by Nicole Fox
He turns and leaves without another word, leaving us all standing in the small room, wondering what to do next.
Maddie stumbles towards me and throws her thin arms around my waist. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I’m sorry about—”
I shush her, smoothing down her hair. “It’s okay. I understand. I’m sorry he yelled at you.”
She looks up at me, and I can tell she understands I’m talking about both Edgar and Luka. Tears gather in her eyes and spill across her cheeks.
I help her clean up her smudged makeup. When Edgar returns to lead us to the lounge, Maddie is standing by my side and looking as good as new.
The morning is spent doing different versions of what Edgar wanted done. Unlike the previous mornings, the men don’t need to be creative during this task. They get to ask for exactly what they want, though overt sex acts are still off the table.
Lap dances.
Strip teases.
And heavy petting that fills the room with soft moans and labored breathing.
As soon as he realizes what is going on, Luka claims me without hesitation. Part of me wants to tell him that we need to maintain our ruse, but perhaps that ship has sailed. Edgar as good as admitted I belonged to Luka—though Joel Foli is certainly still making his interest known.
Luka has me sit in his lap, straddling him so we are face-to-face and free to talk. He presses his lips to my neck and whispers in my ear.
“Who bruised your arm?”
I look down and realize there are dark lines of fingers forming across my forearm. “I’m not going to say.”
Luka’s hands tighten on my waist, and I circle my hips against him to relax him again. He hesitantly allows me to.
“I don’t want you losing your cool on anybody and ruining our plan so close to the end,” I say, grinding down into him. I am performing because I have to, but with Luka, it is hard to keep that line straight. His body pressed against mine will always be like a drug. I lose myself in him.
He kisses a line down my chest and between my breasts, moaning as he goes. “I’ll keep control.”
“Yeah, right,” I tease, arching into him. “You can barely keep control now.”
His hand slips around my thigh and brushes across my center. “That’s because you are so fucking hot.”
I smile and rock my body on top of his.
Over his shoulder, I see Joel Foli receiving a dance from Number Six. He tears his eyes away from her wide hips and thin waist to look at me and smile.
I shiver.
Luka begins to turn to see what made me uncomfortable, but I capture his lips with mine before he can. “Do you want a drink?”
He shakes his head. “I just want you.”
For a moment, we kiss and cuddle and find solace in one another. But it can only last a short time before we have to be practical.
“I think I’m going to try to convince Joel to leave the inn,” Luka says.
“What?” I ask, glancing back at Joel who is now grabbing Number Six’s hips and grinding himself against her backside. He looks like he is having too much fun to even think about leaving.
“I can’t leave because then I won’t be able to bid on you,” he explains. “But maybe I can convince Joel that there is no way he is going to get you, so he might as well leave. Maybe I can pay him to look for Milaya. That way, while we are in here, he can be looking for her. When we get out, we could go save her.”
I nod, trying to be supportive. “Maybe.”
“I just need to get him alone,” Luka says.
I think he needs to do a lot more than that. Joel doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who will give up easily.
Suddenly, Luka tenses. His hands are like stone around my waist and his entire body is clenched and ready to either run or fight.
“What is it?” I whisper.
Even with his mask on, I can see that his face is pale. I follow his eyes and feel myself go stiff as well.
Rian Morrison is standing in the entryway.
She is wearing the same uniform of a pencil skirt and starched button-down shirt she had on the day she kidnapped me. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a severe ponytail. But unlike the scowling woman I met at her family’s mansion, she is smiling at Edgar as though they are old friends.
Luka picks me up off his lap, sits me back down in the chair, and moves to the minibar.
I don’t need to ask to understand what he is doing. We can’t be seen together. Luka is wearing a mask, but Rian isn’t an idiot. If we are cuddled up together on a chair, she’ll realize who he is. She’ll ruin our plan and have Luka killed.
I sit frozen as Rian walks into the lounge and takes a look around. Her eyes fall on me almost instantly, and her smile widens.
My stomach turns. I want to run and grab onto Luka, afraid Rian will drug me again and drag me somewhere else. But I can handle her on my own.
I have to.
She approaches with a cocky strut. “Eve,” she says, tipping her head to me. “Or, should I say, Number Seven? It looks like you are doing quite well on the bidding board. Congratulations.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, not bothering to hide my disdain. Rian isn’t one of the bidders. She won’t affect whether Luka purchases me or not. Unless, of course, she finds out Luka is here at all.
Rian lifts her chin and shakes her ponytail out. “I was granted special access to the auction because I supply the Cartel with a fair amount of … inventory.”
“Isn’t this the kind of activity someone in your position is supposed to be cracking down on?”
She shrugs. “I’m still cleaning the streets of crime in a way. I offer up drug addicts and other criminals I come into contact with through my job as an agent. I pick women no one will notice and make a little profit along the way. Win-win.”
“For you,” I spit. “Not for the women you trade.”
“Well, we can’t all win,” she says. “I guess you are learning that the hard way.”
I sit tall and ball my fists, ready to fight. Rian simply takes a slow step back and shakes her head. “I hope you are behaving better for the guests. I have a reputation to maintain with the Cartel and offering up a troublemaker won’t help.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she holds up a finger to stop me. “May I remind you that a baby could sell for a lot of money on the black market?”
My heart lodges in my throat, blocking all air to my lungs and words from my lips.
Rian smiles. “That is what I thought.”
I clear my throat and swallow back the unshed tears. “If you let Milaya go home—give her to Luka’s parents—I won’t hold a grudge. I will tell Luka to let you live.”
Rian stares at me for a second and then scoffs. “You are something else. You are about to be sold as a slave and you still think you have any kind of control over me? Stupid woman.”
She walks away before I can say anything else, but I decide one thing in that moment:
When the time comes, I’ll kill her myself.
17
Luka
I overhear a very small portion of Rian and Eve’s conversation, but sticking too close is a risk I can’t afford. While they are talking, I grab a drink from the bar and move to the opposite side of the room, hoping if I stay low and avoid getting too close, Rian will be too distracted with Eve to pay any attention to me.
I’m standing in the corner when I see Joel push aside the woman he was grinding against and move into the entryway. I take my drink and follow after him.
I don’t see him immediately when I walk into the entrance hall, but then I hear a muffled voice coming from a closet to my left. I press my ear against the door.
“And that number is firm?” Joel asks, humming to himself. “Good. I can work for that. They are paying up-front, right? Even better. Yeah, I’m at the auction now. I have my eye on a damn fine prize, and she might cost me a pretty penny.”
It sounds like he is on the phone, but cell
phones are supposed to be off-limits inside. Clearly, like so many other things, Joel found his way around the rules.
He wraps up the call quickly, and when he opens the door, I’m standing just outside with my arms crossed over my chest.
His eyes go wide, and then he visibly relaxes, his shoulders easing back. “I guess I’ve been caught,” he says wryly.
“You are breaking the rules,” I say. “I could have you thrown out for that.”
His lips twist to one side. “Are you going to?”
I shrug. “That depends.”
He sighs. “I suppose you want Number Seven all to yourself?”
My instinct tells me to say yes. Ensuring Eve is mine no matter what would save me so much heartache, but if things go well with this conversation, I can both ensure that and save Milaya.
“I do, but that isn’t what I’m asking for,” I say honestly. “I need a favor.”
Joel shifts his weight to his good leg and tilts his head to the side, studying me. “Why would I do a favor for you?”
I take a deep breath and then reach up and pull down my mask. Not all the way off. I twist it to the side so he can see my face while still blocking myself from view of everyone else in the lounge behind us.
Joel’s eyes widen in surprise and he takes a step back before recognition flickers in his eyes. “Luka Volkov.”
I slip the mask back on and nod towards the door. “Care to have a smoke outside?”
Whether Joel will help me or not, I don’t know. But he is interested enough to follow me outside.
“Do you know who I am?” Joel asks after he lights a cigarette.
I blow smoke and nod. “I do.”
“What gave it away?”
I gesture to the snakeskin suit he is wearing today. “Your clothes certainly helped.”
He curses under his breath. “I had them sent ahead so the Cartel could make sure I wasn’t hiding anything. I don’t wear another man’s suits.”
“Plus, your limp and your obvious wealth.” I shrug. “It wasn’t hard to follow the clues.”
He nods. “I suppose I should have hidden my tracks better. After all, that is what I do for a living. We all leave trails here and there, don’t we? Little things we think don’t matter—a harmless picture, a childhood pet’s name in a tweet. It’s all there, if you know how to look.”
I shake my head. “And you’re the man to find it, it seems.”
“Indeed. Anyway,” he sucks on the cigarette and blows out a thin stream of smoke. “What is this about? What do you need from me?”
I hate laying myself out on the line like this. I hate that I have to make myself and Eve vulnerable to this man when I don’t know if I can trust him yet, but there is no other option.
Not when Rian is inside, and I have no clue when she’ll leave and see us out here talking.
Not when Milaya is out in the world, alone and without her parents.
I don’t have another choice. So, I lay it all out for him.
“My daughter has been taken,” I say quietly, staring straight ahead at the lawn. Almost the exact spot where the slave was murdered yesterday. I fantasize that I can still see the bloodstains, but I know that’s not true. The Cartel had cleanup crews out here for hours, touching up every blade of grass. “I don’t know where she is or who has her, and you are the only person I can think of who can help. I don’t have a phone or a weapon or any way to contact the outside world, but you’ve made your living getting around obstacles like that. For the right price, I think you could help me.”
Joel stares at me, eyes narrowed. “I can help you, but I have to wonder why, if your daughter is missing, you are at this auction.”
I pinch my lips together, hoping Joel won’t put the pieces together. Or, if he does, that he won’t care.
“I can’t tell you that right now. But I’ll pay you whatever you want,” I say, hoping to persuade him. “You’ll have to leave the auction, but I’ll make sure you are compensated.”
He stares at me and lifts his chin, looking down the nose of his mask at me. “You know, someone hired me to look into you before.”
My attention snaps to him, and he grins, amused by my reaction.
“The Irish hate you,” he laughs, shaking his head. “Whatever you did to piss them off, you fucked up. They hired me to look into your background. In the end, they weren’t paying enough for my services, but I did some perfunctory digging, and you know what I found?”
He leans towards me, one hand poised next to his mouth. His next words are said in a stage whisper: “A marriage license.”
I resist the urge to curse under my breath. This was a mistake. I know that now, but it is too late to take it back.
“You know what I think?” he asks, taking another puff of the cigarette and blowing the smoke directly in my face. “I think Number Seven is your wife. I think that brown-haired bombshell is your Eve.”
“How much do you want?” I ask. I need to get this conversation back on track. I’ve lost control, but I can get it back. “Like I said, I’ll pay you anything.”
He twists his mouth to the side and hums, but it is all for show. He isn’t really thinking, and we both know it. “With this information, I can have you killed. All I have to do is walk inside and tell the Cartel who you are, and you’ll be shot on sight. Then I can have what I really want, no?”
I snub out my cigarette and finish the last swig of wine in my glass. “And what is that?” I growl.
He laughs and moves past me, hand on the doorknob. “I want to fuck your wife.”
Before the words are even out of his mouth, I shatter the wineglass against the brick face of the building and stab the stem into his carotid artery.
I know I only have one try. If I miss, the stem is liable to break, and Joel will be wounded but not mortally.
Thankfully, I don’t miss.
The stem sticks from his neck, pulsing up and down with the weakening pumps of his dying heart.
Blood slicks down my arm, running underneath my suit jacket, and coats the front steps.
Joel falls backwards just behind a large bush growing next to the front steps, and I quickly step over him, move into the entryway, and hustle up the stairs.
I have to get rid of my clothes before anyone finds his body.
When I return to Eve’s side, I’m in a black suit that is similar to the one I had on before, though these lapels are silk. I pray to God no one will notice.
Rian is across the room getting a drink, but Eve still looks at me, eyes wide, and tries to push me away.
“Have you left this room since I’ve been gone?” I whisper.
Eve’s brow furrows. “No, I’ve been here.”
“You have lots of witnesses?”
She waves her arms around the room. “Everyone. Why? What is going on?”
I shake my head and wrap an arm around her waist. “Act casual.”
She lays her head on my chest and then pulls back, grabbing my lapel. “Did you change?”
I stare down at her, saying as much as I can with one look as possible, and Eve gets it. She knows that something bad is going on and I can’t talk about it. She lays her head on my chest, and we sway to the soft music playing in the background.
Compared to a few other couples in the room, we are hardly noteworthy.
Fox-Face has Number Thirteen’s hand down the front of his pants, though he is trying to disguise this fact with a strategically positioned pillow in front of his crotch. And a few of the other couples are damn near having sex in the lounge.
Rian seems distracted enough watching them that she isn’t paying much attention to me or Eve, but Edgar is my real concern.
I see him counting heads, his head bobbing as he counts each slave and then each bidder. When he stops, he frowns. He does it again and has the same reaction.
He realizes that one of the bidders is missing.
Edgar turns and walks into the entryway, and I go rigid. This is it.
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Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Luka, what is it?” Eve whispers, her voice trembling. “What is going on?”
I shake my head and hug her even tighter against my chest. I hug her like it might be the last time.
Because it might be.
The thought feels like a torpedo in my brain, slicing through everything else until I’m useless, desperately clinging to my wife because I don’t know what else to do.
Then, Edgar returns.
There are two large guards on either side of him, and when he lifts his hands above his head to clap for everyone’s attention, I know what he is going to say before he says a word.
Eve looks up at me with nervous eyes before turning to Edgar.
It is good I didn’t tell her. Because when Edgar announces that Joel Foli is dead, she looks genuinely shocked.
“Someone broke the rules,” Edgar says. “And for it, they will be executed.”
18
Luka
“Someone has been killed?” Fox-Face asks, gripping the waist of Number Thirteen even tighter. “Who? One of us?”
Us. As opposed to them.
No one cared much when a woman was shot in the head in front of them the day before, but suddenly they are terrified.
“Joel Foli,” Edgar says, his eyes moving slowly across the room. “He was the man in the dark red mask. And a rather loyal patron of the Cartel, which only increases our desire to catch whoever did this to him.”
“He was the one making bids for Number Seven,” Peter Struthers says.
He has kept a rather low profile all weekend, sticking to the women lower on the bidding board and not making a scene, but apparently he is ready to change that.
He turns to where I am standing next to Eve. “He was giving you a fair amount of competition.”