Marigold, p.1
Marigold, page 1
Marigold
Roses and Thorns, Book One
Becca Jameson
Copyright © 2023 by Becca Jameson
Cover Artist: OriginalSyn
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. And resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Newsletter
Acknowledgments
About the Book
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
Author’s Note
Also by Becca Jameson
About the Author
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Acknowledgments
I have to thank my amazing assistant, Michelle, for all her help plotting this series. It took hours to figure out the overall arc. Bless her for listening to me and helping me flush it out.
About the Book
Forbidden love won’t stop me from finding her and making her mine…
* * *
Gemma
* * *
I live a luxurious, protected life. I know I’m naïve. My controlling father watches me like a hawk. He’s a powerful man with endless connections. He’s also strict. If his employees so much as glance at me, they disappear. If I glance at them, they’re fired. So, I keep my eyes down and my thoughts to myself. It works. Most of the time. Except with Damon.
* * *
Damon
* * *
I have a job to do. Goals. They don’t include the beautiful young temptress who struts around her father’s compound showing far too much skin. I can’t be distracted by her. It doesn’t matter that her smile lights up a room or that her voice melts me. My priorities have been set in stone for years. I will not be distracted.
* * *
I’m working against the clock, but not fast enough. When the compound is raided, everyone is murdered. Except Gemma. There’s no body. I will find her, even if it takes years. And I will stop at nothing to get her back. No price tag is too high to buy her freedom.
Prologue
Ten years ago…
* * *
“This sounds so empty and cliché, but I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Damon Albertini dropped down into an armchair in his father’s study, his hand wrapped around the drink he intended to inhale before pouring another. He gave it a swirl with the tiny red straw, though it hardly mattered. He’d only added a splash of tonic to his Bombay.
“Is there anything I can do?” his best friend, Jagger, asked. “I can’t exactly cook you a meal, and flowers seem a bit extra for a guy.”
Damon smiled. “Flowers would be beyond extra, man. I’m glad you didn’t show up with any. And I have staff cooking for me, so I won’t go hungry.” He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at his father’s desk to stare at the piles of paperwork he still had to wade through.
“It looks like you’ve been working hard to figure out your father’s business. Are you planning to follow in his footsteps?” Jagger asked as he took a sip of his Bombay. He hadn’t even added tonic. Smart guy.
Damon shuddered. “Fuck no. My father was living marginally above the law. My mother knew this. That’s why she divorced him when I was five. She didn’t want me sucked into my father’s business, and I won’t soil her name by stooping that low.”
Jagger winced. “Have you uncovered anything nefarious?” He waved a hand through the air a moment later. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Damon chuckled. Jagger worked for the FBI. He wouldn’t want to put himself in a position to have to investigate his best friend’s livelihood. Damon commended him for his loyalty, but he had no intention of hiding what he’d discovered.
Damon took another heavy drink of Bombay and met Jagger’s gaze. “I have a plan, actually.”
Jagger stared at him. “Oh?”
“Yes. I’ve been reading through those files for three days, ever since my father’s heart attack.” Damon rolled his eyes.
“You don’t think he died of a heart attack, do you?”
“Oh, I’m sure he did, but I’d bet all his stupid money that heart attack had help.”
Jagger took a deep breath. “I figured. You going to ask anyone to look into it?”
“Fuck no. What good would that do?”
“Damon…” Jagger groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re going to start digging around in his death alone. That’s very dangerous.”
“Nope. I don’t much care about that either.” Damon patted the giant pile of papers next to him. “From what I’ve found, I’m surprised he lived this long. He was under a lot of stress.”
Jagger winced. “I assume you’ve uncovered information that accounts for where all his wealth came from.” He hesitated before continuing, “I gotta say, Damon, I’d rather you not tell me.”
Damon sighed and swirled his drink again before taking another long sip. “If it were just the money, I’d keep it to myself. I won’t play the games my father played. I’m not going to spend my life living on the edge, laundering money to support several mansions and yachts. I will clean up his mess and put the money to good use. However, there’s something else I found, and I can’t keep quiet about it.”
Jagger drew in a breath. “It’s going to involve me, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Damon held his gaze. “Or your boss. Or your boss’s boss. I don’t care who.”
Jagger nodded slowly. “That big, huh?”
“Depends. How big do you consider human trafficking?”
Jagger gasped, eyes wide. “Your father was trafficking humans?”
Damon shook his head. “No. Never. I’ve stayed up nearly around the clock, making sure of it. Fuck, at first, I wondered if my mother had been trafficked. I was fucking panicking. But no. However, there’s a paper trail. He knows people are trafficking humans.”
“Fuck.” Jagger ran a hand through his dark hair. “And, you want me to…?”
Damon downed the rest of his drink and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “The drugs, money laundering, and shit don’t ruffle my feathers, but selling women does.”
“Damon…” Jagger warned.
Damon met his gaze. Jagger was not going to like his plan. “I’m going to infiltrate all these families my father was doing business with. One by one.”
Jagger groaned. “That’s fucking dangerous. You’ll get killed.”
“I won’t. My father knew a lot of people. They’ll trust me. I’ll make friends. Maybe along the way, someone will hire me to manage their money. I do have a master’s in finance.” Damon grinned. “Meanwhile, I’ll gather information.”
“And feed it to me.”
“Yes. I find it hard to believe that dozens of Italian families in the Denver area are buying and selling women. I’m betting it’s a handful of crime lords. The rest of the families who are living under the law are being manipulated and forced to keep the bigger crime a secret. I bet my father stumbled upon damning information, wasn’t willing to keep it to himself, and was murdered for his poor choice.”
Jagger glanced at all the files on the desk. “I’m not even going to ask how you’ve come to this conclusion.”
“Good idea.” Damon leaned on his elbows. “My father isn’t the only dead man. His best friend died a week ago.”
Jagger winced. “Fuck.”
“I’ll be talking to his best friend’s son later today. He’s ten years older than me, so we never knew each other well, but we have something in common. His father had a mysterious stroke.”
“Jesus.” Jagger ran a hand through his hair. “Do you think he’s involved?”
“Not likely. I don’t think he’s been close to his father for a long time, either. His mother not only divorced his father years ago, and he changed his last name to her maiden name. He owns a chain of fetish clubs called Roses and Thorns. I’ve been a few times. His businesses are totally legit. He runs a tight ship. Safe, sane, and consensual, or you’re out.”
Jagger nodded. “That’s good. Are you going to ask him to help you?” Jagger questioned.
“No. I’m going to do this on my own.”
“You’re not asking me to help get you on the payroll, are you?” Jagger inquired.
“Nope. I don’t need any fucking money. I’m set for life. I’ll sell off my father’s properties, buy something comfortable for myself, and put my finance degree to good use. I’ll be an inside source, an informant. Totally off the books.”
Jagger slowly nodded. “You realize this could take years.”
Damon set his glass down and spread his arms to include their surroundings. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
Chapter 1
Three years ago…
* * *
“Dad…” Gemma batted her gorgeous eyes at her father. “Please?”
It was hard for Damon to keep a straight face from where he sat behind his boss’s desk, his hand on the mouse, his gaze presumably on the monitor. The little imp worked her father hard and often, but the man never backed down.
Salinardi Romano scowled at her from where he sat next to Damon, holding up his hand-written ledger. He’d been in the process of reciting numbers to Damon. “I’d really prefer we turn the clock back to a time when you called me Daddy and enjoyed hanging with me on a Friday night instead of your girlfriends.”
Gemma rolled her eyes. “Dad, I’m twenty years old. Not a child anymore. If you took five minutes off work to pay attention, you would know this fact. I’m only asking to go to the movies with my girlfriends. I promise to go there and come straight back. It’ll be totally safe.”
“No.” Romano didn’t glance up from his computer. “Have your girlfriends come here. We have a theatre downstairs. Whatever movie you want, ask Marco to arrange it.”
“Dad, it’s a new release,” she whined.
Damon couldn’t blame her for wanting some freedom. She was a grown adult. But he silently liked that her father never let her leave the compound. His heart wouldn’t be able to take it if he had to worry about her out in the real world.
The woman had no clue…about anything, really. She didn’t know what her father did for a living. She had no idea that at least a dozen people would kidnap her in an instant if given the opportunity. She had no idea she was drop-dead gorgeous or that her so-called friends were mostly friends of her father’s associates and likely only hung out with her because their fathers insisted.
Though that wasn’t entirely true because Gemma was kind and funny and intelligent and had so many other amazing qualities that anyone would be glad to hang out with her.
Romano glanced at his daughter for about half a second. “Since when does that matter? I don’t care if the movie comes out next month; Marco can arrange it.”
Gemma’s shoulders fell, and then she glanced at Damon.
He pretended not to notice in his peripheral vision.
“You can send a bodyguard with us,” she insisted. “How about Damon? Surely you don’t need him to crunch numbers for you all day. You have a hundred other men on the property. You can spare one guy.”
Damon swallowed. Fuck no. There wasn’t a chance in hell he wanted to be assigned that job. He’d rather guard twenty of Salinardi’s men in the middle of an outnumbered drug bust than be sent outside the compound with Gemma and her friends.
It wasn’t that he thought it was beneath him. Nor would he mind being forced to spend more time with her. He’d give his right arm to spend more time in her presence. However, she was a walking target. Anything could happen to her. Damon didn’t want the responsibility, nor did he want her exposed out in the open like that.
He didn’t flinch from his position because he was confident her father wouldn’t entertain the idea, mostly because Damon wasn’t her personal bodyguard. Instead, he worked for her father, managing his money.
Occasionally, he did get roped into guarding Gemma. Mostly because he was the first man Romano set his eyes on when he needed someone, so he would assign Damon to the task of bodyguard. No way he would do so this afternoon.
“No.” Romano met her gaze this time and held it. “Honey, the answer is no. Damon has other things to do. He can’t be out babysitting you and your friends.”
That was true. Damon had climbed the ladder of Romano’s inner circle for a year to earn this spot in the man’s inner office—a position that afforded him the ability to collect far more information than he’d managed to gather in the previous year of snooping around.
It was comical that Romano still seemed to think his daughter was a child. She was a full-grown woman. Twenty. Even though she was probably as innocent as they came considering her total lack of freedom, she had the body of a fucking goddess.
Her thick dark hair hung in long waves down her back, perfectly styled because Daddy always arranged for her stylist to come to the house. She had gorgeous brown skin that was naturally dark because it rarely saw direct sunlight. She was careful to lather up with sunscreen every time she sat out by the pool.
Pool days were the bane of Damon’s existence, especially when he was assigned to guard Gemma and her friends outside. Thank God he wore dark glasses and a suit at all times. The first hid the movement of his eyes. The second hid his constant erection. Somewhat.
Damon couldn’t say what any of her girlfriends looked like. He rarely glanced in their direction. Gemma captured every ounce of his attention with her perfect curves, fantastic ass, and high, youthful, full tits.
Yes, he ogled her. He was human, after all. And male. And straight.
He was also there to do a job, so he preferred not to be assigned to watch Gemma. Those days never got him closer to his end goal. The fact that her father often assigned him to Gemma spoke volumes, however. It meant Romano trusted him implicitly, and that was an important part of the end goal.
“Daaaddd…” Gemma switched to full-on whining. Damon couldn’t blame her. The woman had zero autonomy. She had all the money in the world. Anything she wanted was at her fingertips. She could hire someone to come to the house to do anything she wanted. Change the décor of her suite, outfit her in gorgeous gowns, paint her nails. Massages. Pilates. A personal trainer. She could hire a tutor and learn another language if she wanted—and she had done so. On top of that, Gemma was an accomplished pianist. When she played, her music filled the halls of the estate and made everyone smile, including her father.
Gemma had everything. Everything. Except for the freedom to leave the compound. And that had to suck.
Romano was done arguing, and when he was done, everyone knew it. He shot her a glare and pointed at the door. “I’m busy, Gemma. Go find something to do. Play the piano. I love hearing your music throughout the house.”
As if she were indeed five, she spun around on her heel and stomped toward the door, taking a moment to shoot daggers at Damon as if he had anything to do with her predicament. As the door slammed shut, Damon flinched subtly, shaking himself out of the trance that woman cast over him when she entered a room.
He’d never once glanced in her direction, so she had no idea he’d noticed her slight, nor the fact that she’d stuck her tongue out at him. She also hadn’t known that he’d watched every second of her sexy body as she’d yanked the door open and left the office—from her toned legs to her slim waist to her full tits. She was wearing a sundress that barely covered her ass and no bra. She didn’t need one. Her fuck-me, perky tits were perfectly high without support. But every time she did so, she tempted him with her damn pert nipples.
Damon wasn’t the only one on staff who noticed, of course. He’d ground his teeth together on more than one occasion when someone on staff stared at her. But Damon had zero claims to her, and he was here to do a fucking job, so he kept his thoughts to himself and forced his hands to remain at his sides instead of popping someone in the nose.
The woman had no idea how fucking appealing she was, and she was far too innocent for the likes of him. She most likely had never heard the term BDSM and wouldn’t know a thing about the fetish community.
