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I was wearing a red silk robe, and, underneath, this little matching red slip that made me feel completely and utterly exposed. I had never worn something this revealing before in my life, and the thought of stepping out onto a stage in front of all these men who were going to get off on how exposed I was … I could hardly wrap my head around it.
Had my father really done this? I wished I could doubt it, but I knew, at the back of my mind, just what his addiction had done to him. How low it had brought him. How far he would go to make sure nothing got in the way of what he had to do to get his high, whether it was drinking, drugs, or gambling. I could imagine him, in a state of total drunkenness, agreeing to something like this, thinking they would never follow through on it, assuming it was nothing more than words.
When he woke up and found me gone, would he be relieved? Would there be a part of him that was glad he didn’t have to deal with letting me down any longer? I squeezed my hands into fists on my lap, trying to control myself. I couldn’t let my mind go there, I just couldn’t. I had to stop myself before I lost myself entirely …
And then, all at once, one of the men who had kidnapped me stepped in through the door of the dressing room and snapped his fingers in my directions.
"Alright, you’re on," he told me sharply. I couldn’t bring myself to get to my feet. He grabbed me by the arm, yanking me upright, and dragged me towards the door.
"Don’t make me wait, bitch," he spat at me. I recoiled at his words. I was used to dealing with some difficult customers at work, but none of them would have spoken to me like that in a million years. Was this the kind of language the kind of treatment I was going to have to get used to if I went through with this? I couldn’t stand the thought of it, but I couldn’t see a way out, either.
I was dragged towards the room where the auction was taking place and then pushed out on to the stage. I stumbled in the heels I had on, grabbing onto a chair in the center of it, a blinding light pointing down at me. I lifted my hand to shield my eyes, feeling like a rabbit in a trap. I couldn’t even see anyone in the room, any of the men who were going to be holding my fate in their hands in a matter of moments.
"Mina Markov, twenty-one," the announcer boomed. I jumped at the sound of his voice, wrapping my arms around myself to try and cover myself up. I gritted my teeth and tried to gather myself, staring into the light with as much strength as I could muster. I didn’t know what was going to happen now, but I needed to act like I actually understood what was going down here, that it wasn’t enough to scare me.
"Bidding starts at ten thousand," the man continued. "I see ten, do I have fifteen …?"
The bidding went up in increments, and I could hardly wrap my head around the numbers as they came out. Was that all I was worth? Was that what my life was worth to these men, nothing more than a few thousand dollars? And for what? For them to do anything they wanted with me. I didn’t know what I was being sold into here, and I doubted the men who ran this place bothered to do much by way of vetting the people who were allowed to bid here. No, the only people who would have come to a place like this were doing it because they knew there was no oversight, and they could do just about anything they wanted to the women they paid for.
And I was about to find out how far that went.
"Fifty thousand, I have fifty," the announcer continued. A silence fell over the room. Dread twisted in my guts. This was it. This was the moment I was going to be sold off.
"Sold!" the announcer added, and I felt someone grab my arm, pulling me off the stage.
"Get over here," one of my kidnappers told me, his voice gritted. "Go to the back door, now. Your new owners are waiting for you."
"Owners?" I whispered. Plural? There was more than one of them? I didn’t know how I was going to be able to handle one of these sadistic bastards, let alone two.
The man grinned at me, a cruel smile that looked more like a threat than anything else.
"Brothers," he replied. "Looks like you’re going to be very busy, Mina."
"No, please," I begged him, the small amount of control I had been hanging on to breaking and shattering in that moment. "Please, don’t make me do this, I’ll do anything, I—"
"Shut the fuck up, bitch," he snarled at me, and he shoved me towards the back door. I braced myself as best I could, not ready to face what came next, but knowing there was no choice.
And, as I rounded the corner, I was faced by two men. I dropped my head to my chest, clasped my hands together, and began to plead at once. It was my only hope, to reach out to whatever crumb of humanity they had inside them—if there was anything there at all.
Chapter Five – Maxim
"Please, don’t hurt me," were the first words out of her mouth. She was trembling from head to toe, her entire body tense with terror. I glanced at Damyan, and his mouth was set into a hard line. I knew this might not have been my smartest idea, but there was no way in fucking hell I was going to let them sell another girl.
We had arrived at the auction late—most of the women who were being trafficked into this shit had already been bought and sold as it was, and we got there just in time to see the last woman, Mina Markov, being brought up on stage. Markov—that name rang a bell. I was pretty sure my father had worked with someone by that name, a long time ago, but it might just have been a coincidence.
Whatever the reason for her presence here, she looked terrified, standing up on that stage like a newborn baby deer, legs trembling underneath her. The bidding was fierce for her, and it was clear there were plenty of guys there who liked how frightened she was. It pissed me off like nothing else in the world, made me feel monstrous, knowing what they would have done to her had they gotten the chance.
But we had her. I had her, at least. I doubted Damyan wanted anything to do with this. I could tell how pissed he was that we’d come here in the first place, getting involved with something as dark as this. Our father had never gotten involved in the trafficking scene, and that meant keeping his distance from doing the right thing and breaking people out of it too. But me? I couldn’t just stand by and let another woman get swallowed up by this business. Not after what happened to my mother.
I pulled off my jacket and draped it around her shoulders. She jerked at my touch, pulling away from me, clearly not sure how to react to it. I led her towards the door.
"Please, please," she begged us both, looking between us, tears falling from her blue eyes. "Don’t— I don’t—"
"We’re not going to hurt you," I told her. "Come on. Get into the car. We need to get you out of here."
She hesitated before she climbed in. I could see how hard it was for her to trust us, and shit, I didn’t blame her. After what she had been through, the mess that had brought her to this point, she had probably seen hell. As far as she knew, we had just bought her for our own nefarious purposes; no wonder she was holding back, no wonder she was scared.
"Come on," Damyan told her, opening the door and gesturing for her to get in. I shot him a look, silently warning him to be nicer to the girl, but he ignored me. I knew I was going to get chewed out for what I had just done, but I didn’t give a damn. He might have wanted to keep himself out of trouble, but I didn’t plan for the same thing. No, I needed to help this girl. I needed to get her out of this mess. I didn’t know exactly what I intended to do when I got her back to the penthouse, but at least we had kept her from falling into the hands of someone who would be all too willing to exploit her and abuse her.
