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doors to reveal the private club.
    Heavy, room-darkening drapes covered all the windows, cocooning the massive loft in shadowy warmth. The diffused lighting, soft pinks and vivid reds, created a mysteriously wanton atmosphere. Small stages set up at ten foot intervals around the outskirts of the huge room surrounded the crowds of onlookers, men and women of various ages and races. On eight of the twelve separate podiums, one or more performers participated in some type of sex act for the entertainment of the club’s patrons.
    Rafe had seen this type of club before and knew that for the right price any of the performers could be bought—for the night, the week or indefinitely.
    Around the world, people were bought and sold as if they were livestock, some sold into servitude, some into sexual bondage, and others as prey in hunting games for bored sadists who no longer found hunting wild animals a challenge.
    He knew only too well the nightmarish hell in which these boys and girls, who ranged in age from preteens to young adults in their early twenties, existed. That world was populated by rich and powerful perverts such as Harlan Benecroft and Yves Bouchard, a world created and perpetuated by men such as Malcolm York. A world from which he had barely escaped with his life. A world that had robbed him of his innocence, his dreams, and his very soul.
    This time when he entered the dark underbelly of society, Rafe Byrne entered as a predator, not as the prey. He would keep up the ruse for one purpose and one purpose only—to lure Yves Bouchard into a trap from which he could not escape.

    After their brief conversation, Anthony Linden had escorted Nic back into the sleeping quarters of the private jet, instructed her to sit on the bed, and once she was seated, had taken her photo using his mobile phone.
    â€œYour husband will want proof that you’re alive and well.”
    Alive maybe. And for now, she was as well as she could be under the circumstances. But more than once during the flight, she had fought the urge to throw up. If she did vomit, she would pass it off as nothing more than motion sickness. She intended to keep the fact that she was pregnant a secret from her abductor. If Griffin Powell’s wife was worth a king’s ransom, what would Griff’s wife and child be worth?
    Having gone over half a dozen different scenarios during her seclusion, Nic had come to the conclusion that until they reached their destination and she acquired more information, she couldn’t devise a workable plan of action.
    Suddenly she felt the plane begin to descend. Was the pilot preparing to land? Surmising that at least three or four hours had passed since she had awakened from her drugged sleep and found herself on the plane with Linden, Nic tried to think of exactly where over the U.S. they might be. Linden had said they were traveling south. If he had been telling her the truth, then calculating four hours plus however many hours she had been asleep, they could be about to land somewhere in Mexico or Central America or even on one of the Caribbean islands. If she was allowed to talk to Griff, she would find out a way to give him a clue to her whereabouts, assuming she could figure out where they were.
    As the plane continued its slow, steady decline, Anthony Linden unlocked the bedroom door and motioned to her. “We’ll be landing shortly, Nicole. It’s time for me to prepare you for departure.”
    A short time later, she understood what he’d meant by preparing her. Within minutes of their arrival at only God knew where, Linden yanked Nic to her feet, pulled her hands behind her back, bound her wrists, and then quickly gagged and blindfolded her. With a tight grip on her upper arm, he guided her off the plane. The moment the warm air swooshed around her, Nic sucked in a deep breath. Almost hot except for the balmy breeze, the weather was decidedly tropical. Linden hadn’t been lying.