Ransom (Love Hack Book 1) Read online

  Ransom

  Love Hack #1

  Elizabeth Knox

  Contents

  Available Now

  Do you like Paranormal Romance?

  Blurb

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Ransom

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblances to persons, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Ransom. Copyright © 2021 by Elizabeth Knox. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in articles or reviews. For information, contact E. Knox.

  Editing: Kim Lubbers, Knox Publishing

  Proofreading: Jackie Ziegler, Knox Publishing

  Formatting: E.C. Land, Knox Publishing

  Cover Designer: Clarise Tan, CT Cover Creations

  Photographer: Golden Czermak, FuriousFotog

  Model: Cody Smith

  Created with Vellum

  Available Now From

  Elizabeth Knox

  Series: Skulls Renegade

  Reign

  Redemption

  Revenge

  Relentless

  Reckoning

  Reclaimed

  Reckless

  Regret

  Reclusive

  Retribution

  First Generation: A Skulls Renegade MC Boxset

  Series: Steele Bros.

  Tough as Steele

  Stripping a Steele

  Protecting a Steele

  Steele her Heart

  Stolen Hearts: The Complete Steele Bros Boxset

  Series: Reapers MC

  Scarred

  Blackjack

  Here Kitty, Kitty

  Booger

  Widow

  Kade

  Hawk

  Bull

  Cobra

  Mouser

  Dixon

  Zane

  Amara

  Grim

  Chaz

  Frost

  Zorro

  Axel

  Series: Iron Vex MC

  Enraged

  Bossed Up

  Vex’s Temptation

  Series: Royal bastards Mc: Baltimore/Knights of retribution mc

  Bet on Me

  Rely on Me

  Hate on Me

  Series: Satan’s Raiders MC

  Inc’s Regret

  Series: Love Hack

  Ransom

  Series: Dungeon Demons MC with J.H. Wolfe

  Filthy Valentine

  Series: The Clans with Iris Sweetwater

  Promised

  The Trade

  Cherished

  Deceit

  Love is War

  Defiant

  Shattered

  Ruthless

  Covert

  Heretic

  Venomous

  Flawed

  Demise

  Series: The Mackenzie & Volkolv Duet

  Deceptive Love

  Series: The Mackenzies

  Forbidden Love

  Corrupted Love

  Sin City Fets with Linny Lawless & Aubree Valentine

  Switched

  Surrender

  Full Throttle with Erin Trejo

  Against All Odds

  Sharp Edges

  Pins and Needles with E.C. Land

  Blood & Agony

  DeLancy Crime Family with E.C. Land

  Degrade

  Anthologies

  Santa’s Naughty Helpers

  Do you like Paranormal Romance?

  Check out Elizabeth’s Alternate Pen Name, Liz Knox.

  Available Now From

  Liz Knox

  Series: Bloodlines Trilogy

  Fated by Blood (Free Prequel)

  Series: Nightshade

  Blood Oath (A Prequel)

  Series: Lone Wolf MC

  Origins (Free Prequel)

  Series: Hells Gateway MC

  Caym’s Fated Mate

  Shax’s Destined Mate

  Series: Bloodborn Academy

  Bitten Magic

  Anthologies

  Romanticizing the Gods

  The Elementals

  Lucian

  I’m the guy you call when you have no one else left to ask. I’m the man who will take your home, your fancy car, and everything else in between.

  Who am I, you might ask? I’m Lucian Bane. I’m the one person in this world who will levy what you love the most, for who you love the most.

  There isn’t a price you won’t pay.

  I was the bad guy to some and the good guy to others. But now I’m not either. You see, now I’m the victim.

  What do they want? It’s easy. Money.

  They want me to pay their ransom. In exchange, I’ll save her life—the only woman who ever had my heart and the one woman who shattered it to pieces.

  Prologue

  Lucian

  “Lucian, I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry, but I can’t do this, and I need you to respect that,” Magnolia tells me from where she sits in my bedroom.

  Still, I stare down at the dark blue carpet in my bedroom and inhale slowly through my nose. She can’t do this. We already did it. We already made this happen. We created this.

  At seventeen years old, we’re not the brightest bulbs in the box, fooling around without using protection. Honestly, maybe we were lucky we got by this long. Magnolia and I have been dating since sophomore year, and we’re both graduating next spring.

  “Ransom?” she calls me by my nickname, one some of my closest buddies call me when we’re on our Xboxes playing video games.

  Finally, I look up into her soft blue eyes, knowing she’s going to cry at any given moment. She’s cradling the small bump she now carries, and I wipe my hand over my face, not knowing where we go from here. She’s carrying our children . . . and she wants to just give them away, to let some stranger have them.

  No.

  I can’t let this happen.

  “Why can’t you let my family take care of them?” I choke out my question, needing some sort of answer from her. The children she carries are as much mine as they are hers, and the thought of someone else raising them physically makes me nauseous.

  Magnolia draws her brows together and shakes her head before I’ve even finished asking my question. “Why are you even asking me something like that? You really want to raise our children in a house where their grandfather runs out and screws whichever secretary or assistant who’s willing to spread their legs for him or have their drunk grandmother holding them when she decides to get in the middle of a screaming match with your father? No. I don’t want this for them, Lucian. They don’t deserve to come into something like this.”

  Her tone causes me to push myself off of the wall and walk right up toward her. “They deserve their family, not to be with strangers, not to be thrown off like they were never cared for in the first place!” I roar with all my might.

  Magnolia flinches and looks at the
doorway to my bedroom, but I don’t know why she does. She knows my parents aren’t here and the only ones in my house are the household staff. They wouldn’t dare speak a word of what I’m saying to her, not if they wish to be employed.

  “I know you don’t understand it, Lucian, but I’m making the best decision for all of us here. You want to go off to Harvard. I want to have the freedom of choosing my life, not being home with twins on prom night. I . . . I thought I’d have your support in this, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen—”

  “No, it isn’t.” Immediately I snap at her.

  I could provide for these children. I could take care of them. We both have the resources to be able to have a normal life and our children . . . yet she still wants to go away for a few months, give birth to them, and then come back like nothing ever happened.

  Magnolia saunters over to my bedroom door, grabs her purse, and rushes out without a word. It all happens so fast that I can’t stop her, but I sure as hell try. I go over to the door and open it, but as I pull back the door and glance down the hall, I see what she came here to show me—our twins, safe in their mother’s womb.

  I may only be seventeen, but I’m not an idiot. Joanna Magnolia Maverick ripped the option of being a father from me. Now I know what it’s like when a woman takes your heart and crushes it, but this time, she didn’t just take my heart with her . . . she took two more.

  Chapter One

  Joanna

  Twenty years later . . .

  “Wow, your office looks amazing. The designer did a great job,” Cricket, one of my closest friends and right-hand woman, says to me as she struts into my office with a manila envelope held against her chest.

  “Yeah, he didn’t do too badly. I was a bit unsure of him considering what Frank said happened to his office.” Frank’s one of my co-workers, a few levels below me, but he’s been with the company almost as long as I have and I respect his opinion.

  Cricket huffs and rolls her eyes as she makes her way to the cream-colored chair and sits directly on the other side of my desk. “You realize Frank complains about everything, right? Why do you think he goes through assistants and wives at the same rate?”

  At that, I release a soft chuckle and make my way over to my gray desk chair. “What’re we going over today?”

  “Resumes for the hopeful interns, but I see something’s missing on your desk, and I know just how much of a horror you are to deal with when you don’t have coffee.” Cricket laughs, setting the manila envelope down on my glass desk. She rises and heads over to the door, pulls it open, and disappears behind it. Knowing her, she’s gone down to the coffee shop we have on the first floor of the building our offices are in.

  Figuring she’ll be a few minutes, I turn on my laptop and head straight into my emails. Everything looks normal at first, questions about new products we’re launching, then questions about simple issues that should’ve been corrected before they made their way up to my level. As they say, the same shit, different day. I’m the Vice President for Acorn, a technology company that creates products like laptops, cell phones, tablets, e-readers, security systems, and so much more. A lot of my meetings go over marketing strategies, communicating with my boss and other department heads. It’s a lot of work, but I’m so proud of the position I’m in. Never in a million years did I think I’d be here, in a powerful position like this, without even getting an ounce of help from my parents. Every step I made toward this goal was my own, which only makes it so much sweeter.

  Scanning over the subject lines, I look for the word ‘urgent’, knowing anything that needs to be handled as soon as possible will have this written in the subject line. Though, as I’m scanning my eyes over the sixty emails I received since I left yesterday at five, I spot a scorpion emoji.

  It wouldn’t make a difference to most people. They wouldn’t even blink at the emoji being there, but not me. I’m part of an elite, secret society. I have been since I was a teenager and went to Stonewall University nineteen years ago.

  At the time, I thought the Society was somewhat like an elite sorority, but not only did it have both sexes as members, but it grew more and more dangerous over time. I felt blessed at first, to be chosen for something as special as their group, to join their ranks. It felt like an honor, though over the years, I quickly realized being recruited wasn’t a blessing—it was a curse, and it still is.

  I tap on the subject line with the scorpion and scroll down, reading every word very carefully. I’ve been doing this for almost twenty years, so I know a calling card when I see one.

  Joanna,

  He’d like to speak to you about the account as soon as you’re able to. Please call in.

  Best Regards.

  What looks like a simple note is everything and anything but what it appears to be. I’ve just received a message from the Society informing me I need to call and speak to our leader, a man I’ve only communicated with directly, maybe twice.

  Looking at the time, I see it’s ten minutes past nine, so I grab my cell phone and call Cricket, knowing she’ll be back at any moment. One thing I know for sure is I need to be alone, and even though Cricket is my executive assistant, she’ll come barreling through the door at any given moment.

  “Hey! I’m almost back to your office,” Cricket’s cheerful voice comes in through the other end.

  “Hey, I’m so sorry, but I forgot to tell you I’ve been having some stomach issues. Would you mind running across the street to the pharmacy and getting me some stuff?” My gut is horrible, and I mean horrible when it comes to dairy products. I have to take those Lactaid tablets they sell if I even want to have a bite of ice cream, which makes me think Cricket will understand without a doubt.

  “Oh gosh! Of course. You need those Lactaid things? I got you a super milky latte today. Oh boy, I’d better just grab it. Give me about ten minutes and I’ll be back.” With that, Cricket hangs up the phone, and I release a sigh of relief.

  Pulling up the contacts in my phone, I scroll down until I find the contact for Leonardo Da Vinci. He happened to be one of the most talented artists in the Renaissance era. It’s only natural the number for the Society is hidden under the guise of one of my favorite people, even when I dread calling so much.

  Tapping the name, I put the phone to my ear and wait until a computerized voice begins to speak. There’s a rule here: don’t speak unless spoken to.

  “Joanna, we require your assistance,” the voice tells me, and I wait, knowing now isn’t the time to say anything. “Your hacking skills are still impeccable as the last time, yes?”

  I’ve been hacking since I was fifteen years old, and while my job in the tech industry doesn’t have me using much of that skill set, the Society never fails to give me orders every now and again.

  “Yes,” I reply, keeping my tone callous, lacking a sense of emotion.

  “Just as I thought. You need to hack into the systems for LH, LLC . . .” his voice grows quieter as my brain drowns him out. LH, LLC. It rings a bell but isn’t clicking at first. “Will this be a problem for you, given who owns the company?”

  Then it clicks. LH, LLC. Lucian Bane-Hartwood, my ex, the man I haven’t seen in over twenty years, and the father of the twin girls I put up for adoption all those years ago.

  “I can’t hack into their systems, and surely you know that, so why are you testing me?” I question him. The Society will pull nasty tricks like this every once in a while. They want to test your dedication to the cause or scare you into doing what they want. In all honesty, there’s probably some prerogative here, something I don’t know.

  “This isn’t a request, Joanna. It’s an order,” he states, and though his tone is neutralized through a program, I can sense the heat oozing off his voice.

  “It’s an order that won’t be followed,” I grit, ending the call without any doubts. I slam my phone down on my glass desk and suck in a deep breath while my heart beats intensely in my chest.

  I
can’t go after Lucian, not after what I’ve already done to him. The man probably hates me for everything I’ve done, for taking his children away and adopting them out. The last time I saw him, I was eighteen and he wouldn’t even look at me. That’s how much hatred he had toward me.

  My cell buzzes once and I see it’s a text message from Leonardo, aka the Society. I’m not sure why I unlock the phone and look at the message, but the moment I do, an eerie feeling washes over my entire body as I see my twin girls with red dots on their chests. It looks like they’re outside at some sort of town center, walking around the shops. They wear knitted hats, have on puffy jackets, and even matching gloves.

  Under the photo is the message ‘Change your mind?’.

  My hands begin to shake and I know I don’t have a choice now. No, I don’t want to hurt Lucian, but if it’s the only choice I have, I’ll do it. I won’t ever let something happen to the girls, not after I picked the perfect family for them, not after their adoptive mother kept in contact with me for years and gave me quarterly updates on how they were doing. I sacrificed so much so these two could have the life they deserved and not the one their father and I would’ve trapped them in. I’ll be damned if someone in the Society tries to rip them from this world.