Betrayal Read online

  Betrayal

  Corrupt Empire

  Book 1

  Sarah Bailey

  Betrayal Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Bailey

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Please note the spelling throughout is British English.

  Cover Art by V Designs

  Published by Twisted Tree Publications

  www.twistedtreepublications.com

  [email protected]

  Titles by Sarah Bailey

  Corrupt Empire

  Betrayal

  Sacrifice

  Revenge

  After Dark

  Demon’s Destiny

  Vampire’s Kiss

  Witching Night

  Cursed Heart

  Death’s Angel

  Lucifer’s Cage

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  Sarah’s Sultry Sinners

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  This book is dedicated to Elizabeth Bailey.

  She inspired me to become a writer and none of this would be possible without her help, support and guidance.

  Thank you for everything.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Prologue

  Avery

  Lying here, handcuffed to the bed, my eyes blindfolded, ankles bound, I wait for him.

  This isn’t a story of love, sunshine and roses. This is a story of betrayal, murder, lust and deceit.

  My name is Avery Daniels. I am the heir to my parents’ fortune and their multi-billion pound property empire.

  The clock in the hall ticks. The only other sound in the air is my breathing. This game is one I play willingly. How I came to be lying in his bed. In the bed of the man who broke me. Who ruined my life. Who stole my future.

  It all started one dark night. The last night I saw my family. The night I met him. The only man to haunt my every moment.

  I am the heiress who disappeared without a trace.

  This is my story.

  Mine.

  And his.

  Chapter One

  Avery

  The sound of laughter rang through the kitchen as my mum prepared dinner and my father set the table. We last had a chance to do this months ago. Multi-billionaire parents with a huge global company to run meant I didn’t get to see them often.

  “Sweetie, can you pass the pepper?” my mum, Kathleen, said.

  I liked to help her cook. Ever since I’d been a kid. I grabbed the pepper grinder and tossed it to her. She grinned, her blue eyes glinting. I’d taken after my father in the looks department. Hazel eyes and dark hair, although my father’s was greying at the sides now. I told him it made him look distinguished.

  Mitchell Daniels was head of Daniels Holdings. A company my great-grandfather built from the ground up, mostly dealing in property development. And little old me, the heir. I’m sure my father wished for a son, but he’d never made me feel inadequate for being a woman. Things between us were a little weird sometimes. Especially when it came to the company. I tried to avoid discussions about it with him these days.

  “Dad, did Mum tell you I’m going to Antigua with Gert in a couple of weeks what with it being half term?”

  “No. I’m sure sun, sea and sand is what both of you need,” he replied with a smile.

  My best friend, Gertrude, was doing Management Science at UCL. I was studying Architecture. The only part of the property industry I had any interest in. I’d always been good at drawing. It was my real passion.

  “James not going with you?” Mum asked.

  “No, he’s got stuff with his dad.”

  James Benson, the son of Zachary Benson, the famous, but reclusive designer and fashion mogul, was my other closest friend. We’d been inseparable growing up, always in and out of each other’s houses. His siblings were almost like the ones I’d never had.

  “Avery, can you get the glasses out of the cupboard?” Dad asked.

  I turned, going up on my tiptoes to reach the top shelf and pulled out three wine glasses. One slipped out of my hand and crashed to the floor.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mum said. “Just get the dustpan.”

  I moved away, careful not to step in the glass with my bare feet and snagged it from under the sink. I bent down and started to sweep up.

  “Don’t move an inch,” a deep voice I didn’t recognise said.

  I looked up at Mum. Her face hardened. She mouthed to me ‘stay down’. My hands stilled.

  “Walk around the counter slowly,” the voice said.

  It sent a chill down my spine. Void of all emotion. Cold as steel.

  Mum complied, sending me another warning look before she disappeared.

  What is going on?

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “We can discuss this calmly like adults. Just put the gun down,” Dad said.

  Gun. He has a gun. My heartbeat kicked up a notch. My palms began to sweat. Why did this stranger have a gun? And what did he want with my parents?

  “Funny, Mitchell, you lost the right to negotiate the moment you took something that never belonged to you.”

  Took what?

  Nothing made sense. I needed to see for myself. I carefully placed the pan on the floor and crawled towards the counter, edging along to the end. Peering around, I found both my parents with their hands up. The man holding the gun wore no mask. My breath caught in my throat.

  I’d never described a man as beautiful before. There was no other word for him. His light brown hair, short at the sides and longer on top, was neatly styled. Grey eyes glinted under the soft kitchen lights. His dark suit clung to him in all the right places, tailored to absolute perfection. It left no doubt he was all hard muscle underneath. An avenging angel. Except this angel had a gun pointed at my dad’s head.

  Self-preservation made me freeze. If I alerted him to my presence, it wouldn’t help anyone. I ignored the voice in my head telling me the real reason I couldn’t move had more to do with how awestruck I was by the gun-wielding stranger.

  Thanks, brain. Not!

  “Look, can’t we put all of that behind us? It’s been over twenty years,” Dad said.

  The angel’s expression didn’t change. Cold, almost calculating. I
t sent chills running down my spine. Terrifying and beautiful at the same time. A deadly combination.

  “No.”

  There was no other warning. Two shots fired in quick succession. The sound rang in my ears. My parents collapsed one after the other. I put a hand over my mouth, stifling a scream. He’d shot them right between the eyes. There was no question in my mind. They were dead.

  Dead.

  The word stuck in my head.

  Dead.

  Dead.

  Blood poured out of the back of their heads, pooling on the wooden floor beneath them. Their chests were still, unmoving. Tears pricked at my eyes.

  My parents were dead.

  Dead.

  I looked at the angel again. He stared right at me. The surprise in his eyes faded after a second. I fell back onto my hands as I tried to scramble away.

  “No, please,” I whispered.

  He didn’t raise the gun to me. His lip twitched. I backed up right into the counter behind me, putting my hands up.

  “Please don’t kill me.”

  In five long strides, he stood before me. His very presence made my heart hammer erratically in my chest. I could hear it loud and clear in my ears. Up close, I got a real sense of just how tall and well-built he was, muscles rippled under his suit jacket as he moved.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” he said, his voice quiet. “But you and I are going to have a little talk.”

  I nodded slowly. I’d just seen him murder my parents. The likelihood of him letting me go was slim to none. I doubted he’d counted on having a witness.

  He squatted down until we were eye level. Those grey eyes cold and yet so beautiful.

  “You shouldn’t have seen this.”

  “Why… why did you kill my parents?” I whispered, almost unable to get the words out.

  “They weren’t good people, Avery.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  He cocked his head to the side.

  “Everyone knows who you are.”

  He wasn’t wrong. I’d been photographed countless times by the press and had my name plastered all over social media. Still, he didn’t seem like the type of person to browse tabloids.

  Why did he know who I was?

  Why did he do this?

  His expression told me he felt no remorse for killing my parents. They’d known who he was.

  Why?

  I had too many questions. And I didn’t think I was going to get many answers out of this man.

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  He stared at me for the longest moment without answering. My skin prickled. I was struck again by just how beautiful he was.

  Get a grip!

  You don’t crush on the guy who just murdered your parents. Normal people don’t go around with guns. He wasn’t a good guy. Nothing about him was soft or welcoming. Nothing at all. My brain was playing tricks on me. I was just in shock. That had to be it.

  He reached out, grabbing me by my neck and pulling me up to my feet with him.

  “Who are you?” I whispered when he didn’t let go.

  “Your worst nightmare.”

  A sharp pain erupted from the back of my head and radiated outwards. The last thing I remember before passing out was those steel grey eyes and his expression. Regret.

  l

  My head hurt. It was the first thing I registered when I came to. I shivered, a chill seeping into my veins. I opened my eyes. Darkness encompassed me.

  Where was I?

  What happened to me?

  The knowledge my parents were dead came flooding back, causing my heart to shatter into a million tiny pieces. I put a hand to my chest, just to reassure myself it was still intact. Thinking about my parents wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I didn’t have time to grieve. I needed to know where I was.

  I sat up, wincing, and felt the back of my head. A bump had formed.

  Well, that’s just fan-fucking-tastic.

  There was no light at all around me. My eyes had nothing to adjust to. Only darkness. I shifted, freezing when I heard the distinct sound of clinking across the floor. I felt down my legs until I found a metal cuff around my ankle connected to a chain.

  It hit me all at once. The avenging angel had hit me over the head and taken me. Now, I was chained up in a room with no windows, no lights and nothing but the cold floor to sit on. The man I’d thought beautiful was exactly what he said. My worst nightmare. Did he know I wasn’t a fan of the dark?

  The chain dragged across the floor as I struggled to my feet. Putting my hands out, I tried to get a sense of the layout of wherever he’d put me. My hands met a wall.

  Left or right?

  I went right, feeling my way across. I hit a corner. I moved with it until my fingers met metal. It was a doorway. The only way in and out. I banged on it as hard as I could.

  “Let me out!”

  Even knowing it was useless, I tried anyway. I hit the door over and over again until my fist hurt and my hand began to feel sticky. I slid down the door, feeling my knuckles. I’d split them.

  Tears pricked at my eyes. I didn’t have it in me to dash them away when they started to fall. I put my unhurt hand to my mouth as a sob escaped my lips.

  It was useless. The entire thing. I’d known the moment I saw him, he was bad news. He killed my parents without a second thought. Who does that? He must’ve had some reason. What had he said? My dad had taken something that didn’t belong to him, but what?

  The unanswerable questions again, brain? Not helpful.

  Tears fell harder. I couldn’t hold back any longer. Ripping my hand away, I screamed.

  “Let me the fuck out of here!”

  Silence.

  I expected nothing less.

  I crawled away from the door and huddled in the middle of the room on the floor. I stopped caring my fist was bleeding. The pain reminded me I was still alive. Still breathing. I let the waves of sorrow overcome me.

  My parents.

  Gone.

  The two people who’d loved me, cared for me, made sure I could have anything I ever dreamed of.

  Gone.

  How long I lay there, sobbing until I couldn’t cry any longer, was beyond me. I heard the sound of locks turning and bolts sliding back. The door opened. The light streaming in through the doorway hurt my eyes. I didn’t look up, curling my arms tighter around my legs.

  “Get up.”

  The same cold voice rang in my ears. I hated him already. Hated how helpless and terrified his presence made me feel. I wasn’t going to let him get to me. I had to be strong.

  “Do I have to repeat myself?”

  I didn’t respond. What the hell could I even say? I didn’t know what he wanted. All I knew is he took my parents from me and chained me up like a dog. I heard his footsteps until they stopped right next to my head.

  “Get up.”

  Seconds ticked by. I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want any of this. I knew he’d squatted down next to me because the next moment, he grabbed my injured hand and tried to tug it away from my legs. I cried out, pain radiating from my knuckles. He turned my hand over in his.

  “What did you do to yourself?” he muttered.

  “Don’t touch me,” I hissed, pulling my hand from his grasp.

  I cradled it to my chest, still refusing to look his way. The sound of his footsteps echoed in my ears. I peeked out. He’d left but hadn’t shut the door behind him. A blank white wall lay beyond. I had no energy to pick myself up and investigate further. It wouldn’t have done me any good anyway. The chain on my leg prevented me from leaving. At some point, I’d find its limits, but I was in no mood to test it at that moment.

  I turned my face back into my knees. My hand throbbed. I’d been an idiot to hit the door more times than I could count. Hurting myself wouldn’t change my situation.

  Footsteps in the hallway outside alerted me to hi
s presence again. The single lightbulb above us flicked on. The harsh light hurt my eyes further. I’d gotten used to the dark.

  I looked up at him. He was carrying a small box which he placed on the floor next to me. He reached out for my hand. I reared back, pushing my feet against the floor to get away from him until I hit the wall. His expression darkened.

  “Come here.”

  “No. Stay away from me,” I said, sitting up and curling inwards.

  I glared at him from behind my knees. He was wearing an uncollared blue shirt, buttoned up to his neck. I glimpsed the beginnings of a tattoo peeking out from the top of it.

  “I’m only going to say this once. You are going to let me see to your hand without complaint. Then we are going to have a discussion about what’s expected of you. If you argue with me, Daniels, there will be consequences. Ones you won’t enjoy. Are we clear?”

  His tone left no room for questions. No room for disobedience. Nothing. I was expected to obey. He’d called me Avery before. I wasn’t sure why he referred to me by my last name now.

  He picked up the box. I didn’t move as he approached me. He sat next to me and took my hand. Looking over the cuts in the light, his brow furrowed.

  “What did you do?”

  “Hit the door. Repeatedly.”

  His eyes met mine, the disapproval in them making me flinch. He rested my hand on his knee before opening the box. It was full of medical supplies. Carefully, he cleaned my split knuckles. His touch was gentle, completely at odds with his appearance. I wasn’t about to try work him out. Wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. He’d murdered my parents.

  He bandaged my hand when he was done and gave it back to me. I held it to my chest, staring at him with narrowed eyes. He closed the box.

  “Next time you want to hit something, try not to make it a reinforced steel door.”

  “No shit,” I muttered.

  I wasn’t planning on hitting anything else except maybe him.

  He stood up, walking around and standing in front of me. I craned my head up to look at him.