Trapped with My Billionaire Stepbrother

My boyfriend sold me to pay off his gambling debt.

Drugged, trapped in an underground club, and surrounded by men who had already decided what my body was worth, I thought I had reached the worst night of my life.

Then Kyle Blackwood kicked down the door.

Cold. Ruthless. Untouchably rich.

He saved me from the men who bought me.

And before the drugs burned out of my system, I ended up in his bed.

By morning, Kyle looked at me like I was nothing more than another transaction. He threw a hundred-thousand-dollar check onto the nightstand.

I tore it apart in front of him.

I thought I would never see him again.

Hours later, I walked into my mother's secret wedding.

The groom was billionaire Thomas Blackwood.

And standing beside him was Kyle.

My new stepbrother.

The man who had touched me hours earlier suddenly looked at me with nothing but disgust.

He thought my mother and I had planned everything to get close to his family's money.

So Kyle made a bet with his friends.

One month.

He would make his greedy new stepsister fall desperately in love with him...

and then destroy me.

There was only one problem.

Somewhere between trying to ruin me and protecting me from everyone else,

Kyle Blackwood forgot which one of us was supposed to fall first.

******

POV: Ivy

For three years, I believed Eric was the man I was going to marry. I believed it so completely that I mortgaged the only thing my late father had left me—a small, crumbling apartment in the city—just to pay off a fraction of Eric’s mounting gambling debts. Tonight was supposed to be our third anniversary. He had poured me a glass of expensive champagne in the back of the taxi, promising a celebration that would mark a fresh start for us.

Instead, I found myself stumbling blindly through a suffocating nightmare.

Eric’s fingers dug into my upper arm like a steel vise, his grip bruising my bare skin as he dragged me down the neon-lit corridor of a filthy underground club. The heavy bass vibrated violently through the floorboards, rattling my teeth. The stifling stench of stale cigar smoke and spilled liquor made my stomach churn, but it was the frantic, manic energy rolling off Eric that truly terrified me.

"Eric, you are hurting me," I protested, my heels slipping on the sticky floor as I tried to yank my arm back.

He did not answer. He just tightened his grip, shoving me forcefully through a set of heavy, soundproofed double doors and into a dimly lit VIP room.

Before I could even catch my balance, Eric spun me around. He slapped a thick stack of stapled paper directly against my chest with a sharp, resounding smack. I instinctively grabbed the documents before they could fall, my eyes dropping to the bold legal print illuminated by the low red lights.

It was a high-interest loan guarantee contract. The principal amount read one hundred thousand dollars.

A week ago, under the romantic guise of our upcoming anniversary, Eric had coaxed me into signing what he claimed was a simple business liability waiver for a new vendor. I had trusted the man I loved. I had signed it without a second thought.

"Here is your guarantee," Eric announced, a sickeningly bright, desperate smile stretching across his face.

He was not looking at me. He was looking past my shoulder, toward the dark leather booths at the back of the room. A massive man with a jagged, ugly scar cutting across his left cheek sat in the shadows, flanked by two equally intimidating thugs.

"One hundred thousand dollars," Eric told the scarred man, his voice trembling with a mix of cowardice and relief. He pointed a shaking finger directly at me. "She is the collateral. We are even."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I lunged forward, intending to scream at him, to tear the forged contract into pieces, but my legs suddenly buckled beneath me.

A wave of profound, terrifying weakness washed over my limbs, turning my muscles to jelly. At the exact same moment, a strange, unnatural heat flared deep in the pit of my stomach. The burning sensation radiated outward, turning my blood into liquid fire and blurring the edges of my vision. A heavy, throbbing ache began to pulse between my thighs.

The glass of champagne in the taxi.

"You drugged me," I whispered. The words slurred slightly on my tongue as a suffocating panic seized my throat. "You sold me."

Eric finally looked at me, completely ignoring my trembling, breathless accusations. He stepped into my personal space, his fingers clamping harshly around my jaw to tilt my face up. The affectionate, ambitious boyfriend I thought I had known was completely gone. In his place stood a hollow-eyed gambler staring at a poker chip.

"Do not look at me like that, Ivy," Eric sneered, his breath reeking of cheap gin. "Did you really think mortgaging your dead father's apartment to pay my debts was enough? That pathetic pocket change did not even cover the weekly interest."

A hot tear of pure betrayal stung my eye, but I refused to let it fall.

"You want to be a good girlfriend?" Eric mocked, his thumb digging painfully into my cheek. "Paying off the rest of the tab with your body is the only value you have left to me."

He shoved me backward with both hands.

My weakened knees gave out entirely. I crashed onto the tufted leather sofa, the breath knocking out of my lungs. Eric did not spare me a second glance. He turned on his heel, marched out of the VIP room, and pulled the heavy metal door shut behind him. The deadbolt clicked into place with an absolute, terrifying finality.

From the shadows, the two thugs stepped forward, leaving the scarred boss at the table. They approached the sofa with slow, measured steps, lewd and predatory smiles twisting their faces.

"Looks like Eric finally brought us something useful," the taller thug chuckled, his eyes raking hungrily over the thin material of my slip dress.

The drug pumped fiercely through my veins, melting my logic and replacing it with a blinding, desperate heat. But my survival instinct screamed louder than the chemicals. I forced my heavy, uncoordinated arms to move. I blindly reached out toward the glass coffee table in front of the sofa and wrapped my fingers around a massive, solid crystal ashtray.

With a feral, breathless cry, I swung the heavy crystal down against the sharp edge of the table.

The glass shattered with a loud explosion, raining glittering shards onto the carpet.

I did not hesitate. I gripped a jagged, blood-stained shard in my fist, ignoring the glass slicing into my own palm, and pressed the razor-sharp edge directly against my carotid artery. A thin bead of crimson immediately welled up, trailing a hot path down my neck.

"Take one more step," I ordered. My voice was harsh, ragged, and completely stripped of fear. "If I die in this room, you do not get a single dime of your money back."

The taller thug froze mid-step. The lewd smile vanished from his face, replaced by cautious hesitation. He looked at the blood on my neck and recognized the unhinged certainty burning in my eyes. He knew I was not bluffing.

A tense, agonizing silence stretched across the smoky room, broken only by my own rapid, shallow breathing as the drug fought to pull me under.

Then, the locked door was violently kicked off its hinges.

The reinforced wood tore from the metal frame and slammed onto the floorboards with a deafening crash that shook the walls.

A man stepped through the ruined doorway, bringing an aura of absolute, freezing hostility that instantly overpowered the stifling heat of the VIP room.

It was Kyle Blackwood.

He wore a flawlessly tailored charcoal-gray suit, but there was nothing corporate about the lethal, predatory way he surveyed the chaos. He was the secret owner of this underground empire, the ruthless billionaire heir that everyone in the city whispered about with a mix of awe and terror. His mere presence sucked the oxygen straight out of the room.

The two thugs dropped their hands immediately. They fell to their knees, their faces draining of color as they stared at the floor, begging for mercy from this stranger without uttering a single word.

Kyle did not even look at them. His dark, unforgiving eyes swept over the shattered crystal, the blood trailing down my pale neck, and my disheveled clothing. A flash of icy disdain crossed his sharp features. It was the cold, dismissive judgment of a man looking at a cheap club girl caught in a pathetic, messy transaction.

He thought I was just another piece of trash sold to clear a debt. He expected me to drop the glass, to cower, to dissolve into tears and beg for his protection.

I did not want his mercy. I wanted the burning, agonizing ache in my blood to stop.

I let the bloody shard of glass slip from my trembling fingers, the crystal landing silently on the plush carpet. My legs felt like melted wax, but I forced myself forward, stumbling directly into his personal space.

Kyle's dark eyes narrowed, flashing with a silent, lethal warning that I completely ignored. He did not step back.

I reached up, my fingers curling aggressively into the thick, expensive silk of his tie. Using the very last ounce of strength I possessed, I yanked his face down to mine and crashed my lips against his.

It was not a plea for help. It was a reckless, feverish collision. For a split second, Kyle went completely rigid. He felt like a wall of solid marble beneath my hands, his sharp intake of breath hissing past our joined lips. He smelled of crisp cedar and bitter winter wind, a freezing contrast to the liquid fire incinerating my veins. I opened my mouth, deepening the kiss with a desperate, heavy hunger, pressing my aching body flush against the tailored lines of his suit.

A low, rough sound vibrated deep in his chest. The icy disdain in his posture shattered completely.

His massive hands suddenly snapped up. One hand clamped around the curve of my waist with a punishing, territorial grip, while the other tangled fiercely into the hair at the nape of my neck. He did not push me away. He took absolute, devastating control. His mouth parted over mine, his tongue sweeping inside with a dark, predatory dominance that sent a violent jolt of electricity straight to my core.

The kiss turned punishing, wet, and thoroughly consuming, erasing the suffocating room entirely. He backed me up against the edge of the heavy leather sofa, his hard thigh parting my legs, his heat rising to meet the drug-induced fever raging through my system.

And buried deep inside the pocket of my coat, pressed tightly between our colliding bodies, the tiny red light of my recording pen blinked steadily in the dark—the only proof I had to send Eric straight to hell.