Prologue

Hoping to get some answers, Desmond followed Damian, his twin, into their younger brother Braden's, office. Aside from Damian's darker hair and full-sleeve tattoos, he and Damian were identical with brown eyes and neatly trimmed beards. As usual, Braden was clean-shaven and wearing one of his customary suits.

The suit was probably apropos, considering Braden managed Club BDE. Desmond and Damian were silent partners.

"So, let me get this straight." Damian sat in one of the matching club chairs across from Braden while Desmond took the other. "Delia told you she got an email about the auctions from you?"

"And she thought you set up the auctions instead of giving her and Ivy raises?" Desmond asked.

"That's what she said." Braden scowled and pushed the printed email toward his brothers. "The email went to everyone except the three of us, and it's not in my sent folder. My IT guy, Martin, says the email header was spoofed and routed through a virtual private network."

The Club BDE gossip tree was too well-fertilized to let the auctions die, making it that much harder to put a stop to them.

"Meaning, we can't track it." Desmond studied the email, then passed it to Damian. "Where is Martin anyway?"

"Sick as a dog with some upper respiratory thing, so he's not much use for tracing it." Grimacing, Braden added, "Not that he found anything to begin with, even though I hired him to help prevent this kind of shit from happening. Now, everyone believes the auctions are legitimate because they thought I was sanctioning them."

"And then you made a deal with Killian O'Rourke for information." Desmond rubbed his face and gave his idiot brothers an ugly glare. "It was bad enough for Blake to vouch for his membership. I have no idea what you were thinking when you made a deal with a mob boss. It's like you both were trying to trash the decade Bastian and I spent trying to put him in prison."

Calling each other by their first names was a childish game. Desmond knew it, and so did Damian, but neither one of them wanted to be the first to stop. Hell, Desmond couldn't even remember when it started.

"Did you ever think you might not have found anything on Killian because there isn't anything to find, Bryce?" Damian snapped.

"No, Blake. I never once thought that," Desmond retorted. "He's as dirty as your hands are after a day in your garage."

"Enough." Braden slapped his desk and glared at his brothers. "Yes, I was pissed at Damien for recommending Killian without telling me who he was, but that's on me for not vetting him as thoroughly as I should have. I hired Martin to close that hole in our onboarding procedure. Nobody, no matter who recommends them, gets a membership, guest pass, or employment without a full background check."

"But—"

Braden lifted a hand to cut Desmond off. "Regardless of our personal feelings, Killian doesn't bring his business into the club, and he's an excellent, safe dominant who has never caused a moment's trouble."

"That doesn't mean he won't in the future," Desmond muttered. "For all we know, he's the one running the auctions."

"Killian wouldn't do that," Damian replied. "Well, he might, but he wouldn't hide it behind Club BDE."

Desmond forced his fists to unclench before he punched Damian in the face. "And you know that because you're such good friends with a mob boss, and completely forgot your fucking twin is a cop?"

"I said that's enough. We have bigger issues on our plate," Braden snapped. "Aside from that, Killian got closer to finding the little asshole running the auctions than anyone else, and he's still pissed about coming up empty."

"Fine," Desmond muttered, giving Damian a poisonous sneer. "We'll agree to disagree."

Instead of replying, Damian rolled his eyes and flipped him off.

"Good." Braden stuffed the printed email into his desk drawer. "Moving on. Damian, before Martin got sick, I had him rush the background check on Rio Jimenez. He came up clean, so I'll make him a formal job offer later today."

"Wasn't he the guy who took down Don Graham after Emily maced him?" Desmond asked.

"Yeah. Rio is my neighbor. He's a stand-up guy." Damian cleared his throat, then added, "And he has no criminal record or dealings with criminals. If he takes the job, he'll be working as a security guard."

After a moment's hesitation, Desmond nodded. "Good. We could use another guard or two. I'll go through my contacts and see if we can scare up one more."

"Thank you, Desmond." Braden rested his elbows on his desk and folded his hands. "At least whoever is running the auctions is paying the participants quickly. The money is put into escrow, and tax forms are going out. It's exactly as I'd have done if I was actually hosting the auctions."

"Do we know the company sending the tax forms?" Damian asked.

Braden cursed under his breath and rolled his eyes. "You get three guesses, and the first two don't count."

"Club BDE's accountant?" Desmond asked, tightening his fingers on the arms of his chair. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Serious as the stroke you look like you're about to have," Braden replied.

"Son of a bitch." Damian got to his feet and paced the office. "When I get my hands on that little fucker…"

They nodded in agreement as Braden went to the sideboard and poured three glasses of scotch.

"Whoever is doing this has intimate knowledge of how the club is run," Desmond said after accepting his glass. "Presumably, if they're sending out tax forms, they're also familiar with our accountant. Have you checked with them?"

"Yes, but the information went to them in those spoofed emails," Braden replied.

"It has to be an employee." Damian sipped his drink and nodded approvingly. "But which one? Aside from Martin, who has computer skills like that?"

A lot of money was changing hands, and even though the auctions weren't technically illegal, nobody liked not knowing where it was going. Although most of it went to the people being auctioned, twenty-five percent was being siphoned into someone's pocket.

"Good question," Desmond said. "Since Club BDE isn't paying the participants, I think the tax forms would be evidence of fraud, but I know we'd all prefer to fix this ourselves. I just wish we could find one lead. That's all it would take."

"We'll get it." Braden rose to his feet. "I promise we'll find whoever is running the auctions and make them sorry they ever fucked with the Elliott brothers."