Tricked and traded, p.1
Tricked and Traded, page 1
TRICKED AND TRADED
DARCIE MCQUEEN
Copyright © 2021 by Darcie McQueen
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.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, secret organizations, locales, events, contracts, and lake houses are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover design by the wonderful Amanda Wright. Contact: awright@iinet.net.au
Printed in the United States of America
Created with Vellum
For Jade
The most generous, kind, supportive friend any person could or will ever have
CONTENTS
Author Note
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
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About the Author
Also by Darcie McQueen
AUTHOR NOTE
This book contains potential triggers. Please check my website for more information.
https://www.darciemcqueen.com/tricked-and-traded-trigger-warning
1
Olivia stared at the note that should never have been written. It was illegal, unethical, immoral, and completely predictable in this horrible town. Even knowing all of that, she read it again.
If you care about your father, you’ll be at my house at 10 tonight.
The old bastard even signed it.
J.C.
Judge Caufin.
Olivia certainly wasn’t surprised by his brazenness. She knew, just as he did, how untouchable he was. The man actually delighted in being known as Judge Coffin to those unfortunate souls who ended up in his courtroom. Poor fools like Olivia’s father.
Olivia closed her eyes as she clenched the paper in her fist, tears of rage building in her eyes. She’d gotten out of this stupid town, far away from these awful people and their corrupt sense of justice. She’d even finished college, just days ago. And because two thousand miles wasn’t far enough, she had interviews lined up with firms in Europe, Australia, freaking Outer Mongolia if it got her beyond the reach of her past.
She hadn’t answered when her father first called, but she’d listened to his message about a hundred times.
“Please, baby, I’m in trouble. I know you don’t want to come back, but I need you here. The jury needs to see that someone gives a shit if I get the death penalty. You know the Judge. You know what he’ll do to me. I screwed up—I’m not saying I didn’t—but if you hadn’t done what you did, the Judge would never have been watching me so closely. He never would have come down on me this hard. It’s death row, baby. I know you hate me, but are you really ready for me to die? Please, Livie, help me this time and I promise I will never ask you for anything ever again.”
She almost hadn’t come. Olivia certainly didn’t owe her father anything, not after everything he did. And the sick part—he probably did everything he’d been accused of and more. But on the morning that his trial began, Olivia found herself right there in the court room, seated a couple rows behind her father. She even looked appropriately concerned and was dressed as a devoted daughter.
It was gross, but Olivia loved her mother more than anyone and her mother loved that terrible man until she breathed her last breath. For her mother, Olivia would play this role and then vanish with no forwarding address.
Olivia sat through three days of the trial, three days of watching the Judge watch her. His scowl and the loathing in his eyes made him almost unrecognizable, but then, she’d been away a long time, and she was certain abandoning his grandson wasn’t something he’d ever forgive.
The thought, even now, of Brody, the way her heart hammered in her chest, the way leaving him still felt so visceral, like a gaping wound that would never heal. Brody had been the town’s favorite child from the time he was born, and Olivia had few childhood memories that didn’t include him. Every rite of passage in her life included Brody, up until the moment she broke up with him and fled town.
One action—something she hadn’t wanted to do in the first place—changed so much, more than she even knew. But she’d had no choice. She’d run to the other side of the country, to a place that had never heard of the Caufins, but more importantly, had never heard of her father or anyone he brought into her life.
Olivia shuddered as the nightmares from the past seemed to swirl around her. She should never have come back. Nothing was worth this.
Looking at the scrap of paper in her hand, Olivia wished she’d never seen the article, wished she’d never bought a prepaid phone and called her father, wished her feelings for her mother hadn’t brought her here, wished she’d told Brody the truth all those years ago, wished for anything that would get her out of this.
If you care about your father, you’ll be at my house at 10 tonight.
Olivia looked at her watch and then took a deep breath and forced her hand to rise to the doorbell.
The door opened and the Judge stared at her, his eyes icy. “How very punctual of you, Olivia.”
“I’m here. What do you want?”
2
“Manners, my dear,” he said in clipped words. “We don’t share our business on the porch. Do come in.” He moved back, opening the door for her and waiting for her to enter his lair—evil people always had lairs, not homes.
For a long moment, she stared at the open doorway, considering sprinting to her rental car as fast as she could.
“So maybe you don’t care about your father,” the Judge mused, watching her closely. He was still tall and lean, his clothing perfect. He looked like a man who’d never done a day’s labor, but she knew that wasn’t true.
Finally, Olivia stepped inside and flinched when she heard the lock click behind her.
“This way, Miss Olivia, and don’t worry, I’ve made sure we won’t be interrupted. I gave all my staff the night off, so it is just you and me.”
Olivia spun to face the Judge. “I’m not going to sleep with you, if that’s what this is about.”
The Judge’s lined face turned to stone for a second and then he smiled. “I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last woman on this Earth.”
Olivia made no effort to conceal her extreme sense of relief, regardless of whether it was insulting to the man who was literally the last man she would ever sleep with. “What do you want from me, Judge? Just tell me.”
“Always in such a rush, aren’t you? But then you always were a flighty thing. Follow me and I will give you the answers you seek.”
The Judge walked into his study and took a seat in the leather chair behind his massive desk made of dark wood. Olivia followed and stood in the middle of the room.
The Judge reached for his glass, spinning the ice before taking a sip, his eyes studying Olivia’s body, the way she stood, the clothes she wore, her face, her hair. “You’ve done well for yourself, haven’t you? And you take the trouble to make yourself attractive now—I’m glad you outgrew that tomboy phase.”
Olivia missed that tomboy phase and didn’t dignify his statements with any answer.
“Miss Olivia, you will answer me when I ask you a question.”
“What’s your question?”
“You’ve done well for yourself, haven’t you?”
“I got out, so yes.”
The Judge’s expression turned incredulous. “You got out, like this town that I love was some sort of prison for you. That your life and the people in it weren’t good enough for you.”
She felt it, the past, her childhood, Brody, everything in this weighted moment. If she could just confess, tell the Judge the reason she’d run, maybe it would change whatever was going to come next. Maybe it was pride, maybe fear, maybe guilt—she wasn’t sure why the truth was so hard to free, even now, and without the truth, there was only one answer to his question. “My life was a prison and I never wanted to come back here.”
The hate in his eyes—it was frightening—but then a knowing look entered his gaze. “I’m not surprised by that, with the company your father chose to keep back then.”
Olivia couldn’t breathe for almost a full minute. The Judge knew something, but what exactly did the Judge know about the company her father kept then or now?
The Judge continued, oblivious to Olivia’s emotions, “It certainly took me some work and quite a few years to get you back here, but I finally did, didn’t I? Of course, I had to go after your father in such a way that it would make the news. It did, didn’t it? And then you called him and I knew I had you. I just had to convince that man that it was in his best interest to get you back here.”
Olivia’s hands clenched into fists . “You’re working with my father?”
“Now don’t get yourself all bothered. I did what I had to do to get you back here, where I have some power over you. I know what I am, a big fish in a tiny pond. But you are back in the deep end of that pond and so is your father.”
“What do you want?” Olivia asked, her voice getting louder.
“I want to know whether you still care about your daddy.”
“You know I do—I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are. A clear testament to your daughterly devotion, but the degree of your love for him is what matters here. And, unless I am very much mistaken, your love for him is about to be tested in a most profound way.”
“Just say what you have to say.”
“Fine, I’m happy to lay my cards on the table. I’ve been waiting for this moment for quite some time. I have a deal for you, Miss Olivia. If you do what I want, I will ensure that your father does not get the death penalty—I’ll even make sure that he only serves a couple years in prison.” The Judge leaned back in his chair. “And just so there is no confusion here, if you don’t do what I want, your father will absolutely get the death penalty and I will make sure it is carried out as expeditiously as legally allowable.”
Chills snaked up Olivia’s spine. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want three months of your life.”
“What?”
“Three months. I want you to agree to do whatever I ask for three months. Then you can leave here and get on with your life.”
Olivia stammered, her stomach in knots, “Whatever you ask—what do you mean by that? You said you didn’t want to sleep with me, so what do you want from me?”
The Judge grinned, showing that every line on his face came from all the times he’d worn exactly that smug grin. “No, you don’t get any answers from me. You either agree to give yourself to me, to do whatever I want with you, for three months, or your father is going die while I watch that needle puncture his vein.”
Olivia felt unsteady on her feet, something she knew the Judge saw very clearly. “How can you ask this of me?”
“How? Easily, I assure you.” The Judge reached inside his desk drawer and pulled out what looked like a contract. “Sign it, or hug your daddy goodbye.”
“What exactly does it say?” Olivia whispered, feeling as though all the air had left the room.
“It says for three months, I have complete power over your life, every decision, every action. It says I can give you to others. It says that you will be fed and housed. It says your health will never be at risk and you will suffer no long-term physical damage. Three months, Olivia, is that really that much to ask for me to spare your father’s worthless life?”
Olivia couldn’t stop her body from trembling as she walked forward and took the pen from the Judge’s outstretched hand.
She tried not to think as she held the pen, but images, horrible images, filled her mind as the tip touched the paper and the ink glided out as she signed her name.
Afterward, she dropped the pen, her arms folding over her chest as she stood there, shaking before the Judge’s triumphant stare.
When the silence began to hurt, Olivia asked, “What happens next?”
“We’re going for a drive.”
“To where?”
“To the lake house, where my grandson’s staying for the summer.”
Olivia’s heart fluttered. “Brody? He’s at the lake house… wait, he knows about this?”
The Judge let out a cruel chuckle. “Who do you think you’ll be spending the next three months with? I can barely even look at you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? After all these years, it’s time for Brody to repay you for what you did to him.”
“By doing what?”
“Whatever the hell that boy wants. For three months, you’re his to punish, to violate, to humiliate, whatever vengeance he needs in order to find himself again—he’s never been the same since you broke him. That sweet boy had the girl he loved, a talent that’s still talked about, and a brilliant future. All of that was stolen from him, and maybe after he tortures you in whatever way he wants, just maybe he’ll be ready to let go of the past and move forward.” The Judge stood. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, Judge, you’re saying that Brody knows about this?”
Again that smug look answered her before his words followed. “Who do think came up with this plan? But let’s not keep him—or his friends—waiting. I mean, I wouldn’t want him to get angry with you.”
“Friends?” she blurted.
“Oh, did I forget to mention his friends? They’re staying the summer at the lake house. Brody promised them three months of the best debauchery they could imagine.” The Judge eyed her body in a vile way. “I suspect they won’t be let down.”
3
Olivia didn’t know what to think—what to feel—as she sat in the passenger seat, being driven toward the lake house and the only man she’d ever loved. Nothing made sense. She should be ecstatic to see Brody—not a day had gone by in the five years since she’d left that she hadn’t thought of him, dreamt of seeing him again.
In just over an hour, she would see him, but this wasn’t what she’d imagined, not any of the ways she’d imagined. Bumping into him in an airport in Prague. Sitting across from him at a seminar in Spain. Running into him on a beach in Australia. Somewhere so far away that she could finally tell him the truth about why she broke up with him, why she’d had no other choice—how she’d done what she did to save him.
Never once did Olivia imagine that the next time she’d see Brody would be like this, blackmailed into being a sex toy for him and his friends, to bear the brunt of his vengeance for things he didn’t understand. And seriously, Olivia was only seventeen when she left, with no money, no family, no opportunity. She’d never been the town’s favorite anything, never had anyone protecting her—at least since her mother died. But when Olivia was honest with herself, she knew that her mother had never protected her like a mother should. How dare Brody blame her for anything, when he understood nothing about her life.
Olivia tried to prepare herself for whatever this would be, but no matter how many times she tried to tell herself that Brody was clearly a different person now, she just couldn’t imagine it. He’d always had the most bright and open smile. His eyes sparkled. He laughed constantly. He made mischief like any other kid, but it was never mean-spirited. He’d been kind to the kids who didn’t fit in, never let anyone bully anyone. He’d always been so good.
When the Judge steered the car off the main road onto the bumpy dirt road that would lead directly to the lake house, Olivia’s entire body clenched. She knew this road, just as she knew every inch of the lake house. Every first of her teenage life happened at the lake house. She kissed Brody for the first time there—her first kiss ever. She fell asleep in Brody’s arms at the lake house, while they sat in the screened-in back porch. She’d made love to Brody there, lying on a blanket near the water, with trees all around them. She’d been so many places between then and now, but no place held as much of her heart as the lake house.
When the lake came into view, lit by nothing but the full moon, Olivia fought and lost against the tears leaking from her eyes.
“You better dry that up, right now, young lady,” the Judge said. “You’ll take your punishment without turning into a weepy mess. We both know you deserve everything that’s coming to you.”
“And what do you deserve, Judge?” Olivia spat. “You’re a corrupt monster. I was just a kid who needed a fresh start.”
