning more while in Afghanistan, but there was no help for it now.
When the conversation ended, he hurried back to his room, his anger growing with every step. He had no idea what she was doing, but it was going to stop. He didn’t care what it took. People were getting hurt, and it started after her arrival.
Content to bide his time, he let her leave without comment.
But when she came back…
Things were going to change.
1
Gabby
After boarding the aircraft, she plopped into the leather captain’s chair and kicked off her shoes before fastening her seatbelt. Sean Franklin was becoming a problem.
More precisely, her reaction to him was inconvenient at best. He was distracting her, and that couldn’t happen anymore. Too many pieces were falling into place, and she needed to keep her distance along with what was left of her wits.
Already, she’d gotten too close. She’d allowed herself to feel things neither of them could afford—especially when she was so close to her goal. Worse, he’d been targeted because of his relationship with her, but she couldn’t figure out how anyone had found out. She’d been so careful; not even the other Horsemen knew.
At least, she thought she’d been careful.
He’d make someone an amazing Daddy someday. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be her—no matter how much she wanted to crawl into his lap and let him fix everything.
Some things were beyond repair, though, and she was one of them. Despite that, she couldn’t help a surge of jealousy when she thought of the little who would eventually call him Daddy.
It was simply intolerable, and she didn’t have time for messy feelings about a man she didn’t even like most days.
“May I bring you a cocktail before we take off, Dr. Knox?”
Hiding her flinch of surprise, she smiled at Alfred, her butler and oldest friend. “Just coffee, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She sighed but didn’t protest the formal address. Alfred’s name used to be Dennis—back in the day when he wore denim and leather and had more knives concealed on his person than she had tattoos. He’d shed it all, along with his old name, because butlers were not named Dennis, nor did they carry knives.
Proper butlers were called Alfred, of course. They wore bespoke suits and starched white shirts with cufflinks and perfectly knotted ties to hide prison tattoos. Their white gloves concealed scarred knuckles. They did not curse, nor did their carefully modulated voices reveal any hint of the streets when they called their employers ma’am and sir.
Perhaps it was unkind to judge him so. He wasn’t the only one who had created a new life. They’d both changed, but sometimes, she missed the scrappy bloke he used to be. At least he’d found himself a wonderful partner. His husband, Peter, was a delight, and it made her heart happy to see the love in their eyes when they looked at each other.
Alfred returned quickly with a silver coffee service and poured for her, but she wished she’d asked for one of the steel travel mugs she’d gotten used to. She’d be less likely to spill it everywhere, but he would have had apoplexy.
She took a sip and nodded. As usual, it was perfect. “I’ve missed your coffee.”
“That’s very kind of you to say, ma’am. Will that be all?”
“Yes, thank you.”
When he returned to the galley to prepare for departure, she retrieved her laptop from its case and let it connect to the inflight Wi-Fi. Although encrypted, it was perhaps not the most secure way to browse the internet. Unfortunately, she was running out of time and options.
Club Apocalypse had been bait. Someone had dangled a tasty clue in front of her face, and she’d snapped it up like a fish after a damselfly. She’d put innocent people in danger because of her hubris, and it had cost her a bloody fortune.
Worse, she knew barely a handful of people with the skills and resources necessary to create such a tangle of destruction. It went beyond hacking a small American resort property of no great value into human trafficking, arms deals, and terrorist activity. She counted many of the possible perpetrators as friends.
Which of them was it? Ella and Cristian, with their new baby, perhaps? Cristian was a possibility. The Moretti clan had been involved in such things in the past, but Ella had put a stop to the more salubrious aspects of their business. She’d been rather firm about it too.
Maybe it was Adriano and Lauren Costa. They had the wealth and connections but were focused more on expanding JoJo’s, Lauren’s steakhouse in Connecticut.
Nicolo Bianchi was smart enough, but he lacked the assets necessary to compete at that level—unless he was working with someone else. He was quite morally gray at times, yet she doubted he’d risk the fallout if he was caught. If even a hint of scandal attached itself to him, he’d not only lose a very lucrative career as a financial adviser to the world’s wealthiest people, he’d likely lose his life as well.
She didn’t like to think of any of her closest friends being involved and wasn’t sure she could do what would need to be done if they were. Then again, there were no friends on that playing field—only enemies.
Maybe it was someone she didn’t know. Some new competitor in the business of international crime and finance—which, in her experience, often went hand in hand. Had she stepped on someone’s toes?
The thought didn’t make her unhappy. There was nothing she liked better, yet she drew the line when it involved innocents. Unfortunately, even her contacts in Dubai had no information for her, despite their exorbitant retainer. Mogadishu, her next stop, wouldn’t be as safe, but her presence might shake someone down into talking.
Pushing the uncomfortable thoughts aside, she slipped into the dark web to check the bounty boards. Sean’s was gone, but she frowned when she found hers. It wasn’t the half million Berto Rivera had mentioned. He’d rounded down a touch.
“Five hundred two thousand, five hundred and seven dollars? That’s oddly specific happy prime number fuckery.” It was just a number, albeit a fun one. She often calculated primes in her head when her brain needed something mindless to chew on, but had always kept it to herself. People already thought she’d be the one to develop world domination computers. There was no sense giving them more ammunition.
It was silly, really. Computers were ill-suited to the vagaries of human behavior. Even with recent developments in AI, they’d crash in an instant and beg for people to fix them. The nascent electronic overlords had her deepest sympathies. Humans were aggravating and perplexing on a good day.
There had to be some significance to the number. She didn’t believe it had been chosen randomly.
“All right, friend.” She double-checked her IP mask and logged a new bounty using the next closest Fibonacci prime. “Shall we play a game?”
“Dr. Knox?”
She took off her glasses and blinked up at Alfred. “Sorry, what?”
“I’m afraid our departure has been declined. A federal marshal wishes a word with you.”
How had she not noticed her plane hadn’t taken off? As usual, she’d been too lost in a puzzle to pay attention to her surroundings, but it was one more bit of evidence that she was losing her touch.
