King's Ransom

The third book in the red-hot Kings of Sydney trilogy sees Ajax King kidnapping a rising crime lord’s daughter, Imogen White. His bargaining chip is her innocence, but when all Imogen wants is to feel the raw masculinity of the eldest King, Ajax is tempted to free her from her gilded cage for good...

Decades of being the eldest son of the biggest crime lord in Sydney doesn’t leave a man without scars, and mine run deep. Now I’ll do almost anything to destroy Sydney’s criminal underworld—even kidnap my enemy’s delectable daughter. Imogen White is pristine. Perfect. And if her father won’t leave Sydney for good, then I’ll take the one thing he prizes above all—and make her mine!

Only Imogen isn’t quite the innocent I thought. She wants to be freed from her gilded prison, and damn if she isn’t looking for a little carnal education in return. She’s primal incarnate. Just like me.

But I’m no knight in shining armour. I live cold and hard. I want nothing. I need nothing. The ends always justify the means...and no one—not even a sweet little spitfire like Imogen—will thaw the ice around my cold heart. No one.

Sexy. Passionate. Bold. Discover Harlequin DARE, a new line of fun, edgy and sexually explicit romances for the fearless female.

JACKIE ASHENDEN writes dark, emotional stories with alpha heroes who’ve just got the world to their liking only to have it blown wide apart by their kick-ass heroines. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, the inimitable Dr Jax, two kids and two rats. When she’s not torturing alpha males and their gutsy heroines she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, wasting time on social media or being forced to go mountain biking with her husband. To keep up to date with Jackie’s new releases and other news sign up to her newsletter at jackieashenden.com.

King’s Ransom

Jackie Ashenden

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08689-9

KING’S RANSOM

© 2019 Jackie Ashenden

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the cat.

For absolutely no reason at all.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Ajax

I WAS TEN years old the first time I suspected my father was a criminal.

At thirteen he showed me the truth.

That’s when I decided I was going to take him down. But if you want to take down a man like Augustus King you have to do it right. You can’t leave anything behind. A crime empire is like a Hydra—cut off the head and twenty more sprout.

It took me nearly two decades to cut off every single head. Yet I did. And I put that prick in jail once and for all.

But surviving decades of being the oldest son of the biggest crime lord in Sydney doesn’t leave a man without scars, and mine ran deep.

That was okay, though. Scars were reminders of the big picture and my big picture involved keeping my brothers and my city safe. Staying vigilant for danger. Always on the lookout for threats.

Threats such as William goddamn White, my father’s enemy and the last head of the Hydra.

Dad had been in jail five years and I’d been legit ever since, running one of the fastest growing property development companies in Sydney, and, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t simply cut that head off the way I preferred. Not if I wanted to avoid jail myself.

No, I had to use other methods.

I leaned against the wall of the ballroom of one of Sydney’s top hotels, studying the glittering, couture-wearing crowd all gathered to celebrate the formation of a new charity.

I hadn’t been invited—no one would invite a King to a swanky charity ball like this one—but I’d shown up anyway and they’d been too afraid of me to turn me away.

The King past was something my two brothers and I were trying to overcome, but it came in handy at times. And I wasn’t above using it, especially when it came to driving home to the cream of Sydney society that the King brothers were up-and-coming and they couldn’t ignore us any more.

But that wasn’t the only reason I was here.

That other reason was sitting across the ballroom from me, at a table surrounded by goons in suits trying hard not to look like goons in suits and failing.

Miss Imogen White, William White’s daughter and the most guarded heiress in the entire city.

The chick was like Rapunzel in her tower—no one was getting inside. Both figuratively and literally. She was the apple of her father’s eye and he made sure she stayed pure and pristine, his perfect Princess.

Sadly for White, I was about to storm his daughter’s pretty little castle and sully the fuck out of it.

He’d managed somehow to stay out of the law’s reach following the collapse of Dad’s empire and he’d been waiting in the shadows ever since. Not drawing attention, quietly trying to resurrect Augustus King’s filthy legacy.

A legacy I was going to destroy once and for all.

That motherfucker was going down and I was going to use his daughter to do it.

I tilted my head, studying her as she sat on her chair, all alone apart from her goons.

Five foot nothing, long blonde hair the colour of pale corn silk. Big green eyes that watched the rest of the room and the people in it like they were a cage full of tigers and she was a goat tethered to a stake.

Interesting that her father had managed to get her an invite and that she was attending without him. Almost made me think that she was playing the part of a goat tethered to a stake.

Bait. To lure someone out.

Me, perhaps? But then, probably not. As far as White was concerned, I was too busy running King Enterprises, my property empire, to worry about him—an illusion I’d worked hard to cultivate to hide my real motivations.

Whosever bait she was, Imogen was pretty in her plain white cocktail frock. A perfect little doll. Pale and virginal and pure. Except not totally pure, not with the kind of sulky pink mouth that would look great wrapped around a man’s cock.

Yes, she was lovely, but she was also nothing but leverage.

Her father’s weapon that I was going to turn back on him, using her to ensure that whatever he was doing in those shadows, whatever plans he was hatching, he needed to stop immediately and get the hell out of Sydney.

Only then would I release his daughter.

And if he didn’t? I’d take that carefully guarded virginity of hers and make her mine. Because if there was one thing I knew about William White, it was that he’d rather slit his own throat than have a King touch his daughter.

Especially me. As far as he was concerned, I was still rough and brutal, still only a few steps away from the violence that had made me.

He wouldn’t want his daughter anywhere near me.

As plans went it wasn’t all that subtle, but I’d been searching for some legal way to take that bastard down and hadn’t managed to find anything I could use against him.

No, his daughter was it. My plan to protect everything I’d built.

Ten years ago, I could have headed over to her and slung her over my shoulder and no one would have stopped me. Even the police would have given me a wide berth—they didn’t want to mess with a King.

But it wasn’t ten years ago. It was now, and even though I’d never have considered using Dad’s kind of tactics—I was, after all, a different man—the stakes were too high to risk failure, which meant the end justified any means.

Such as kidnapping William White’s daughter from a ballroom full of people.

Oh, yeah, and not get caught.

I glanced away from the scaredy-cat Princess and looked towards the bar area of the ballroom. Sure enough, there was my younger brother Leon, along with his wife, Vita. They were commanding a lot of attention, which was the reason I’d demanded the pair of them attend the ball with me.

They could take the heat while I did my thing unnoticed.

Leon would be pissed if he knew what I was planning, especially given his own past, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. This was my idea and not telling him would allow all the responsibility to fall on me if it turned to shit.

The only person who’d get hurt here was William fucking White.

I shifted against the wall, checking on Imogen again.

She was sitting up so straight and still, her hands clasped in her lap, holding herself rigid, except for one little white-satin-covered foot that was tapping to the music that filtered through the ballroom. Then it stopped and she looked down at herself, colour staining her pale cheeks. As if she’d only just realised what she was doing and caught herself. As if tapping her foot to the music was a bad thing.

Another man might have felt sorry for her sitting there all by herself, not even able to enjoy the music. But I didn’t. I couldn’t afford to. She was a tool for me to use. That was all.

On the table near her was a glass of iced water that I’d paid one of the waiters to keep refilled. Eventually, given the amount of times she’d emptied the thing, she’d need to visit the bathroom and when she did...

Right on cue, she glanced at her bodyguards and slid off the chair, gesturing towards the exit to the bathrooms. One of them nodded and jerked his head at the man standing next to him, the two of them then falling into place behind her as she moved towards the exit.

Good.

Taking on five of them would be tricky, but two? Easy.

I stepped away from the wall and ducked out through a nearby doorway that led to the same corridor where the bathrooms were located, reaching the ladies’ bathroom in time to see her vanish into it. The two guards stationed themselves outside.

Giving them a minute or two, I took out the cap I had in the back pocket of my suit pants and put it on, pulling it down to hide my face, then I moved in for the kill.

I took them down as quickly and as quietly as possible then shoved their unconscious bodies into the empty men’s bathroom, pulling shut the door behind me and breaking the handle so they couldn’t get out.

That done, I moved over to the ladies’ and stepped inside.

Luckily it was empty, apart from White’s little Princess, standing at the bank of sinks opposite the door. She was in the process of washing her hands, her head bent.

I closed the door silently behind me and locked it for good measure, then I leaned back against it, watching her, waiting to see how long it would take her to notice me.

A good minute as it turned out.

She was humming something under her breath, a cheerful-sounding pop song, completely distracted. And it wasn’t until she’d dried her hands and had leaned forward to study her reflection that her gaze met mine in the mirror.

The humming stopped, her green eyes going big and filling with shock.

‘Don’t scream,’ I said calmly. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. However, I might change my mind if you try to call for help. Is that understood?’

Her eyes widened even further, her mouth in a soft pink O. But she gave a very slight nod to show me that she did, staring at me in the mirror all the while as if I was the devil himself.

I stared back.

Her skin was pale, like cream, and her eyelashes were tipped with gold. She had a conventional prettiness that was saved from being bland by that quite frankly carnal mouth and the delicate little mole sitting just above it.

There was an energy to her, an electricity that reminded me of a live wire about to spit sparks.

Somewhere deep inside me, interest tightened.

What would it feel like to put my hands on her and touch that electricity for myself? Would it shock the dead parts of me back to life?

Shit, touching her wasn’t the point of the kidnapping, no matter the threat I was going to deliver to her father. Besides, pure princesses—live wires or not—had never been my type. I liked a woman who knew her way around a man’s cock and who didn’t mind getting rough with it, not a wide-eyed virgin like this one.

I dismissed the thoughts. Right now, getting her out of here with the minimum of fuss was my priority.

‘W-where are my bodyguards?’ Her voice was clear with an inexplicably sexy roughness to it.

‘I dealt with them.’ I stepped away from the doorframe and straightened to my full height, her gaze following every move I made.

The shock had begun to drain from her pale face, leaving behind it an expression I didn’t recognise. ‘Both of them?’ She sounded incredulous, as if I’d done something incredibly difficult.

‘Yes. They’re in the men’s room with the door locked.’ I took a step towards her. ‘They’re not coming to save you, little one.’

She didn’t move. ‘You’re Ajax King.’

‘You’ve heard of me.’ I took another step.

‘Of course. My dad hates you.’

‘The feeling’s mutual.’ I was close now, standing right behind her, watching her face in the mirror.

Her lashes lowered. Then she turned around, her head tipping back, looking straight up at me.

She was very small, the top of her head barely reaching my shoulders, and the pale skin of her cheeks had gone pink, deepening the vivid green of her eyes. They were glowing. They were full-on fucking glowing.

Maybe that’s when I recognised her expression, the one that wasn’t fear or shock or anger, or any of the other emotions I’d expected when I’d first stepped inside.

No. What I saw in her face was unconcealed awe.

Not the reaction I normally got. People were either afraid of me or they loathed me. But not this green-eyed virginal Princess. She looked at me like I was the second coming of Christ.

For some reason, my cock liked that very much indeed.

Fuck. That was all I needed. Desire wasn’t supposed to be part of this plan and I didn’t want it to be. The goal was protecting my city and my brothers, not screwing a wide-eyed little ingénue.

Ignoring my disreputable dick, I gave her the stare I usually gave to those who thought they could argue with my decisions. ‘Okay, here’s the deal,’ I began. ‘You’re going to need to—’

‘Why are you here?’

I blinked at her interruption. Another thing that people knew better than to do. ‘What?’

‘I mean, why are you here? In the women’s bathroom?’

‘Well, I—’

‘You do know it’s the women’s bathroom, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, I know it’s the—’

‘Are you here for me?’

I gritted my teeth. ‘You’re going to have to stop interrupting me.’

A line appeared between her pale silky brows, the electric energy of her intensifying somehow. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just really need to know.’

Hell, what was I doing, standing here letting her pepper me with pointless questions? I was supposed to be kidnapping her, for fuck’s sake.

‘Yeah,’ I growled, taking another step closer, looming over her, hoping she’d get the idea she was supposed to be scared and not keep looking at me like I was Captain fucking America. ‘I’m here for you.’

Her eyes glowed even more and she’d gone even pinker, as if I was the man of her dreams and I’d just asked her out.

‘Don’t look so fucking pleased,’ I said harshly. ‘I’m not asking you to dance. I’m here to kidnap you.’

That gorgeous mouth of hers dropped open. ‘Kidnap me?’ she echoed, looking astonished. Then, before I could speak, she grinned. ‘Oh, my God, that’s excellent!’

CHAPTER TWO

Imogen

‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, “excellent”?’ Ajax King’s mesmerising blue eyes had narrowed into shards of ice and there was offence in his deep, rough voice.

Weird. You’d have thought he’d be happy that I wanted to go with him without making a screaming fuss.

Obviously not.

Then again, I didn’t have time to be thinking about whether he’d be offended or not. All I was conscious of was finally—freaking finally!—here was the opportunity I’d been searching more than two years for.

The opportunity to get away from my bloody father.

My shuddering heartbeat was going hell for leather, adrenaline pulsing through me.

‘There’s no time,’ I said hurriedly, tilting my head to the side so I could see past his massive, broad figure to the door. ‘Dad’s other guys will notice I haven’t come back and they’ll come after me. So if we’re going to leave, we have to leave now.’

‘Now wait just a fucking minute—’

But I had no fucking minutes to waste.

I reached for his hand and pulled him over to the door. Or at least I tried to. Bit difficult when he wouldn’t let himself be pulled.

Dammit.

I turned back, fear beginning to thread through my excitement. ‘Please. If you’re going to kidnap me then you have to do it now. Come on!’ I tugged on his hand again.

He didn’t move, only pinned me with those icy blue eyes. ‘You actually want me to kidnap you?’

Seriously? He was asking me stupid questions now?

‘Would I be asking you to do it if I didn’t want you to?’ I pulled on his hand yet again. ‘Come on.’

But it was like trying to pull on a mountain. The damn man wouldn’t budge.

Fear tightened inside me. If we didn’t leave now the rest of my bodyguards were going to come looking and they’d find me. And then they’d try to stop me, and my chance of escape would be gone.

I’d be back to living in my gilded cage, where I couldn’t move a muscle without five guards springing into action. Where I had to watch my behaviour so assiduously that it was easier to stay in than go out. It was a cage I hadn’t noticed get smaller and smaller as the years progressed. Not until the day I’d realised exactly what kind of man my father was and that if I stayed in the cage any longer I was going to get crushed.

I’d go back to being powerless. Back to being used. Back to being so lonely it made my soul ache.

No, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.

Right here was my opportunity to escape and I was taking it.

Ajax King was my father’s greatest enemy so who better to help me? He’d been watching me all evening—I’d noticed since I’d nothing else to do—and now I knew why.

It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Right then, someone knocked on the door and I froze, fear an iceberg floating in the centre of my chest.

‘Miss White?’ a male voice asked. ‘Are you in there?’

Shit. It was Colin, one of my guards.

I turned back to Ajax, standing near the vanity unit, so tall his head almost brushed the ceiling. He stared at me from underneath the cap he wore, his expression impassive. His rough features were intensely compelling. A sharp, hard jaw and strong blade of a nose. High cheekbones. Those deep set, amazing blue eyes. Not typically handsome. Very, very masculine, and the look he was giving me...

I felt an odd flash of something. A crackle over my skin, like electricity. It was unexpected and strange so I ignored it, too worried about what he was going to do to pay attention to it.

Would he change his mind? Give me back to them?

I swallowed, my mouth dry, and I gave him a pleading look. Please help me. Please.

‘Miss White?’ Colin asked again, sharper this time. ‘Are you in there?’

Ajax shot a glance at the door then back at me.

Then suddenly he pulled me towards him so I was only inches away from his massive, muscular figure. He lowered his head, his mouth near my ear. ‘Do as I say,’ he murmured. ‘And I’ll get you out of here.’

I blinked at the wall of white cotton in front of me. I hadn’t been this close to a man in years. Possibly I hadn’t been this close to a man ever.

It was weird. He was very, very warm and he smelled good. A spicy, woody scent that for some reason made the iceberg in my chest start to melt and calmed my rising panic.

‘Now, put your arms out. And don’t say a word.’

His breath on my skin made goosebumps rise along my neck and shoulders, that crackling sensation getting more intense.

I didn’t have time to think about it so I put my arms out obediently. Quickly, he shrugged out of his black suit jacket and, before I could figure out what he was going to do with it, he’d put it on me.