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I strut onto the stage with that attitude in mind, staring straight ahead while the men ogle me. I can’t see them thanks to the lights shining on me but I can feel their interest. I can hear their approving little grunts. Pigs, all of them, but a means to an end. I have to think about it that way. It’s either this or life on the streets.
“Here we have the lovely Olivia.” Now the slimeball is charming, his voice warm and almost intimate. “Twenty-one years old and pure as the driven snow.” I could puke all over him.
Before he has the chance to set an opening bid, a voice rings out from the back of the room. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
I go stiff, staring in the direction the voice came from. There’s movement elsewhere in the room, men shifting in their chairs, muttering questions, some of them chuckling.
The emcee chuckles, too. “Eager, are we? I can see why. Who wouldn’t want to be the first to get their hands on all that creamy skin?”
I barely hear him over the rush of blood in my ears. That voice. I know that voice. I’ve heard it in a hundred dreams, a thousand fantasies. He found me. Damn him, he found me.
“Fifty thousand dollars. Do I hear fifty-five?”
“Fifty-five,” another man offers.
Beckett’s voice almost overlaps his. “Sixty.” It’s a growl. A challenge. He’s staking his claim. I have to bite my tongue to keep from begging him not to do this. How did he find me? After a year, he decides this is the time to track me down? Every instinct tells me to run, but I wouldn’t get far. For one thing, Emma already hinted at this place being owned by another mafia family. I could make them a lot of money. No way they’ll let me leave the building without collecting first.
And he’d catch me. It was only ever a matter of time. The bastard. My life will never be mine, and he’s making sure I know it now.
“Do I have sixty-five?” the emcee asks, looking over the room. “Sixty-five thousand?”
“I’m just going to keep bidding.” Beckett’s voice is a threatening growl that sends a shiver down my spine and makes me cross my arms over my trembling body. “So let’s not waste time. That one’s mine.”
The emcee utters a nervous chuckle. “Come on, now. Give somebody a fighting chance.” In other words, he wants to drive up the bidding as far as it’ll go. The more money, the better for the family. Beckett’s going to get us both killed if he doesn’t stop this.
He won’t. I know him.
And considering the silence that’s now fallen over the room, the other men understand he means every word. I can’t see him but I can imagine his chiseled face. Those steely eyes, that sharp jaw. He knows how to intimidate. It’s why my father has always relied on him.
When no other bid is offered, the emcee shrugs. “Alright, then. Sixty-five going once… going twice… sold.”
I can’t believe it. How many times have I wished this man would take my virginity? And here I am, his property—according to the people running the show, at least.
If he thinks this means I’m falling in line and following him back to my father’s house, he’s out of his freaking mind. I know all his tricks and have picked up a few of my own over the past year.
He has no idea how much trouble he bought himself.
He steps up, finally reaching the platform and coming to a stop where I can see him. He’s as sinfully hot as ever, right down to the brown scruff on his cheeks and the thin scar cutting through his right eyebrow that he now arches as he looks me over.
“Well, Princess?” he murmurs just loud enough for me to hear. “Looks like you’re mine.”
The thing is, I always have been.
He just doesn’t know it.
When he takes my hand, I try to ignore the flutter in my stomach. I let him lead me out of the room, to a narrow door tucked into the wall. I guess this is where he’s watched the other nine bidders take their prizes. “Here.” He hands a bank card to a woman sitting behind a partition. “Take it from this.”
“You have that kind of cash lying around?” I mutter from the corner of my mouth. He remains silent. Only the tightening of his already clenched jaw tells me he heard the question.
The woman runs the card, then glances at me. “Did you provide us with your banking information?”
“No need for that. She won’t need the money where she’s going.” I could die from shame. This is worse than parading myself in a skintight dress before a crowd of leering strangers.
The poor woman is so clueless. “Prison?”
“No,” he assures her with a smile. It lights up his face. I’d swear I hear her panties melting from it. “I’m taking her home, where there are people waiting for her.”
I’m not going to prison, but I might as well be if he gets his way. Which he won’t. I’m never going back. There’s nothing in the world that could make me.
