“Six hundred twenty.”
The air grew tense. Ren could feel the energy surrounding them, the primal competition among alpha males flexing their purchasing power. His entire existence had been reduced to that. To a number.
“Seven hundred thousand.”
Reznov’s voice fell like a slab of stone across the room. The silence was immediate and absolute. It was an absurd figure, nearly double his father’s debt. It wasn’t a bid; it was declare ownership. A punishment. A sentence. No one dared to contradict it.
Kovac let a dramatic second pass, his eyes gleaming with greed.
“Seven hundred thousand at one… Seven hundred thousand at two…”
Ren felt the floor sink beneath his feet. It was over. There would be no lights going out. There would be no escape. Rocco had lied to him. It was the end.
“Sold to Mr. Dimitri Reznov.”
The sharp thud of the gavel echoed through the room like a gunshot. A polite, brief round of applause rippled through the seats.
Ren looked up just in time to see Dimitri Reznov stepping forward onto the platform. He wore an impeccable dark suit thatfailed to hide the mass of muscle beneath. A satisfied, possessive smile spread across his face as his eyes locked onto Ren.
It was the end for him. He wouldn’t survive a year in the clutches of that alpha. Ren’s body went limp, defeated. Every muscle, every tendon, relaxed. Every ounce of willpower abandoned him. He belonged to that man. He belonged to Reznov.
Suddenly, a tremendous boom.
The darkness was total and abrupt. It wasn’t a flicker; it was a clean cut. All at once, the stage lights and the room’s lamps extinguished. A fraction of a second passed in surprised silence before the chaos of confused voices, stifled screams, and chairs scraping the floor erupted.
A wave of muffled panic arose from the clamor of the disoriented murmuring. Mahogany chairs scraped across the wooden surface; Ren stood frozen, a point of stillness in the vortex of total darkness. The thick air, once heavy with expensive cologne and cigar smoke, now reeked of fear. The blow of the hammer still reverberated in his bones; Reznov’s sentence was a brand of fire on his mind. It was over.
“Secure the omega! No one gets out!”
Malachi Kovac’s voice, a roar torn by fury, cut through the chaos like a whip. The omega. It wasn’t Ren. He was a thing, an unsecured asset. And in that instant, mayhem broke the spell. Rocco hadn’t lied to him. The whispered promise, the paper in his hand—it was all real. Hope, a tiny, extinguished spark, burst into a blaze.
Instinct took hold of him before thought could. A large, rough hand brushed against his arm in the darkness, a blind attemptto grab him. Ren reacted with a violence he didn’t know he possessed. He twisted, lunging forward toward the edge of the stage. His bare feet found nothing but air.
The fall was brief. He landed with a thud on the thick carpet of the front row; the impact jolted through his knees and wrists. The pain was an electric shock, a brutal reminder that he was alive, that he could still feel something other than humiliation. All around him, pandemonium reigned. Massive shadows stumbled, powerful men reduced to clumsy silhouettes by the lack of light. Some used their phones to guide them.
He stood up with a clumsy leap. He ran.
Without direction, just forward, toward where he remembered the aisle opening up through which they had brought him. He collided with a soft body that let out a muffled curse. Ren didn’t even stop. He kept moving forward by feel, hands outstretched, brushing against the velvety texture of the walls. The crumpled paper in his fist was an anchor, the only certainty in a world that had dissolved into noise and shadows.
He found the opening to the hallway. A service corridor, narrower. Here the darkness wasn’t so complete; a faint red emergency light flickered on the ceiling, bathing everything in bloody pulses. It was enough to see.
“This way! I heard something!”
The shouts were chasing him. Heavy footsteps, the unmistakable sound of safety boots pounding the floor.
Ren sped up. His bare feet slapped against the cold, sticky linoleum. He slipped on something wet and fell to his knees; the impact knocked the wind out of him. He scraped his skin; a sharp burning sensation flared in his palms and knees. It didn’t matter. He got up, breathing, an animalistic groan escaping his throat.
He forced himself to remember. The two women. They’d led him through a labyrinth of utilitarian corridors; it smelled of bleach and staff meals. This was his only chance. He ducked around a corner, pressed himself against the wall, holding his breath. Two guards ran past in the opposite direction, their flashlights slicing through the gloom like light sabers. They didn’t see him.
His heart was pounding in his temples, a runaway drum. He waited for the sound of their footsteps to fade and continued his desperate run. Hallway after hallway, each one identical to the last. Panic climbed up his throat. What if he’d taken the wrong path? What if he was running in circles, trapped in the bowels of that gilded cage?
Then he smelled it. A faint scent of disinfectant and the metallic smell of industrial kitchens. He was close. He turned another corner and saw a double swing door at the end of the corridor, the door that led to the staff area.
A figure emerged from a side door right in front of him. A man in a croupier’s uniform, burly and quick. His eyes widened as he recognized the outfit.
“Freeze!”
The man lunged. Ren didn’t think. Dodging the first slap, he ducked and propelled himself forward with all the strength left in his legs. He made no attempt to bypass him. Just threw himself straight at him, a projectile of pure desperation. Ren’s shoulder slammed into the man’s stomach. The croupier let out a grunt, losing his balance.
