Chapter One
Justice
"What happened?" I growl, jogging down the steps of my private jet and out onto the tarmac at a private airstrip on the outskirts of Cheyenne. We touched down just in time. Clouds move rapidly across the overcast sky, threatening torrential rain. Most other air traffic is already being rerouted around the storm. That wouldn't have stopped me from landing.
My nineteen-year-old niece is missing.
Not a fucking thing on this earth would have kept my pilot from obeying my command to get me here. Ainsley hasn't been anywhere without security since she was a little girl. Keeping her safe has been my responsibility since she was seven.
It's one I take seriously.
She lost her parents because of me. I'll be damned if I let someone take her life too.
"Miss Foster was visiting Miss Cooper," Travis Jessup, my head of security says, his jaw clenched tight as he falls into step beside me. "Van, Everett, and Willis waited outside as previously instructed. An hour into the visit, Willis rapped on the door to check on her. Miss Cooper claimed Miss Foster was in the bathroom. At the next check in, she still hadn't materialized. He made entry to check the residence, but Miss Foster was nowhere to be found. Miss Cooper finally admitted that Miss Foster snuck out the back shortly after arriving."
"How the fuck did she get past the three of them?"
"Ah, I believe Miss Foster climbed the back wall of the estate grounds," he says and then coughs. He's no more thrilled about Ainsley running off than I am. He's known her since she was in pigtails. "Miss Cooper had her car waiting on the other side."
"Milan," I growl, though I'm not surprised she had a hand in this. Milan Cooper goes out of her way to piss me off, just because she knows I'll let her get away with it. She's the only one. No one else is stupid enough to cross me.
I know what people say about me. They think I'm cold, merciless, demanding…a real bastard. They're half right. I'm the monster other monsters fear. The one they wish they could become. I may have gone legitimate over a decade ago, but blood doesn't wash clean just because you don a thousand-dollar suit. Expensive fabric stains too…and there aren't many crimes I didn't commit back then. My hands are still red with the blood of my brother and his wife, who were gunned down in vengeance because of me.
My soul was black long before Milan was born. That doesn't stop her from pushing every button I've got. She thinks she's a lion. I know better. She's a harmless kitten. She may scratch and hiss and claw, but underneath all that attitude, she's soft. She fights like hell to hide it, but I see it. I see her.
She's an innocent little princess…and I'm the fucked-up beast who jerks off to thoughts of her every night. She's nineteen-years-old, my niece's best friend. And I want to alternately tie her to my bed and spank her pretty ass until she's begging for mercy and lay the entire world at her feet.
My little princess needs a daddy to rein her in before she goes too far and gets herself hurt.
I wish like hell I could be that man. She's been my obsession since I first laid eyes on her. And she has no idea just how deep that obsession runs. The men who follow her every move just to keep me from losing my mind with worry for her. The cameras that watch her. The pictures I have of her. The tattoos. No, she doesn't know those things. She would have ripped my balls off long ago if she knew.
Since the day Ainsley brought her home for the first time, she's been alone. She lives in a mansion with memories of the mom who died when she was a baby and the useless shell of the man her death left behind. Her father neglects the hell out of her. The only reason I haven't killed the bastard for it is because I know it would break Milan's heart. She still loves him even though he doesn't deserve it.
Her house is the one place in this entire city where Ainsley's security guards aren't allowed to follow. I expect them to wait outside because the thought of any of them inside Milan's space pisses me off. Clearly, I fucked up when I made that rule. Because my niece is now missing. And Milan helped her escape.
I intend to find out why. Ainsley never asks for anything, never wants for anything. I can't even begin to fathom what prompted her to run off. If it's a boy, I may kill him. Ainsley is…different. Innocent. She saw what happened to her parents the day they were murdered. The only reason she escaped the same fate is because her mom hid her in a closet. When I found her, she was terrified. She didn't speak for months. She didn't sleep either. Every night for a year, she woke up screaming the walls down.
I spent every single night sleeping in a chair outside her bedroom door. Her nightmares were my burden to carry, not hers. Julian tried to warn me that we were going too far, but I didn't listen. Wade Carruthers had mineral deposits on his land, and I wanted them. So I took his ranch and bankrupted him. I didn't care that he had a long history of violence. I didn't care that he didn't want to sell. I didn't care about anything other than getting what I wanted.
Ainsley is the one who paid the price. My need to succeed at all costs never should have touched her. Instead, it slaughtered her family. Wade shot her parents in cold blood before turning the gun on himself. Ainsley lost everything because of me.
I'll live with the guilt for the rest of my life. I made a vow that it would never happen again, that she would be safe. If anything happens to her, I will tear this city apart brick by brick.
"That's not all," Travis warns me.
I bite back a curse, not in the mood for more bad news.
"Miss Cooper pitched a fit when we tried to question her," he says. "She gave Willis a black eye and busted his lip."
"Did he touch her?" I growl, my blood pressure shooting even higher.
"He would never strike a woman," Travis says, his voice firm.
"Did he put his fucking hands on her?" I ask, clenching my hands into fists to keep from putting one around Travis's throat to choke my answer out of him. If Willis touched her, there will be hell to pay. No one puts their hands on Milan. No one looks at her. No one even thinks about her.