Broken Hope

by Nicole Fox

  “The rest of the party is that way,” he says to Maddie, pointing over his shoulder. “Third door on the right.”

  Maddie gazes up at him, her fear shifting to awe. She nods once, hesitantly, and then separates from me and walks away. She looks back at us as she moves down the hall towards the rest of the guests.

  “What in the hell were you thinking?” Luka asks, grabbing me by the waist and pinning me back against the wall.

  His words are gruff, but his hands are gentle and warm. He caresses my waist and hip in slow, sensuous circles, breathing heavily.

  “I thought the guards might grab you, too,” he whispers, leaning down until his forehead is pressed against mine. “I thought they might get rid of you for being too much trouble.”

  “I had to help her,” I say sharply. “They were going to kill her.”

  “They could have killed you,” Luka bites back. “That silly girl isn’t worth a hair on your head; do you hear me?”

  “We have to save them.”

  Luka’s eyes go wide and then he drags a hand down his face. “Clearly, you didn’t hear me.”

  “I did hear you, but I disagree.”

  Suddenly, Luka’s hand is wrapped around my neck and he is tipping me back, back into a kiss.

  His lips are soft but demanding, opening my mouth so he can flick his tongue against mine. I go fluid in his arms, unaware of how desperate I was for this connection until now. He steps forward, his hips grinding into mine, hitting me in all the right spots until I moan against his mouth.

  When he pulls away, I gasp like a deep-sea diver who just lost her oxygen.

  “My priority is you,” he says, firmly, brushing his nose against mine. “And only you. I don’t care about anyone else.”

  I’m still dizzy from our kiss, but I push him away and shake my head. “We can’t just walk away and let them be sold.”

  “You are my wife,” Luka growls in a low voice. “You are my priority.”

  “They could all be somebody’s wife, too,” I argue. “They probably have people who love them wondering where they are. Doesn’t that matter to you?”

  Luka tips his head back and stares at the ceiling, blowing out a frustrated breath, and then turns his green eyes on me in a glare. “First, you were mad at me for coming here to save you in the first place, and now you want me to save everyone?”

  “I wasn’t mad you came to save me, so don’t twist my words.” I jab a finger into his muscled chest, and Luka looks down at it, a warning in his narrowed eyes. “But now that you are here, why can’t we shut this entire operation down?”

  “Because I’m alone and without weapons,” he says between gritted teeth. “Our only chance of getting out of here alive is for me to bid on you and hope no one realizes we are already married.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “We have to at least try.”

  Luka huffs and opens his mouth to argue, but there is a small cough from the far end of the hallway.

  Edgar has turned the corner, his hands folded behind his back calmly, but there is a question in his eyes.

  “Sir?” he asks, turning to Luka. “Is everything okay?”

  He must have heard our whispered argument, and I can only hope he was too far away to hear any vital details.

  “Fine,” Luka says dismissively, scowling.

  I slide away from him, looking horrified. “We were just having a discussion.”

  “About what he plans to do to me later,” I say, stealing a line from Maddie.

  Edgar lifts his eyebrows in amusement. “Well, until then, why don’t we have you both rejoin the party?” he says, nodding for us to follow him back towards the bar.

  “I was going to have a smoke,” Luka says, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. “Or is that not allowed?”

  “Of course it is allowed,” Edgar says. “I will fetch a woman to accompany you.”

  “This one will do nicely,” Luka says, grabbing my arm.

  Edgar clears his throat nervously and smiles. “I see you have a preference for this woman, but it would be unfair to keep her to yourself all night. We would prefer if she mingled with some of the other guests as well.”

  Luka looks like he is going to deck Edgar for the mere suggestion that I talk to anyone else, but then he takes a deep breath and nods. “Fine then. But I will smoke alone, thank you.”

  He stalks down the hallway towards the main lobby, and Edgar smiles after him.

  As soon as he is gone, however, Edgar roughly grabs my arm and leads me to the bar.

  “You are here for the satisfaction of our guests,” he snaps, dragging me along faster than I can walk in my heels. “Keep your feelings to yourself, do you hear me?”

  I don’t answer, and Edgar pauses outside the bar.

  “Do you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I say, glaring up at him.

  When we walk into the bar, Edgar is smiling again and politely leads me towards the group, bowing as he walks away.

  I feel alone without Luka in the room. Being able to look up and see him watching me helped me feel safe. Without him here, however, I realize how precarious my situation here is. At any moment, I could be sold to someone else.

  If someone outbids Luka, it is all over. And there is no telling what Luka will do if that happens.

  Several of the men who didn’t show much interest in me before Maddie’s outburst now move towards me as I enter the room. Just as Luka feared, drawing attention to myself only means more competition for him when it comes to bidding.

  I take a deep breath and try to ground myself.

  Luka is here to save me, but I can’t depend on him. We are in this together, but I have to be strong on my own. Just like I told Maddie, I have to play their game and be cunning or I won’t survive.

  None of us will.

  11

  Luka

  After the woman’s outburst during the dance, the night’s event is transferred to the bar and never makes it back to the ballroom.

  The guests seem content to drink and mingle with women, most of them acting as though the disturbance never happened, but I can’t forget it. Not when Eve spends all of her energy catering to the poor woman.

  Between every man she talks to, Eve cuts across the room to check on Maddie.

  I love Eve for her kindness and determination, but right now, it is putting our entire plan in jeopardy. As much as I want to trust my wife and allow her to do what she thinks is best, her heart is overriding her brain. We can’t save everyone. It simply isn’t possible.

  I would love to end the LeClerc Cartel for good, but I can’t do it in the next four days. The only thing I might be able to do is get my wife out of here so we can find our daughter.

  That’s the only fucking option. So, that is my priority.

  To keep Edgar and the other guests from getting suspicious, I briefly talk with a few of the other women, but it is hard to pay attention to them when my focus is locked onto Eve.

  Since she ran forward to help the woman in the ballroom, more bidders seem to be paying attention to Eve. I can’t see the bidding board, but I can only assume she has several more bids under her name.

  Eve cuts into a conversation between Fox-Face and the weeping woman, sending the girl away, no doubt to keep her from breaking down again.

  I can’t stand watching this for another moment.

  She is talking to the most odious man in the room, and—Edgar be damned—I want to talk to my wife.

  I sit my drink down on the bar and begin making my way towards her to interrupt, but before I can, Edgar claps his hands again to draw everyone’s attention.

  Once he has it, he smiles.

  “Well, this will conclude day one of your stay. I hope you all had a delightful time,” he says, winking at Thirteen and Peter Struthers who are dancing closely in the corner to the soft music. “Now is the time for final bidding for the day. Only the non-virgins will be up for auction right now, so please keep that in mind.”


  Two guards wheel in the bidding board from the lounge, and as I suspect, the price on Eve has risen to over three thousand dollars. There are bids on a few other women, including Thirteen who has made her rounds flirting with every man in the room, but otherwise, not many people have taken a large enough interest in the other women to spend their money.

  “Anything you spend tonight will be donated to our charity, Glory Tree, to help support impoverished individuals.” Edgar throws out a wink as he says this.

  I highly doubt that there is such a charity. It is simply the cover for their money-laundering operation. The money is going straight in the Cartel’s pockets.

  One by one, Edgar brings up the women, having them stand in front of the crowd while bids are thrown out.

  A few of the women are given to the first bidder for an embarrassingly low price, but as he gets towards the last few women, competition increases. Thirteen ends up being sold to Peter Struthers for the night for two thousand dollars with some heavy pushback from the man in the fox mask, who already purchased another young women earlier in the lineup.

  Then, Eve is called up.

  Just like when she entered before, she keeps her head high and her face emotionless. She doesn’t flirt or look scared. She simply looks strong, and as terrified as I am, I’m proud of her.

  I raise my hand to increase the bid before Edgar can even make the call.

  “Ooh,” he says, whistling low. “This is going to be interesting.”

  The man in the fox mask increases every bid I make by one hundred dollars with no sign of slowing down.

  Eve keeps glancing over at me, looking nervous, but I try to push all distractions from my mind. I have to stay focused. If I don’t win, Eve will go to another man.

  The thought alone burns me up inside and makes my hands shake.

  I raise my hand again to increase the bid, and when Edgar calls out a higher price, the man in the blood-red mask I spoke to earlier in the evening steps forward and nods for his name to be added to the bidding.

  I haven’t seen him much all evening as he kept a rather low profile, but I can see the way he looks over at Eve. His eager interest seeps out, even from behind the mask.

  “It looks like I better save my money for another evening,” Fox-Face says with a laugh. “You two gents have it out.”

  Edgar is excited at the prospect of bringing in so much money, and though he isn’t talking quite as quickly as an actual auctioneer, he is getting close.

  Ever couple seconds I’m raising my hand, raising the bid higher and higher and trying not to reach over and strangle the thin man bidding for my wife. Finally, when the price hits four thousand, I’ve had enough.

  “Five thousand dollars,” I bark, turning to face my competition. “Will you match that?”

  Edgar clears his throat. “That is my job,” he teases. Then, he turns to the man in the dark red mask. “Will you?”

  The man looks at me, drags his eyes down Eve’s body, and then bows out with a courteous dip of his head.

  Edgar grins as he directs Eve over to me. “That concludes the bidding for the night. If you won an auction, be sure to pay in the lobby before you head to your rooms. If you didn’t, do not worry. There are three more nights ahead of us.”

  The thought makes me feel weary, but the dread is pushed aside when Eve walks over to me, a small, grateful smile pulling on her full lips. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and lead her out of the room.

  For tonight, at least, she is mine.

  As soon as I close the door to my room, I lock the door and rip my mask off.

  “That was close,” Eve sighs, sagging back against the wall. “So now what? What are we going to do about—”

  I shush her quietly with a finger held to my lips as I study the room. I checked it earlier when I arrived, but I’ve been out of the room for many hours now, and I want to ensure no one came in and planted any cameras or listening devices.

  I check under lampshades, under the bed, and along all of the window ledges and molding. Finally, after several minutes, I’m content that we are actually alone.

  I turn to Eve who is still standing in the doorway, and I walk towards her, arms open.

  She hesitates for a brief second before lunging forward and crushing her body against my chest.

  I wrap my arms around her and breathe in the scent of her. She has been away for many days, and she smells slightly different than normal, but underneath it is the same floral scent of her body, and I inhale it greedily.

  I want to soak her in, to stay her with her in my arms for as long as humanly possible.

  But she peels her head off my chest and looks up at me with curious eyes.

  “What are we going to do about the other women, Luka?” she asks.

  I sigh, and she pulls further away from me. “We are going to do something about them, right? We aren’t going to leave them.”

  “I’m not sure what we can do,” I repeat. “We can try to take down the Cartel once we are out, but right now, I don’t have the resources to do anything. Even winning you just for tonight was harder than I anticipated. And I have to assume the price is only going to go higher.”

  She bites her lip and shivers.

  I pull her against me again. “Don’t worry, I’ll win you. Every night. You won’t go with anyone else.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she whispers.

  I jerk back from her. “What does that mean? You don’t trust me?”

  She looks up at me, her caramel-brown eyes glassy and wide. “I trust that you’ll save me, but I don’t believe you’ll take down the Cartel. You are just saying it to make me shut up. You just want me to stop talking about it.”

  “Eve …” I reach for her, but she steps back out of my range. The fire in her eyes is raging.

  “No,” she shakes her head and flips her hair over to one side, her fingers fidgety and nervous. “The least you can do is tell me the truth.”

  “The least?” I ask, anger creeping into my voice. “As if I haven’t done enough already?”

  “You should have gone after Milaya!” Eve yells. The force of her words seems to surprise her, and she pinches her lips together. “I could have taken care of myself.”

  “I only had a lead on where you would be,” I argue. “My option was to miss my only opportunity at getting into this auction to save you or search in vain for a clue about Milaya’s whereabouts that may not have ever come. Regardless of what you think about my decision, I did the best I could with the time and information I had. I’m so sorry that isn’t enough for you.”

  She stares down at the floor, looking guilty, and then looks up at me. “No, it’s not enough, Luka. There are more women here. They need you. They need us.”

  Frustration bubbles up inside of me until I can’t see straight. My vision goes blurry around the edges, focusing in on Eve’s face, and I stalk towards her quickly.

  She backs up against the wall, and I pin her there, her wrists in each of my hands.

  “I don’t want to save everyone,” I growl. “I don’t care about everyone. I only care about you.”

  “Luka, that isn’t—”

  I press my knee between her legs, making her gasp, and shake my head. “No argument. Those are the facts and they aren’t up for debate. I only care about getting you out of here unharmed, and I won’t hear any talk about anything that could interfere with that plan.”

  Her eyes narrow. “You may have bought me tonight, but I’m not actually your slave, you know?”

  I step away from her all at once, putting a foot of space between our bodies. “Then leave.”

  She moves forward like she is going to. Her eyes are golden with anger, and she is breathing heavily, her chest heaving, drawing even more attention to the low cut of her dress.

  “I’m not your captor,” I whisper, reaching out to touch a strand of her hair. “You are free to do whatever you want when you are with me, you know that. So, if you want to leave
and go back to your room, go. I won’t stop you.”

  Just as the words are out of my mouth, Eve throws herself forward and crushes her lips against mine.

  It takes me less than a second to curl her into my body and push her back against the wall.

  Her hands are on my neck and curling in the hair at the base of my head, and I can’t get close enough to her. I press my body into hers, grinding my hips hard. She moans and scratches her nails down my back.

  There are too many layers between us. As soon as I start to shrug out of my jacket, Eve slides her hands under the collar and pushes it down my arms. Then she undoes the buttons of my shirt as fast as her fingers can manage.

  Her hands on my bare skin are ice-cold, and I hiss in surprise, but she drags them lower, lower, curling her finger just above my pants and then dipping her fingers even lower.

  Before she can do anything else to send me over the edge, I grab her wrists and pin them against the wall. Eve arches her back and looks up at me. Her eyelids are low, but there is fire in her gaze. Need. Overwhelming desire.

  I press a kiss to her chest, moving lower until I’m between her breasts.

  The dress is cut low enough that I can see the gentle curve of the underside of her breasts, as well, and I lick the sensual slope before pulling back the material with my teeth.

  Her breasts bounce free of the material, and I circle my tongue around her pointed nipple before sucking it into my mouth.

  “Luka,” she moans, closing her eyes and resting her head back on the wall.

  I play with her nipple until she is so hard it must be painful, and then I switch to the other breast and do the same thing.

  She is so beautiful. It is no wonder there was a bidding war over her. Anyone in their right mind can see she is the most beautiful woman in the room.

  Before I can stop myself, I’m imagining what the night would have looked like if I hadn’t won her. If she had gone to another man’s room.

  The thought fills me with an indescribable darkness. I stand tall, back rigid, and growl against her warm cheek.