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The Sheriff begins the way he has with all the Lots, bragging and boasting about what makes them great sellers. He tells the room that Teigan has only had penetrative sex with one person in her life, and hasn’t had sex for many years—making her aborn-again virgin, according to him. I try not to think about that one person being me, and focus on the reason why I’m here.
The bidding starts and climbs quickly. In fact, it climbs stupidly quickly, considering Esme went for the highest amount so far at one hundred and fifty-five thousand.
I sit there quietly, letting everyone else mess about and raise the stakes, waiting for them to weed themselves out. Every so often, Teigan looks up at me, and it’s like she’s waiting for me to bid, only to look disappointed every time I don’t.
I bite the inside of my cheek, wishing there were some way I could reassure her. To tell her I have a plan. As the bids start to slow down, and it’s now just between two people, I reach toward my paddle, without picking it up yet.
Her eyes flick to the paddle, then back to me, widening slightly. I give her a wink, like I used to do, and for just a fraction of a second, a big smile spreads across her face, before she quickly allows the blank mask to descend as she looks down at the floor.
The Sheriff catches my attention. “The bid is at two hundred and forty-five thousand. Do I hear two hundred and fifty thousand?”
The room is silent.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand,” I say, raising my paddle slowly as I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing I just hit the undisclosed reserve price Lilly told Shane and Ryleigh about.
Gasps echo around the room as The Sheriff confirms my bid, asking if the other person wishes to raise it.
“Two hundred and sixty thousand,” he counters, and I swear under my breath.
I notice Declan standing beside me, making it look like he’s heading to the bar, but I’m sure he’s just going to try and get a better look at who I’m bidding against.
“Two hundred and sixty-five thousand,” I counter, and Teigan’s wide eyes lock with mine. She shakes her head slightly, but I give her a wink again, letting her know I have a plan.
In reality, I don’t think you can call it a plan. I simply plan on being the winning bidder, no matter what that amount is. I plan on raising until he backs out—simple.
“Do we have a budget?” Kian asks in my ear, directing his question more to the people in the room with him than me, but I answer anyway.
“No. I will pay whatever.”
It’s not that I have an unlimited amount of money, but I’m not poor either. My father helped get Teigan into this mess, so he can sure as fuck use some of the Family money to help get her out of it.
“Two hundred and seventy thousand,” the guy counters.
I hear Dec’s voice through my ear as he talks to the family from the other side of the room. “Kel, I’m looking at the guy who’s bidding now. Do we have anything on him?”
There’s silence on the other end as I raise the bid to seventy-five thousand. Before anyone has a chance to respond, I hear a female voice talking to Dec. I look over and see Lilly trying to discreetly speak to him, his microphone picking up the conversation for all to hear.
“Tell your friend to be careful. He’s bidding against The Baron, one of the other leaders of The Aristocracy. From what I’ve heard, he doesn’t want to lose,” she whispers before walking away.
Bree talks straight to Kel. “Get me everything you have on him, Kel. This is the first time we’ve heard of a leader called The Baron. This is important.”
“Didn’t he win another Lot earlier?” Shane asks.
Honestly, I wasn’t paying enough attention to any of the other Lots to provide a useful answer. Thankfully, Kellan knows.“He actually won two already. He’s one of the people who has an unlimited budget, and very little information attached to his name, which is understandable given his ranking in The Aristocracy.”
Liam growls. “So we will be able to take him down when we follow him home with the winning Lots.”
“We will take them all down,” Bree snaps, sounding every bit as menacing as she always does when she’s in scary leader mode.
I block out all the noise in my ear, focusing only on Teigan. “Two hundred and eighty thousand,” I call out my next bid, jumping by ten thousand instead of five, in the hopes it will get this over and done with quicker.
The bids keep going up in ten grand increments. I see someone sit beside me out of the corner of my eyes, and I look up to speak to Dec, only to find a bald man, who looks to be in his sixties, in his seat.
“I would suggest that be your last bid,” he says, his tone holding the same threatening edge as his gaze. I hear the other bidder say two hundred and ninety thousand, and I don’t even hesitate.
I look over at the stranger, matching his threatening stare with one of my own. “Three hundred thousand,” I state loudly, holding my paddle high with a smirk.
As soon as the words leave my lips, his eyes narrow darkly, and I feel something sharp against my side, under the table. I slowly glance down to find the barrel of a gun against my stomach, concealed by our bodies and the table.
