by Violet Blaze
The bid for Adelaide started at a quarter million dollars.
I had no idea if that was a little or a lot because not once had I ever come to one of these damn things. Fuck, just knowing they existed made me sick to the pit of my stomach. I liked women—I loved women—but any man that thought he could buy and sell 'em like cattle had lost his balls too far up his own asshole to ever dig 'em out. And that was assuming he even had any in the first place.
So here I was, offering up two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a girl I fucked for free yesterday afternoon, a drink in one hand, a glossy dark wood bidding paddle in the other.
“I see two fifty thou in the back, can I get a three? I see three. Can I get three fifty? Three fifty, thank you sir. And four, four, can I have four?”
I raised my paddle again and tried to look as bored and soulless as the men around me, sipping my vodka on the rocks and trying to keep a cool head. There were so many emotions going through my head right about then that I felt like I was about to burst into goddamn flames tryin' to sort 'em out.
“We've got four. Can I see four fifty, four fifty, and thank you for four fifty to this kind gentleman. How about five? This beautiful female Companion is worth five at least.”
A man in a navy suit raised his own paddle and chuckled at something the person on his right said, like he was betting on a damn vase or a painting or an antique book.
For Christ's sake, this was Adelaide Vaughn up there on that block.
“Five fifty, can I see five fifty good sirs?”
Another man across the room raised his paddle, and I had to work real, real hard not to grit my teeth. My daddy might've been a billionaire now, but there were men that wiped their asses with his net worth every morning after breakfast. If I let on that I wanted Adelaide as more than just a passing interest, we were both screwed. Me, her, and that sister of hers in the blue dress.
“Wouldn't it be nice to own sisters?” someone asked behind me, and then he, too, raised his paddle. “The one with the purple hair is by far the more attractive of the two, don't you think? She looks young, too.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and took another sip of my drink.
The bidding war escalated between these two men as they raised the standing offer up to a cool million.
A million bucks for a girl that tried to stab me to death. I must've been losin' my damn mind.
My paddle went up and I traded my empty drink out for a full one from a waiter's tray.
Jesus, what am I even doing here? If I get caught fucking around with The Sovereign Revolutionists, I'll get us all killed. These people don't mess around none.
“A million and a quarter,” the auctioneer called out and I got outbid again. “Bid's a million and a quarter, now a million and a half, now a million and a half, will you give me a million and three quarters?”
I coulda killed my old man for this … probably would've, too, if I didn't think the Weeping Bones'd take care of him for me. I refused to look around and see if he was there. If he saw me, we were all fucked six ways to Sunday and neither the lord nor the devil himself would be able to get us out of this one.
I made another bid and realized I was now in a bidding war with a man near the front of the crowd. I couldn't see much of him from back here, but he had dark hair and a casual, easy stance that set off every warning signal in my body—and trust me, I got good ones. Avoiding my dad's fists was an important skill to pick up at a young age. I never knew when he'd be drunk or high or just in a mood. The company he kept wasn't much better, and I learned to avoid them, too.
This man in the suit … he was as bad as any white trash wanderer my old man ever came across.
“Two and a quarter, would you give two and a half? Thank you, sir. Would you give two and three quarters? The bid's now at three million; can I get three and a quarter?”
If I had to spend every last dollar my dad had, I was going to buy this girl and walk her out of this building tonight. Failure here was not an option. I kept careful attention on Adelaide Vaughn as she stared at the floor by her feet. Smart move. I was just glad she wasn't staring right at me. When my gaze started to stray to the right, toward the other women, I had to stop myself.
I couldn't save them all tonight. Hell, I couldn't save any of them any night. I could only get Adelaide and her sister out of there. Beyond that, I was almost as powerless as they were.
The bid rose to five million and stopped after I raised my paddle one last time. The man with the dark hair glanced over his shoulder, but I wasn't looking at him anymore, averting my gaze to the side of the room and lifting my empty tumbler in the waiter's direction. I didn't stop staring at him until he took my empty glass and gave me a new drink, right about the same moment the Auctioneer called the bid and I stole Adelaide Vaughn from the den of hungry wolves.
All around me, I could just imagine them licking their damn chops.
A couple of the men nearest me gave their congratulations, squeezing my shoulder and acting like I'd just bought myself a new Ferrari instead of a girl with a beauty mark next to her gold eye and the gall to kiss a thirteen year old boy right on the mouth when she was only nine years old.
Guess that's why I was here then. It shouldn't have mattered to me what happened to Adelaide Vaughn, but it was my asshole of a father that stole money from her dad's club, brought her here in the first place, got her into this mess.
I owed this to her, and whatever else I was, I tried to be a man of fucking integrity.
Adelaide was escorted from the stage by the Mistress, the only woman in that room that wasn't up for sale. Married to the Auctioneer himself, she'd helped start this business and now ran the Block by his side. All I knew about them, about this place, I'd learned from my dad. He sponsored my membership—which I didn't want—and then just paid our way into their ranks. This club called themselves The Sovereign Revolutionists, and they had some weird fucking scruples. Far as I knew, they believed the modern world should revert back to two social classes: the nobility … and everyone else.
I downed my third drink and lifted my paddle to bid on Layla Vaughn, one of Adelaide's four sisters.
We barely made it to a half million before the bid was over—everybody in this room was thinking I wanted the pair of sisters for my collection and nobody cared enough to spend money on a plain girl with thin lips and no breasts. Or so that's what the man on my left told me as I retired my paddle and headed into the office to complete the sale.
The sale.
Fuck.
I tried not to think too hard about any of it.
“Congratulations, Mr. Buchanan,” a man in a crisp navy suit said as he approached me with a tablet and had me sign my bidder's number in place of my name. The Sovereign Revolutionists believed in using their own names during club meetings—they ain't ashamed of their beliefs is the reasoning—but in all official capacities, they used their numbers. “Your bank transfer was successful,” he told me in a bored voice, as if he expected nothing less. “Now, if you'd like to attend to the winners' lounge for a drink, I'd be happy to escort you.”
I snatched a cigar from a silver tray and lit it up, taking a puff of meaty full-bodied smoke and holding it in my lungs like I actually cared to smoke it at all. Jesus, I just wanted a pack o' Marlboros.
“I'll take some brandy,” I said and the man nodded, like that was agreeable enough. He led me down a short hallway into a lavish lounge area with black walls and red velvet couches, photographs of men on the walls surrounded by beautiful women.
Forgive me, Mama, I said as I strode into the room like I owned the damn place.
“Please, help yourself to refreshments,” the attendant said, “and I'll get your drink.”
Forgive me, Jesus, I added as a woman in a green and black corset draped herself over my arm.
“Mr. Buchanan,” she cooed as I smoked my cigar and acted like I'd been here, done this a million times before. But holy hell, this was a den of sin if I'd
ever seen one. Black slacks were undone, pretty rouged up mouths sucking on stark white cocks. Men shirked their suit jackets to fuck girls on the couches, against the walls, on the pool table in the corner. “Is there something I can get for you?” the woman asked, reaching for the button on the ten thousand dollar pair of pants I was wearing.
“Ain't got time for any of that, sweetheart,” I said, sweeping past her and joining a group of men near the two story fireplace. Whatever conversation they were engaged in stopped as I approached and tried for bored-casual. Fuck, it wasn't like I'd never been in a room full of people screwing each other's brains out, but those people … they were there by choice. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that these girls weren't exactly given a lot of options.
“Dash Buchanan, well I'll be damned,” a man in a charcoal grey suit said as he turned to face me and smiled with big white teeth. “Your daddy once told me that his son was more interested in drunk college girls than he was fine women of taste. What brings you to the Block tonight?”
“I figured if y'all were spending all your time here, there must be something to it,” I lied through my teeth, taking the brandy from the attendant's hand without looking at him. As far as these men were concerned, he was even more invisible than the half-naked women draped around the room—at least they were good for sex.
Fuck.
Forgive me God, I added, wondering if I'd just about covered all my bases. I was a sinner, that was for sure, but I sinned in the name of pleasure. This was … well, this was hell. I could taste desperation and sweat in the air, smell the rancid scent of sex and cigar smoke, hear the guttural moans of the men around me, the pants of the women.
If I so much as slipped up once in here, that was it. I was dead as doornail. These men tolerated my pa because he had money, because he did more than just design and sell motorcycles. He laundered money for them; he created and organized private police and militia groups using his contacts from his time in the Weeping Bones MC, and well, he was just an all-around backwards sonnuva bitch. But they didn't like him, and they didn't like me none either.
Old money and new money just didn't mix.
“You buy yourself a Companion tonight?” the man in the charcoal suit asked as I tried to figure out his name. I'd most definitely seen him around my father's office before, reeking of cigar smoke and looking like he'd stepped out of a black and white photograph from some 18th century cotton plantation.
“Bought myself two,” I said with a laugh that I didn't feel, standing there in a tailored suit and a smug smile that traced across my face like a scar. “Sisters actually.”
“Fantastic,” the man said as his name finally popped into my head—Oakley Harleston of PopSodaCo., a company with a market capitalization of almost two hundred billion dollars. Still, small potatoes compared to some of the others. “I hear you were betting against Ingvar Dunham?”
That one took me a minute.
“That was Ingvar Dunham?” I asked with a shock of surprise and a lick o' fear. Well, hell. If that man had decided he really wanted Adelaide, there'd have been nothing I could do about it. My father's company had a market value of about twelve billion—but that was on the public side of things. With all his backroom maneuverings and under the table dealings, our family had a worth of about twenty billion overall. Ingvar, he was the ninth richest man in the world. “Well, fuck him and his mama then, he let me win?” I asked with a laugh as I shook my head and sipped my drink.
“You let the kid win?” Oakley asked as Ingvar stepped up to our little circle with the girl in the green and black corset on his arm. “Never took you for much of a philanthropist, Ing.”
“I have my moments,” the man said, smiling at me like a damn crocodile. The expression was genteel and docile at the moment, but only because his lips were closed. I knew as soon as they opened that he'd be biting down with an entire jaw full of razor-sharp teeth. “It's the kid's first time at the Block. I couldn't send him home empty-handed. Besides, my first Companion was a bit of a spitfire like that one Mr. Buchanan just bought himself. I know what a handful they can be.”
“That's mighty generous of you,” I said, letting my accent hang slow and thick like molasses. This Yank in the fancy suit probably thought I was too dumb to pour piss out of a boot. “You say spitfire, but she seemed docile enough to me.”
Right. Like when she was stabbing me with a fucking knife and clawing up my back while I fucked her. But how the hell did this asshole know anything about Adelaide Vaughn?
“We had a brief meeting during cocktail hour,” Ingvar said as he turned his attention to the girl in the corset, her eyes shimmering with fear as he leaned down to kiss her. I felt bad for turning her down now, leaving her to fall into the arms of a man with a reptilian smile on his urbane face. “I'll look forward to seeing you in the Play Rooms,” he said as led the girl off to some shady corner of the red and black room with its naked statues and its black chandelier and the mounted heads of exotic animals on the wall.
I sipped my drink.
The Play Rooms.
The last obstacle to getting Adelaide and her sister out of here, and I had no idea how I was going to go about doing it.
Once the auction was finished and all the bidders had collected in the winners' lounge to mingle, I saw myself back down the hall to the office and found my way to an attendant.
“Number 218231,” the man said as I approached him, not even bothering to confirm the tattoo behind my right ear. Hidden just beneath the edge of my hairline was a small tattoo of a black and grey crown crossed with a knife and a scepter, the number 218231 written in UV ink beneath it. To see the number, a person'd have to have a black light handy. The Sovereign Revolutionist tattoo made it easy for members to recognize one another while the ultraviolet ink of their number wasn't really visible unless you were in a nightclub or someone was really looking for it. “Your Companions are waiting in the next room. Please hit the buzzer if there's anything at all that you might need.”
I nodded and tucked my hands in my pockets, still smiling like an asshole and strutting my stuff like the biggest cock in the henhouse.
The attendant lead me down the hall and into another room, this one bare except for a sofa, a pair of chairs, a coffee table and some potted plants. The walls were covered in gold and burgundy wallpaper with white wainscoting and photographs damn near as tall as I was placed at regular intervals.
Sitting amongst it all was Adelaide Vaughn, bent over her own lap, that purple-black hair of hers hanging across her face, her hand pressed to a small bandage behind her right ear. As soon as she heard the door open, she looked up, those gold-grey eyes of hers flashing with rage at the sight of me.
She dropped her hand from the bandage and I noticed that the white gauze was already red with blood. Her sister sat beside her, body shaking with silent tears as she cried into her hands.
The attendant passed me a pair of keys.
“If you require additional security, please don't hesitate to ask.”
And then he retreated and the heavy wood door slammed shut behind me.
“You son of a bitch,” Adelaide said, the expression on her face something that would've sent the devil running straight back to hell. “You son of a bitch!”
She rose to her feet, but she didn't move from where she was sitting. She couldn't even if she wanted to; they'd shackled her to the red and gold chaise that was bolted to the floor.
They were also watching our every move.
This room was as buggy as a porch light on a hot summer night, swarming with microphones and cameras. Nothing we did in here was private.
Adelaide faced me down with her hands curled into fists at her sides, her hair perfectly curled and shimmering, her mouth full and made up. I hated to admit it, but in the diamond bracelet and the necklace, the purple satin dress, she was a vision. It was hard to look away.
I didn't bother to try, striding toward her and grabbing her upper arm in a rough, bruising
grip—not because I wanted to, but because I had to.
“If you care to live through the night, you'll keep your mouth shut,” I whispered against her ear, her muscles tightening and body stiffening like she was going to launch herself at me and claw my damn eyes out, shackles be damned. “Adelaide, I'm here to help you, but I can't do that if you blow our cover.”
I relaxed my grip on her arm and stood up, smirking down at that tanned face and those smooth shoulders, at the angry parting of her lips and the frantic breaths that edged between them. She was as pretty as a rose in a field full of weeds, this thick ripe blossom that stuck out above all the other foliage.
I let my mind wander briefly back to that rooftop. Even though my leg hurt like hell and I'd had to let one of the guys give me some crude stitches, I didn't regret a thing.
“If you mention anything about yesterday—about meeting at the concert, about us fucking, about Maverick—”
“You shot my brother,” she whispered, her voice this violent edge, like the point of a knife positioned at the frantic thump of my pulse. “You killed him.”
“No,” I told her emphatically, shaking her arm for the benefit of the cameras and gritting my teeth, “I didn't. He pointed a gun at me and I aimed back at him, but I never got the chance to fire.”
“You're a liar,” she hissed, jerking away from me and then swinging her palm at my face. I managed to grab her wrist, and shoved her back to the couch, using my bodyweight to push her down against the cushion, grind my pelvis against her silk covered thigh as I pressed my mouth to her ear.
“One of the men that grabbed you, the one I shot in the face, he was the one that killed your brother.”
“Get off of me,” Adelaide snarled, but she was shaking and pale, probably drugged. Ingram Calhoun, the one who called herself the Mistress, she was proud of the procedures she'd instituted since opening the business with her husband ten years ago. No food for a day, just enough water to sate the tongue, and a cocktail of drugs to slur the mind and weaken the body. The Adelaide that'd fought me on the roof was ten times, twenty times, stronger than this.