Page 29 of The Kingpin’s Bride

I had dreamed of him almost every night since. Sometimes the dreams were soft. Most nights they were not.

I hated that my body reacted to the memory of him while the rest of me prepared to be sold.

Eight o’clock came too fast.

A black car waited at the curb. Not Dario’s. One of the club’s. The driver never looked at my face. He only opened the back door and waited while I climbed in wearing nothing but the collar and the shoes and a thin coat Dario had allowed me for the ride. The coat was taken the second we reached the staff entrance of After Dark.

The back rooms were colder than usual. Two women I didn’t know waited with clinical expressions and latex gloves. They checked me the way livestock is checked. Mouth. Teeth. Between my legs. They made me turn, bend, hold myself open under the harsh lights while they noted things on a tablet. I kept my eyes on the floor and counted breaths so I wouldn’t scream. Secretly, I was thinking about making myself come a few weeks ago. Would they be able to tell?

When they finished one of them fastened a pair of delicate silver chains around my wrists and clipped them together in front of me. Decorative. Inescapable. The other woman adjusted the collar so the silver ring sat centered at the hollow of my throat.

Neither of them said a word.

“Lot twenty-three,” someone said from the doorway. “They’re ready for her.”

My legs almost refused.

They walked me down the narrow hallway that led to the main floor. The bass from the club throbbed through the walls. I could smell the expensive perfume and the fear and the old blood that lived in this place. My bare skin prickled with cold and shame. Every step made the chains whisper against each other.

Dario was waiting just before the final door.

He looked me over the way a man looks at a car he’s about to sell, assessing, slightly bored, calculating the number. His eyes lingered on the places the women had touched. Then he stepped close enough that only I could hear him.

“Smile if you can manage it,” he murmured. “Or don’t. They like the scared ones better. Remember what happens to the kid if you make this difficult.”

I didn’t answer. There was nothing left to say.

He pushed the door open.

The main floor of After Dark opened in front of me like a throat. Men in expensive suits packed into every booth and chair. The air was thick with smoke and money and the particular silence that falls when something helpless is about to be offered up. I felt every pair of eyes land on my naked body at once. My nipples tightened under the cold and the scrutiny.

They brought me to the center of the stage.

The auctioneer’s voice rolled out over the speakers, oily and excited.

“Lot twenty-three. Morena Caruso. Eighteen years old. Previously unclaimed. Beautiful. Broken in just the right way. Starting bid… two million.”

I stood under the lights with my hands bound and my eyes on the floor and the collar tight around my throat, and waited for the first paddle to rise. I felt the weight of a familiar stare settle between my shoulder blades like a hand.

I did not look up. I knew what was coming. I only didn’t know yet how much worse it would be.

Paddles lifted immediately. “Two point five.”

“Three.”

“Three point five.”

The numbers climbed like something alive. I kept my gaze locked on the black stage floor between my feet. Every time a new voice called out, the chains on my wrists rattled softly. Cold air moved over my bare skin. My nipples were tight, painful. I could feel the eyes of every man in the room dragging over me, between my legs, over my breasts, across the faint red marks the collar had left. They were buying the right to own all of me. To use me. To break whatever was left.

Shame burned so hot I felt sick. I wanted to cover myself. The chains made it impossible. I wanted to run. The silver links and the two men standing just offstage made that impossible too. Somewhere in the crowd Dario was watching, probably smiling, counting the cut he would take. Camilla’s face flashed behind my eyes, with longer hair, smiling at someone who wasn’t me. She was the only reason I was standing here instead of dead or worse.

“Four million.”

“Five.”

“Six.”

“Eight.”