An announcer stands at a podium, adjusting his tie. Mid-level. Soft hands. The auctioneer. Artur. He sees us at the same moment I register him. His face goes slack, bloodless, as if someone pulled a plug. Yes, asshole. I am here.
"Pakhan," he whispers. The microphone catches it. The room freezes. Heads turn and mouths open.
I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to. When you are the thing that monsters fear, you never need to shout.
"In my warehouse," I say. The words drop like stones into still water. "Behind my back. You have five seconds. Explain."
Artur stammers. His hands flutter. Blood rushes back to his cheeks, hot and desperate. "Mikhail, I—we—this is business. A business opportunity. There are buyers outside, high-profile, very discreet, and the girls volunteered. They are not trafficked—"
"—Which is why your family will live."
His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard. "I was going to share the profit with you—"
I gesture. My men sweep the room. Chairs scrape. Women gasp. Some stand. Some weep. Most look relieved as if they have been waiting for someone to tell them the show is over. They are rounded up, herded toward the exits. Gentle hands on their elbows. We are not animals.
Artur is on his knees now, begging and blubbering. I ignore him. Instead one woman stands apart. In the back corner. Red braids long enough to wrap around a fist. Skin the color of polished mahogany. Curves that could make a man of God forget his oath. She stands with her spine straight, clutching the placard to her chest like a shield. Number 7.
One of my soldiers reaches for it. "Come."
She jerks it back. "Don't touch me."
"Time to go," he says.
"I said don't fucking touch me."
She does not cry. She does not cower. She is furious.
The commotion is small but it draws me. It draws me like a moth to the only flame in a frozen world. I walk over. She stands before I reach her—no, she stands like royalty, all five-foot-five of her—and shoves the placard under my nose.
"Do you have any idea what that just cost me?" she asks, her nostrils flaring.
Nobody dares to move or breathe. No one speaks to me this way. Not soldiers. Not rivals or FBI agents who think they can squeeze me. Certainly not a girl in a cheap satin dress at a backroom auction.
I should have her removed. Or shot. Or both. Instead I ask, "What were you selling?"
She laughs. Rough. Bitter. Alive. "What every man wants," she says, "and no man deserves."
"Specifics."
"Myself. Obviously. This was a virgin auction." She jabs a finger into my chest. Hard. Right over my heart. If I had one that still worked she might have ruptured it. "I spent three months vetting this auction. Three months making sure it was safe, that I wouldn't end up in a ditch. I checked the buyers' backgrounds. I made sure there was an exit clause. And you—you just waltz in here and blow it up because someone bruised your ego aboutusing your precious warehouse? I was about to have a future," she shouts.
The room is silent. Artur has stopped begging. Dmitri is staring at me like I've grown a second head. I ignore her. I signal. Two words in Russian. *Otdelit yeyo.* Separate her.
They move. Not roughly—these are my best men—but efficiently. She struggles, curses in English so filthy it would make a sailor blush, and then she is in the back office. The one with the frosted glass and the safe that I keep for emergencies. The same office where I once counted blood money and waited for dawn.
She stands in the center of it, arms crossed, breathing fire.
"Sit," I say upon entering.
"I'll stand."
I step closer. She plants her feet. Her chin lifts. There. Beneath the anger—common, cheap—the cold, desperate math of survival.
"Name," I say.
"Riley."
"Full name."
