I’m wearing a tight-fitting black shirt and jeans, nothing fancy for tonight. Dressing more simply makes the dregs less likely to think about fucking with me.
Bouncing isn’t the kind of gig I like, but I know my boss assigned me to this post since I’ve been in minimal contact with him the past week or so. He’s the kind of man who demands regular attention. Not unlike a child.
Of course, if he’s so interested in things going smoothly tonight that he has a hitman handling security, something high-stakes must be happening tonight. Poker games are a popular one, and I’ve seen more than a few of Brighton’s highest-profile businessmen and criminals alike lose fortunes under these lights.
High-dollar drugs aren’t out of the question either, but I find it doubtful with all the people here. Back in the 80s, though, I can imagine this place saw its share of coke parties.
I see a few burly men making their way down the stairs, and I give them a nod of recognition, knowing whose guard dogs they are. A moment later, their master — my boss — makes his way down the stairs wearing a lavish and gaudy orange jacket and a thick gold chain, laughing with what looks like a similarly dressed Chechnyan from across town.
“Ah, and here is the man who’ll keep us sleeping safe at night,” he gestures to me as he reaches the bottom of the stairs where I’m standing cross-armed, a statue compared to the other guards. “My own personal Shadow — I couldn’t replace this man with a hundred of these other goons, I tell you!”
“Mr. Slokavich,” I incline my head to him, “You and your friends have something special planned for the night?”
“Andrei,” he chides me, slapping me on the back heartily, “have I ever hosted something that disappoints? Sergei Slokavich is not a man to let his valued guests go wanting, you of all people know this.”
He’s trying to suck up to someone, I think privately, giving a smile to Sergei and his rich friend. Sergei is a proud man, but sucking up when it’s useful is not beneath him by any measure. Tonight must be something special indeed.
“People are still buzzing over last week’s match,” I agree, bringing up the fixed fight Sergei had a chubby hand in. “It takes a special talent to draw men from all walks of life like this.”
“Aahh,” Sergei says, holding up a finger triumphantly. I’ve learned how to flatter him fairly easily over the years. “Good eye as ever — you see?” He turns to his Chechnyan friend again, who’s looking bemused. “This is why he’s my best. Ace in the hole, the Americans call it. And he’s absolutely right, tonight is going to be something for the whole community. Now come along,” Sergei starts to wander into the crowd with his wealthy friend, “there are a few of my associates who’ve been dying to meet you, and…”
His voice trails off as he and his men melt into the crowd, and I’m left alone again. Finally.
Working for Sergei Slokavich has become more of a chore over time. When he isn’t having half the other Russians in Brighton Beach killed, he’s indulging in every vice he can lay his hands on. Embarrassing as he is from my point of view, I have to admit, he’s skilled at making friends with deep pockets, particularly those who are fresh off the boat from the motherland.
The Chechnyan with him put on airs of authority, and judging by his age, I guess he’s the absurdly wealthy son of some mob boss back home, but even though we all spoke Russian, I could tell from his silence that he hardly spoke a word of the English that was being chattered all around him by the rabble. He’s out of his element, and Sergei is taking the chance to butter him up. It’s a clever ploy, but I wonder how long it’ll last.
I don’t have long to think about it, as the lights start to dim and focus on the stage at the far end of the room and people start to gather around.
That stage has been used to auction off high-dollar stolen goods in the past. I’ve seen everything from filched art and antiques to military-grade custom weapons pass through that stage. Whatever Sergei is selling tonight, it’s going to be good. I don’t have to crane my neck to see over the sea of people in the room.
A blonde man with a tight goatee I recognize stands up on the stage, running a hand through his hair as he waves at the crowd to quiet them, obviously playing the auctioneer for tonight. I chuckle.
The man’s name is Oskar, and he’s been through the ringer with the Bratva. Used to be a fairly successful collector until being recently disgraced by a job that went bad. I had been wondering where he’d end up after that kind of shame.
“Quiet down, quiet down!” he shouts at the crowd, “Gentlemen, you’ll want every one of your senses free for what we’ve got tonight!” One of the other bouncers reaches up from below to hand him a mic, and he grins, trying to look dramatic. He always was a fast talker.
“I see all the faces in this room have come from far and wide, and tonight’s entertainment does too! I got an eyeful of what we’ve got in store for you, and let me tell you, I envy those of you with the deepest pockets out there! But don’t worry, these goods have never before been sampled!”
There’s a dark laughter that goes out around the crowd of men, and I arch an eyebrow, getting a bad feeling about where he’s going with this.
“But you didn’t come to hear me ramble, so without further ado,” he turns to stage left and waggles his finger in a repulsive beckoning gesture, “come on out, ladies!”
With some hesitation and encouragement from the musclebound goon behind them, ten young women stumble out onto the stage, and the crowd starts hooting and hollering.
Immediately, I feel rage burning in my heart. Each one of the women is scantily clad, a few of them outfitted in counterfeits of expensive lingerie, others wearing nothing more than star or heart-shaped nipple coverings and underwear.
Every terrified young woman, none of them a day over 20 and all of them shaking with wide-eyed fear at the sea of ravenous, drunk men cheering up at them, holds a little placard with a number on it.
This is a slave auction.
My hands ball into fists, and I feel my face going red. So this is what Sergei valued so dearly that he wanted his best man guarding it — a flesh trade, the most lowly and vile practice even the Bratva could sink to.
My first impulse is to consider how easy it could be to kill all of these disgusting pigs in the room. My stints in Russian prisons taught me quickly how to size up a crowd of surly men that far outnumber you. A crowd of drunks like this was no comparison to a prison full of abusive, slave-driving guards and broken prisoners.
If it weren’t for the risk to the innocent young women up on stage, I would go through with it, but I can tell by the looks on their faces that none of them have so much as seen a drunk, belligerent man, much less be held up like a piece of meat for a crowd of them.
“Here they are!” Oskar announces, striding around, eyeing each one of the ladies up and down. “Each of them unspoiled, each of them eighteen, each of them very eager to please! Here,” he says, stopping at the girl with the “#1” placard, reading off a card in his hand, “we have a lovely young lady from out west in California! She’s a lifelong hiker and health nut, and it’s clearly paid off!” He gestures up and down the woman’s legs as the crowd cheers.
Oskar goes on in such a fashion, introducing each lady and getting the crowd whipped up into a lustful frenzy. As he goes down the row of women, I start to turn my eyes away in disgust when I notice the woman standing towards the far end of the stage.
She stands out from the rest of the women on stage like a ray of warm sunshine. Clad in nothing but a simple white bra and panties, her knees are turned inward as she uses her placard, #7, as if trying to hide behind it. Her luminous blue eyes are full of fear they should never be exposed to, and two blonde braids hang over her shoulders, gracing pale skin that’s pure as porcelain. She’s small and fragile-looking, even more so than the others on stage, like a doll being held up before a pack of wolves.
She’s the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
“And here,” Oskar says as he reache
s her, taking her by the arm and dragging her in front of the other girls, snapping me out of the trance I’d been in gazing at her, “here we have a real gem from the north part of our very own state! Azure eyes, golden hair, and a body you can toss around the bed as long as she lasts!”
Hearing Oskar talk about that angel as he did makes me forget my post. I stride forward, pushing past some of the crowd as easily as if I were wading through tall grass. I want to get up on stage and throttle him, but I notice Sergei and his friends up front, and I use every ounce of my strength to restrain myself.
“She’s domestically trained, a true angel of the house,” he croons, stalking around her like a demon as she shrinks away from him. “Never so much as felt a man’s touch before, and the only condition of this perfect servant being yours and yours alone is a wedding ring! That’s right, gentleman, the highest bidder gets this little doll sent away to her parents for a few days to get dressed and groomed for you and nobody else, for life!”
The men go wild, obviously ravenous with lust, and I can see a few of the more affluent-looking men looking poised, ready to pounce. For many of them, I realize, this woman would be the deal of a lifetime — a perfect wife to legitimize their images, and one who won’t pry or ask questions, either.
Oskar moves through the other women, but I can already hear men around me chattering over #7.
“I’ll deflower that pretty little rose.”
“Not like my kid’s going to college, I’d cough up those funds to fuck that little bitch!”
“Looks kinda like my daughter, gimme a piece of that ass to tear up!”
The poor girl looks absolutely terrified, her eyes flitting from man to man as they shout at her, and she tries to back away, but Oskar casts her a dark look, and she bites her lip nervously, knees shaking.
“Hey! Hey, #7! Want a real man to help you stretch those pretty lips of yours?”
The last man at my right makes me forget my restraint, and I turn to grab him by the scruff of his neck, taking him off-guard and terrifying him as I pulled him close to me, about to knock him to the ground when Oskar’s voice boomed.
“Alright, boys, alright settle down! You’ve seen the ladies, now let’s see the offers! Start the bidding!”
Both of us were distracted by the shouts we started hearing from around us, and I dropped the man to listen.
“Gimme #7! Fifty thousand!” cried a desperate-looking man who looked like he could barely afford the counterfeit watch around his wrist.
“Our first bidder in at fifty grand,” Oskar shouted, and two-thirds of the crowd groaned at the lowball offer. Most girls can net over a hundred thousand a year as a sex slave, wedding ring or no.
“Seventy-five!” shouted a man wearing a high-collared coat and wide-brimmed hat as not to be seen. The girl is looking at each bidder in alarm. The poor woman has probably never even faced a date with a man, much less this animalistic show.
“One-fifty,” comes the calm, firm voice of an older man in a tailored Armani suit.
“One seventy-five,” cries another man I recognize as a human trafficker. I can’t let this go on any longer. Any of the men in this room bidding at this threshold are with the likes of criminals too wealthy to know kindness anymore. They’re not buying her for their own pleasure, and I know what this is going to lead to. The wealthy men in fine outfits are no less crude than the mongrels that were jeering at her earlier — they only have the power to go through with those words.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I muscle my way to the front of the stage and shout out an offer.
“Three-hundred thousand!”
I’ve only felt that many eyes turn to me a couple of other times in my life, and never with such hostility. Even Oskar seemed stunned for a moment, stammering before echoing my offer.
“Th-three hundred from the man in black! Finally, we’re getting some real offers on the go!”
“Three-fifty,” came a bark from a new voice, and I looked over to see Sergei’s wealthy young Chechnyan standing up for the bid. Sergei was giving me a warning look, but I wasn’t in the mood to be jerked around by him tonight. I looked up at the stage and glared Oskar in the eye.
“Six hundred.” A few moments of silence pass, and I can feel stunned eyes on me all around the room, including one from the young lady I’d just bid several men’s lives’ worth of work on.
Every time the Chechnyan bid, I upped the ante. I couldn’t believe it, not with how my boss kept staring daggers at me. I was cutting off my source of income while at the same time laying down months of hard, dangerous work.
And then, a half-dozen bids later, they’re defeated.
“We have a winner at one point six million! And yes, this is in American!” Oskar nearly splutters when it was clear nobody dared outbid me. “This young lady is all yours, my good man! Meet the boys out front to settle the details, aaaaand we’re off to a rolling start! Now then, we still have nine lovely ladies who…”
I turn and push my way towards the stairs as Oskar starts to drone on with the rest of the auction, my heart still pounding furiously.
Did I really just drop over one-and-a-half-million dollars on that woman?
As I push my way towards the back, I hear one of the men who had been jeering at the girl spit, and I hear him mutter to another loudly, “Didn’t think they let the help place bids at these things.”
“Hope he gets his fucking money out of it — for that much, I’d make a cum-slut out of that bitch all over New York State.”
Without a second thought, my body whirls around like lightning, my fist flying out and cracking the second man on the jaw. A moment later, he hits the ground, out cold.
Before the people around me can react, the man’s friend lurches at me, but I catch him with a quick punch to the gut, doubling him over, and with a quick crack to the back of the head with my elbow, I send him to the ground with his friend.
Up on the stage, Oskar is trying desperately to keep the audience’s attention, but many of the men are staring at me now. A few of them might have been thinking about jumping into the brawl, but my quick end to the hecklers seems to make them think twice. I cast them all a steely gaze before hearing a groan from one of the men I’d just dropped.
Kneeling down, I take him by the collar with one hand.
“Speak so crudely about a woman again in my presence, and it’ll be the last words out of the few teeth you have left,” I warn him.
Standing up, I glance at the men staring at the scene. “What are the lot of you looking at? Don’t you have a meat market to enjoy?”
Without looking back, I make my way up the stairs, and the other patrons give me a wide berth. I don’t look back, even though I can feel many eyes on me — Sergei’s, his wealthy friend’s, the bidders’, and even the young woman’s.
Nobody pays me much mind as I cross through the cafe and out onto the streets. None of them heard anything, I imagine. But as I start to head down the street, my head still buzzing over everything that’s happened.
I’d disobeyed orders, embarrassed Sergei Slokavich in front of more than a few wealthy friends, and abandoned my post.
More importantly, I’d just sealed my marriage to a young woman I didn’t even know. A woman whose first impression of me was beating two men to the ground without breaking a sweat.
I just bought a marriage. What in the hell was I thinking? I swear under my breath, running a hand through my hair as I walk. I had wanted to spare her, but instead, I bound her to a contract assassin for life. The money was no issue — it was a little more than a dozen jobs’ worth, sure, but I had more where that came from. Besides, jobs outside the Bratva tend to pay better, and I might not be their most favorite person right now.
But marriage? I’ve never even come close to considering such a thing. Both in Russia and in the States, I’ve had plenty of fun with women, but married life doesn’t pair with my line of work.
Yet when the thought comes to mind, I ca
n’t help but remember the sight of her up there, far too cold and alone for a ray of sunshine as beautiful and innocent-looking as her. I run a hand over my face, though, as I remember that she saw me strike down those two drunks — a harmless lamb’s first impression of the Shadow who now owns her.
The reminder hits me like a punch to the gut. If the poor girl was afraid enough tonight, how terrified must she be now?
Cassie
The three days leading up to my wedding have been the worst days of my life.
I have been holed up in my room as much as possible, my eyes wide and my lips sealed shut, too afraid to say anything to anyone. I probably haven’t said more than two words per day. My parents have dragged me around by the arm, from the wedding cake tasting to the dress fitting. As I stood on the little round platform being poked and prodded by the seamstress, my mother fidgeted awkwardly and my father pointed out all the areas where my skin could be seen. Even the most conservative dress in the bridal boutique was still too risque for my father’s tastes, as he agitatedly pointed out to the seamstress my exposed collarbone, forearms, and back. The dress was more akin to a prom dress in style, with a princessy, lacy corset top and a huge, fluffy skirt with layers upon layers of taffeta and tulle. The seamstress assured my father that she could easily and quickly sew in lace inserts to cover any exposed flesh.
“We don’t want her to parade down the aisle with her body on display for all the guests to see, of course,” explained my father. The seamstress nodded and gave him the same kind of smile everyone gave him — ready to obey. He was a scary man.
“Yes, her body is only for her husband to see. And God, of course,” my mother added.
As though the pair of them hadn’t just made me strip nearly naked and stand exposed before a group of rowdy, dirty, foul men in some basement of a Russian grocery and cafe.
The contradiction of these experiences blows my mind, still.
I can’t believe how hypocritical my parents really are. My whole life, they have treated me like a puritanical princess. But the second the clock ticked midnight on my eighteenth birthday, they suddenly decided to turn me into some kind of whore, to be bought and sold, traded away like chattel.
Sights on the SEAL: A Secret Baby Romance Page 18