Liam
Business as usual.
I'm here for one reason: the Kozlov shipping routes. Viktor Kozlov finally got desperate enough to put them on the auction block, and I've spent six months positioning myself to win them. Those routes give me access to the Nordic corridor, which means leverage over half the shipping in the Baltic.
The Orlov shipping empire runs on three principles: discretion, efficiency, and control.
We move everything from luxury cars to pharmaceutical supplies, and if some of those shipments bend international law, well, that's why clients pay premium rates.
I built this network from the ground my father left me, expanding routes, cultivating contacts, ensuring that when someone needs something moved quietly, they call me first.
Relationships, emotions, attachments…those are liabilities. They make you soft. Predictable. Weak.
I've never been weak.
I've done the research, run the numbers, secured the financing. Kozlov's desperate. His operation is bleeding money and he knows it. I'll get those routes for thirty percent less than they're worth, and he'll be grateful for it.
I move through the crowd toward the auction hall, catching fragments of conversation.
Deals being whispered behind masks and champagne flutes.
This is where real power operates, in these spaces between legal and criminal, where a handshake means more than a contract and everyone's secrets are currency.
I've been attending these events since I was twenty-three, learning the landscape, building relationships, establishing myself as someone reliable. Someone who delivers. Someone you don't cross.
The stage has been moved to the middle of the ballroom for the second night, round and deliberate and ready for all kinds of debauchery.
It’s still empty. Velvet curtains drawn, gold light waiting to spill. Somewhere behind them, men and women are preparing to sell their secrets. Or themselves. I’m here to buy access, not company.
People move around, settle into a space.
I feel her arrive beside me. A brush of perfume, subtle, expensive, and something in me tightens.
She’s watching the stage too, head tilted, mask matte, even beneath the chandeliers.
Her hair swept up to reveal the delicate line of her throat.
Her dress is simple but indecently effective, clinging in all the right places, catching the light like poured ink.
“You’ve been to one of these before?” I ask, because I need to hear her voice.
She glances up at me. Her eyes are pale behind the mask, impossible to read. “No.” A small smile. “Is it that obvious?”
I shake my head. “Not obvious. Just… you don’t look like someone who enjoys watching people sell themselves.”
Her mouth curves, soft but knowing. “And you do?”
“I enjoy watching people reveal what they really want,” I say. “Money makes most of them honest.”
She hums, a low sound that slides under my skin. “That’s one way to put it.”
“What’s your way?”
Her gaze drifts back to the stage. “Desperation makes people honest. Money decides the price.”
It’s a sharp answer, not flippant. The kind that makes me want to know where she learned that truth.
“Then what are you here for?” I ask.
“To measure the worth of the people we’re taught not to trust.” She glances at me again, eyes steady. “And you?”
“To win exactly what I want.”
That earns a quiet laugh, breathy, almost private, and I find myself leaning a fraction closer just to catch it.
“Good luck with that,” she murmurs.
She looks away first, and I tell myself I imagined the spark. But I know I didn’t. It’s there, alive between us, dragging at my attention every time she shifts, every time her fingers toy with the stem of her glass. I’m half tempted to ask her name, half certain it would ruin whatever this is.
The lights dim. Conversation dies.
"Welcome," Sergei says, his voice carrying easily through the space. "Tonight, we offer opportunities. Routes, contracts, access. As always, bidding is final and binding. Terms are non-negotiable by either party once accepted."
The auction has begun.