by Nina Park
There were always people watching, checking for snitches, and I didn’t want to risk being mistaken for an undercover cop. No one in their right mind would ever mistake me for a cop, but anyone capable of selling human beings for profit clearly wasn’t in their right mind.
I shoved my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t mistakenly purchase any of the women, bit my lip, and tried to take deep breaths. As soon as all of the women had been claimed, I planned to bolt and go directly to Guts. He needed to know what the local MCs were up to.
One by one, the women were sold off to the highest bidder, and the crowd of men surrounding the stage began to thin. As the last woman – a redhead with a stained tank top and leather skirt on – was lead from the stage, I turned, more than ready to leave. However, before I could take a step, the auctioneer rallied the crowd.
“Your patience is about to be rewarded, gentleman. Up next, we have the cream of the crop.”
As he spoke, a woman stepped through the doors and walked towards the stage, her head down, shoulders slouched forward. Shortly after, another woman followed. With each woman who walked through the door, the fire in my belly was stoked. This wasn’t right. I knew I wasn’t exactly the poster child for legality, but I had a conscious. I had a moral compass, and this auction was operating in direct opposition to both of them.
The auctioneer asked the first woman to step forward before all of the women were on the stage, and as the crowd around the stage jostled and pressed forward, I realized why. Clearly, they had been waiting for this second round of women, and they weren’t keen on the idea of waiting much longer.
Electricity filled the air as the auctioneer called out prices. Hands were shooting up everywhere, and a few men shouted in anger as they were outbid.
“Show us your titties!” a man near the front of the stage called.
The woman looked at him and then cast her eyes nervously to the auctioneer, who nodded. Her face flamed beneath the spotlights as she pulled her white T-shirt over her head, revealing her bare chest. Wolf whistles and howls erupted. The auctioneer used the excitement to raise the bid, and a few men in the crowd jumped at the opportunity.
However, a great hulking man who had been standing in the corner all night called out a price several hundred dollars above the highest bid, and everyone seemed content to let him have her.
The woman pulled her shirt back on and crossed her arms over her chest just as one of the guards grabbed her and handed her over to her purchaser.
She looked so small standing next to the man, and I shuddered to think what the days ahead would hold for her. I watched them leave together, unable to pull my eyes away until she had disappeared through the double doors at the front of the room. When I finally fixed my gaze back up on the stage, I thought I was seeing things.
I took a distracted step forward, drawing attention from the men standing around me before I could stop myself. This couldn’t be happening. It didn’t make any sense. I blinked several times, hard, trying to clear the image in front of me, but it stayed put. Standing towards the far end of the stage was a woman wholly unlike the rest.
She had on a bright red dress that brought out the rich undertones of her skin. Her black hair was frizzy from the humidity but shiny and healthy looking. Unlike the rest of the women, she looked healthy. She glowed. It was like lining nine flickering candles up to a bonfire. She was stunning.
She was also the woman I’d danced with earlier that evening.
The woman from the club. The girl who had confidently grabbed my hand and pulled me to the dance floor, who had wrapped herself around me and pulsed with passion and vivacity. What in the holy hell was she doing here?
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as the bidding continued. Women were moved off the stage and delivered to the men who had purchased them, but I barely noticed them. They only served as a countdown to her, the mystery woman.
She squinted against the spotlights, looking into the faces of the men around the stage, looking for someone to help her. But I knew she wouldn’t find any heroes in the crowd. She seemed to realize this, too, because as the last woman in front of her was moved off of the stage, her face turned to stone.
Her pouty lips were pulled tight, and her eyes fixed on some point in the distance, far beyond the stage and the room we were in and the abandoned building. Even though I knew I didn’t have any money, I patted my pockets, praying some may have materialized in the last half hour.
I cursed myself for not calling Guts sooner. Perhaps he would have come down, and I could have convinced him to bid on the woman. I hadn’t, though, so I stood there helplessly as the men fought over her like wild animals.
“What’s going on beneath that dress, baby?”
“Are you as wild as you look?”
“Show us your titties!”
The men in the crowd clearly had rather singular interests. Unlike the other woman, the girl in the red dress didn’t look questioningly to anyone for direction. She didn’t even blink as the men catcalled her and demanded things of her.
“I can pound that stubbornness out of her,” one of the men joked as he raised his hand.
Several other men laughed.
My fist was already clenched at my side, ready to pummel each and every man in the room currently bidding on her, and I felt my fingernails bite into the flesh of my palm as I squeezed my fist tighter. As much as I wanted to start a fight, I couldn’t. Guts had sent me to the auction to observe and report back. I couldn’t do that if I were killed in a brawl. I had to keep my cool. I had to stand there and watch as the woman was tormented and mocked.
But I couldn’t watch. So, I went to do the most cowardly thing I’d ever done. As the final bidder raised his hand and the crowd went still, I went to look away, but then her eyes locked with mine. A clear moment of recognition. Her lips moved – talked to me with silent words. Words that were clear to read.
Help me, she mouthed.
Chapter Six
Falyn
The man moving towards me was older. An uneven coating of fine brown hair sat atop his blotchy red face. His flesh seemed to be oozing off of him like an underbaked muffin, and I took a step backward as he neared me. Immediately, large hands like oven mitts grabbed my shoulders and forced me to the front edge of the stage.
I looked over my shoulder to see one of the men in black using what I suspected was a tiny fraction of his strength to maneuver me. I quickly searched his face for any sign of compassion or understanding, but his eyes were empty black holes. I turned back to the crowd.
I’d realized very quickly upon entering the room that I had stepped into something far worse than I’d previously imagined, but it had taken watching three women leave with the men who bid on them before I began to panic. Until that moment, I’d been certain I’d find a way out. They would get to me and then realize I wasn’t supposed to be there. Surely, there was a docket somewhere with the names of the women up for auction.
God, even the thought of women being up for purchase made me feel sick. But still, I was scared enough that I separated myself from them. Someone would realize I was different. I didn’t belong on the stage. I was free.
Of course, no one did. People in the business of buying and selling other people weren’t exactly storybook heroes. Every face in the audience looked eager, hungry. The men kept their eyes trained on the woman they wanted to buy and didn’t pay attention to anything else.
There were three different ways to exit the room I was in, but each one had a large guard stationed near it, and even if I could make it past the guard, the stage was surrounded on all sides by eager bidders. If I took one foot off the stage, I’d be surrounded by a sea of possible Bretts. They would eat me alive.
So, out of fear of the unknown, I stayed put. I shifted forward as each woman was bought and marched off stage. I kept my eyes focused on a hole in the brick wall ahead of me, praying Lacey had tried to call me and been alarmed when I didn’t answer. Praying someon
e had seen me fighting off Brett and called the police. Praying that someone would come barging into the room any second to save me.
But then, it was my turn.
I faintly heard the sound of men yelling and cheering and booing. Of the auctioneer’s fuzzy voice coming through the speakers. But mostly, I heard the sound of my own heartbeat. I heard blood pumping in my ears and my ragged breathing shaking my chest.
Then, the crowd quieted, and the half-baked man stepped towards me, and everything seemed to be falling apart.
The doughy reached for me, and even with the brick wall of a man standing behind me, I reared back. I yanked my arm away and did my best to fight, but I had so little left in me. After Brett and the alley, I felt as if I was trapped in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.
“You’re a fighter.” The man sneered – even his teeth looked yellow and underdone. “We’ll cure you of that real fast.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but if he was trying to scare me into submission, it worked. My body went limp. When he wrapped his sweaty hand around my elbow and dragged me down the stage stairs, I followed without resistance. The crowd of men surrounding the stage parted for us, a few of them reach out to stroke me as I passed. Grabbing my hair and my arm and my dress. I ignored all of them.
Until I saw someone that I couldn’t ignore.
I recognized him immediately. The man I’d danced with at the nightclub. Suddenly, everything came into sharper focus.
I’d grabbed him randomly from the crowd of dancers, so what was the chance I’d see him again here? Or was this some larger conspiracy? I didn’t see how that could be possible. For him to get me from the club to here in the way that he had, he would have had to know which way I was walking home, plan for Brett to attack me, and bank on the fact that I would run inside the building instead of jumping the fence.
Why hadn’t I jumped the fence? I knew that it wouldn’t do me any good to dwell on the past, but what I wouldn’t have given to go back in time and change that decision.
No, there was no way he could have planned for me to be here. So why was he here? Of course, the most likely scenario was that my mystery dancing partner was a complete and utter creep who went to the nightclub before coming to this auction to purchase a human woman. You know, a normal night on the town. Or, just maybe, he had seen me be attacked in the alley and come inside the building to try to find me, stumbling into this atrocious world in the same way I had.
It was far-fetched but possible.
He was leaning against a pillar, looking cool and casual. It almost felt like I was imagining him. Was I? Could someone really look that calm in the face of such atrocity? Had my mind conjured him to try and calm myself down? As a coping mechanism?
I blinked several times as the doughy man walked me closer and closer to my once upon a time dance partner, but he didn’t disappear. In fact, with every step, he came into sharper focus.
His square jaw, which in this light I could see had a dusting of pale facial hair along it, his wavy angelic blonde hair, the tattoos that snaked up his arms and touched his collarbone. How could someone like him exist in such a dark place?
Warm hands gripped me tighter, pushing me closer towards the exit, and I knew I was running out of time. Soon, I would walk through those doors without having any idea of what was on the other side. The only thing I did know is that the man from the club, the man standing in front of me now, was different. Just like me, he didn’t belong in this dark place, and I had to let him know somehow.
The entire time I’d been staring at him, his gaze had been fixed on the floor, staring at the cracked and yellowed tile as if his life depended on it. As the doughy man pushed me nearer to him, though, he looked up, and our eyes met. I seized my opportunity.
Help me, I mouthed, moving my lips around the words as slowly as I could so there would be no mistaking what I’d said. Help me.
His face didn’t change at all, and I wondered whether he’d seen me. And then I wondered whether he wasn’t like the emotionless guards surrounding the room. Was he a part of the trafficking ring? Had I just sent my message in a bottle to a ruthless pirate? My hopes plummeted. Tears burned behind my eyes and my throat closed with unshed tears.
I was all alone.
Just as I was about to give up and look away, the man’s eyes darted to the doughy man holding my arm, who was distracted with the effort of not tripping over his own feet, and then back to me. Then, he nodded.
My captor pushed me through the exit and into a dank, dusty corridor, but I’d seen it. The man had acknowledged me. It was the smallest tip of his head, the knowing look in his eyes. I didn’t know what exactly it had meant, but as sweaty hands hauled me through the door and onto the empty street, I prayed it had been a promise to help me.
The man placed a hand on the back of my head and bent me forward, forcing me into the back seat of a waiting black car. The car smelled like cigarette smoke and leather. The man followed me. I shoved myself as far away from him as I could, leaning my entire body against the opposite door.
“Child locks are on,” the man said, his voice more high-pitched than I would have imagined. “So, don’t try anything funny.”
The driver – a gray-haired man with a messy beard – turned around and lifted his glasses up over his eyebrows. He squinted at me and then widened his eyes in surprise.
“She’s a step up from the usual,” he said to the man sitting next to me.
The usual. Other women, he meant. How many other women had sat in this back seat with these men? Where were they now? Chills ran down my spine, and my stomach, empty save for alcohol and a few nuts, churned.
The driver looked back at me, his eyes lingering over my chest, making me feel naked. After several seconds of uncomfortable silence, he lowered his glasses, turned back to the road, and pulled away from the curb.
We were off. To where… I had no idea.
Chapter Seven
Cade
I threw a leg over my motorcycle and let it roar to life beneath me. The woman was long gone by now, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking for her. It was clear by the look on her face that she’d recognized me, and then she’d asked me for help.
What had she thought when she saw me standing there at the back of the auction? Did she think I was with those other men? The kind of man who traded women as if they were property?
I knew it didn’t matter what she thought of me. I didn’t even know her name, and she didn’t know mine. But still, I felt a responsibility to her.
She’d looked so helpless standing up on that stage, and then one of Marco Santorelli’s goons had bought her. No doubt, they were there on behalf of Marco, which meant the woman was in need of immediate help. Marco was a monster.
I pulled the throttle, released the clutch, and took off in the direction of the Stone Devils’ clubhouse. Guts would be there, waiting for my report, and hopefully receptive to a new proposition.
The parking lot was fairly empty when I pulled in, and Guts was the only person sitting at the bar when I walked inside. The Stone Devils’ clubhouse was a stereotypical bar – wood paneling, yellow lights, neon signs – but it was home for the motorcycle club. Every time I walked in, I could count on recognizing almost every face. Similar to Cheers, I felt it was nice to go where everybody knows your name.
“Cade!”
On cue, Guts called out my name and patted the barstool next to him. He gestured for the bartender, Jimmy, to pour me a drink, and by the time I sat down, two fingers of bourbon were on the bar top waiting for me.
I picked up the glass and downed it in one drink, sucking my teeth as the liquid burned down my throat.
“Rough day?” Guts asked, sipping his own drink.
For being the boss of a motorcycle club, Guts was one of the nicest looking guys I’d ever met. His face was soft and round, eyes far set and bright. He had pink cheeks, full lips, and baby-smooth skin. He looked like a younger, more fit version of S
anta.
“You could say that.” I slammed the glass back on the bar, and the bartender dutifully refilled it without even asking. Good man, Jimmy.
“Tell Guts what’s on your mind,” he said, referring to himself in the third person.
“Did you know the deal with that auction tonight?” I asked.
Throughout the entire event, I’d comforted myself by believing Guts didn’t know what he was sending me into. He didn’t know there would be women up for sale. If he did, he wouldn’t have attended, and he would have found a way to shut it down. Now, that theory would either be proven true or false, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answer.
Guts shrugged. “There were rumors it was a special event, but I never heard anything concrete. Why? What did you see?”
I picked up my second drink, sipping on it, letting the amber liquid drench my tongue. “Women,” I replied, turning to look at him, hoping to gauge his reaction. “They were buying and selling people.”