Chapter 2
Sophie
Isat cross-legged on concrete that smelled like dust and someone else's abandoned life, my father's reading glasses centered in the Polaroid's viewfinder. The shutter clicked. The photo slid out with that mechanical whir I'd heard a thousand times, and I shook it gently, watching Dmitri Andreev materialize on film like a ghost deciding to stay solid.
Wire rims. Scratched left lens. The nose pads worn to the exact shape of his face.
I set the photo on the pile beside my knee. Twenty-three down. God knew how many to go.
The Polaroid OneStep was cream-colored, battered, held together with electrical tape on the bottom right corner where I'd dropped it on the subway platform two years ago. Sergei had given it to me for my nineteenth birthday, back when birthdays meant something other than another year survived. Vintage Polaroids went for decent money on eBay—I'd checked three times in the last month. Could probably get two hundred for this one, maybe two-fifty if I found the right buyer.
I couldn't do it. Couldn't sell the last thing I had from before.
Before the knee injury that ended my career. Before Sergei died with his blood soaking into my overall dress while I held him. Before my father's heart gave out and left me with $2.3 million in gambling debts and a storage unit full of everything that used to mean family.
The camera stayed. Everything else went.
I lined up the next shot—a leather-bound copy of Crime and Punishment, my father's favorite, margins filled with his handwriting in Russian and English. His thoughts in conversation with Dostoevsky across a hundred and fifty years. The pages smelled like his cologne, something expensive he couldn't afford but bought anyway because appearances mattered in his world.
Appearances had mattered right up until his heart stopped.
Click. Whir. Shake.
My photographic memory meant I didn't need pictures to remember. Could close my eyes right now and see every object in these twenty-three boxes with perfect clarity. Could recall every conversation I'd ever had with my father, every disappointed look when I chose ballet over the family business, every proud smile when I made soloist at twenty despite being too short and too curvy for the corps.
But the Polaroids felt different. They captured the moment before it disappeared forever, made it real in a way memory couldn't. Memory was just neurons firing in patterns. Photos were physical. Solid. Proof that these things had existed outside my head.
I added Crime and Punishment to the pile and reached for the next box.
Unit 237 at SecureStore Self-Storage on Geary Boulevard wasn't large—ten by ten, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, roll-up metal door that screeched like something dying every time it moved. I'd been here since nine that morning. It was two now, and my ass was numb from the concrete, my bad knee starting that deep ache that meant I'd been sitting too long in one position.
I shifted. The knee protested. Three years post-injury and it still punished me for everything—sitting, standing, stairs, cold weather, stress. Torn ACL, meniscus, patella damage. Career-ending at twenty-one. The surgeon had been optimistic about full recovery. The surgeon had been wrong.
Box seven held kitchen items. My father's teapot, Georgian black tea still in the caddy. Four cups barely larger than shot glasses, blue flowers painted on white porcelain. I photographed them one at a time, methodical, trying not to think about Sunday mornings in his apartment in the Mission, the smell of that tea mixing with cigarette smoke while he read the Russian-language newspaper and I stretched on his living room floor.
Box twelve held his chess set. Hand-carved pieces, probably worth something to the right collector. I photographed the board, then each piece individually. The white king had a chip in its crown. I remembered when he'd done it—slammed it down after I beat him for the first time at fourteen. He'd been so proud and so furious at the same thing.
I was twenty-four years old and cataloguing my father's life for an estate sale to pay off debts to people who'd probably had him killed.
The debt collectors said heart attack. Natural causes. Stress and genetics and a lifetime of cigarettes catching up to him at fifty-three.
I knew better. My father had worked for the West Coast bratva operations since I was born. Had a photographic memory, used it to track numbers, odds, operations. He'd gotten sloppy after my mother died. Started gambling. Started losing. Started borrowing from people who didn't forgive debt.
$2.3 million. That's what they said I owed now. Gift with purchase—his death, my responsibility.
The storage unit cost $340 a month I didn't have. My studio apartment in the Tenderloin cost $1,800 a month I also didn't have. I'd been working three jobs—morning shift at a coffee shop, afternoon at a bookstore, evenings teaching beginning ballet to kids at a rec center. Brought in maybe $3,200 a month before taxes. The math didn't work. Hadn't worked for six months.
The debt collectors had stopped accepting "I need more time" six weeks ago. Started making threats that were polite on the surface, crystal clear underneath. Pay up or pay different.
I'd been selling everything. My pointe shoes—the custom-made ones—gone to a collector for $2,000. My costumes from ABT performances, gone. Jewelry my father had given me over the years, gone. Furniture, gone. Everything that wasn't nailed down or necessary for basic survival, gone.
It wasn't enough. Wouldn't ever be enough. I could sell everything my father owned and everything I owned and work myself to death for the next ten years and still owe these people money.
But I kept photographing. Kept cataloguing. Kept moving forward because the alternative was standing still, and standing still meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling, and feeling meant—
No.
I picked up the samovar from box nineteen. Antique, probably late 1800s, brought over from Russia by someone in my father's family three generations back. Silver, ornate, worth actual money if I could find the right buyer.
Click. Whir. Shake.
The photo developed slowly. The samovar emerging like something remembered from a dream, all curves and detail and history I'd never be able to keep.
Everything went. That was the rule. That was survival.
I added the photo to the pile—thirty-one now—and reached for my water bottle. My hand shook slightly. Low blood sugar. I'd forgotten to eat lunch. Again. Had forgotten breakfast too, actually. There was a protein bar in my bag somewhere, crushed and probably melted, but it would do.
I found it, ate it mechanically, washed it down with water that tasted like plastic.
When I finished, I heard them. Footsteps in the hallway. Two sets, heavy, deliberate, not the shuffle of someone hunting for their own unit or the quick clip of facility staff making rounds.
I knew before they stopped at my door. The same way dancers know when they're about to fall, that split second of recognition before gravity takes over.
My hands didn't shake as I set down the Polaroid. Right now my body was doing what it always did under threat—going very still, very calm, running calculations. Exit routes. Weapons. Odds of survival.
The metal door screeched up with a sound that echoed through the concrete hallways. Two men in expensive suits stood silhouetted against the fluorescent lights, and I understood immediately that everything I'd been doing for the last six months—the three jobs, the selling, the careful documentation—had been pointless theater.
The one on the left was Asian, mid-forties, with a scar bisecting his right eyebrow like someone had tried to split his face and given up halfway. The one on the right was white, younger, with the kind of face that should have been forgettable except for his eyes. Pale blue and completely empty. Dead man's eyes in a living face.
"Sophie Andreeva." Scarred Eyebrow's voice was professionally pleasant. Not a question. A confirmation of inventory.
"Volkov," I corrected automatically, then wished I hadn't.
My father had used his mother's maiden name after the Volkov family exiled him twenty-five years ago for stealing. Safer that way. Less complicated. But I'd kept his real name out of some stupid sentimentality, some need to claim a family that didn't want me.
Using it now just made this more real.
"Your father's debt." Scarred Eyebrow stepped into the unit, expensive shoes silent on concrete. "Your problem now."
"I'm working on it." My voice came out steady. Good. "I have a payment plan with—"
"Plans changed." Empty Eyes moved to flank me, cutting off the angle to the door. Professional. Practiced. "Contract's been sold. You're coming with us."
My heart slammed against my ribs but my brain was already moving, calculating. Sold. The debt had been sold. That meant new owners, new terms, new rules. That meant whatever agreement I'd been barely maintaining was void.
"Sold to who?"
"Doesn't matter." Scarred Eyebrow pulled something from his inner jacket pocket. Not a gun. A tablet. He turned it to show me a digital document, legal language I couldn't read fast enough, but I caught the important parts. Debt transfer. Asset acquisition. Binding agreement.
"You can't just—"
"Your father signed." Empty Eyes's voice was flat. Matter of fact. "Read the contract. Collateral clause. In the event of his death, debt transfers to immediate family. That's you, sweetheart."
The floor tilted. My father had put me up as collateral. Had signed paperwork that made me responsible for $2.3 million I'd never borrowed, never spent, never agreed to.
"I'm not going anywhere with you." I stood, testing my knee. It held. Barely. "Whatever you think I owe, we can negotiate—"
"Negotiation's over." Scarred Eyebrow pocketed the tablet. "Contract's been sold to The Settling. You're Lot 37 in tomorrow night's auction. Debt bondage. Someone buys you, someone owns the debt and your service until it's paid off."
The words hit like physical blows. Auction. Debt bondage. Service.
I ran.
Stupid. My knee was bad, they were professionals, the hallway had one exit and it was past them. But my body made the choice before my brain caught up, that same dancer's instinct that had kept me alive through injury and loss and six months of grinding survival.
I grabbed my bag—the Polaroid inside, the photos—and bolted for the door.
Made it past Scarred Eyebrow. He wasn't expecting it, thought I'd keep negotiating, keep being reasonable. Made it into the hallway. Made it four units before my knee buckled and Empty Eyes caught my arm.
He spun me around and I saw the syringe.
I fought. Bit his hand hard enough to draw blood, kicked backward, connected with his shin. He swore. Scarred Eyebrow grabbed my other arm and my bag fell, photos scattering across the concrete.
"Hold her still," Empty Eyes growled.
I thrashed. My knee screamed. I didn't care. The syringe came closer and I tried to twist away but Scarred Eyebrow was too strong, too practiced, and Empty Eyes caught my face with his free hand, fingers digging into my jaw.
"This can be easy or hard," he said. "Your choice."
I spit at him.
"Hard, then."
The needle went into my neck. I felt the burn, the cold spread, my body going heavy. My legs stopped working. Scarred Eyebrow lowered me to the concrete, not gently but not rough either. Professional courtesy.
Empty Eyes was picking up my photos. The scattered Polaroids. My father's glasses, his books, the samovar. Evidence of everything I was losing.
"Get the camera too," Scarred Eyebrow said.
No. Not the camera. Not the last thing from before.
I tried to speak. My mouth wouldn't work. Tried to reach for it. My arms were lead.
Empty Eyes picked up the Polaroid, tucked it under his arm with the photos.
The hallway lights blurred. My vision tunneled.
The last thing I saw before everything went dark was my father's wire-rimmed glasses materializing in a Polaroid on the concrete beside my face. His ghost made solid. Watching me disappear.
Iwoke to the smell of industrial cleaner and someone practicing numbers through a wall. "Lot 32, opening at fifty thousand . . . Lot 33, opening at seventy-five . . ."
My head felt stuffed with cotton. My mouth tasted like metal and old pennies. When I tried to sit up, the room tilted sideways and I had to close my eyes, press my palms against concrete, wait for gravity to remember how it worked.
Narrow cot. Thin mattress. Scratchy wool blanket. Cinderblock walls painted institutional beige, the kind of color that meant "don't get comfortable." Single overhead light, fluorescent, buzzing like something dying slowly. Metal door with no handle on the inside.
Not quite a cell, but close enough.
Through the wall, the voice kept going. Male, middle-aged, professional. "Lot 34, opening at one hundred thousand. Do I hear one hundred? One hundred to the gentleman in the third row . . ."
Auctioneer. I was listening to an auctioneer practice.
My stomach lurched. I swallowed hard, tasted bile, forced it down. Checked my body for damage. My clothes were intact—jeans, t-shirt, the denim jacket I'd been wearing in the storage unit. Shoes still on. No obvious injuries beyond the persistent ache in my bad knee and the needle bruise I could feel when I touched my neck.
The Polaroid.
Panic flared hot and immediate. I patted my jacket pockets. Empty. My jeans. Empty. They'd taken my bag, taken the camera, taken the last thing I had from before. Something about losing the camera hit me harder than everything else. I felt its absence, the absence of my past, like I’d finally lost everything.
The metal door opened without warning. No knock. No courtesy.
A woman entered, fifty-something, grey pantsuit, tablet in one hand and a garment bag in the other. She looked like a corporate executive or a wedding planner. The kind of person who made checklists and followed them exactly.
"You're awake. Good." Her voice matched her appearance—professionally pleasant, like a flight attendant explaining emergency procedures while the plane went down. "We're on a schedule, Miss Andreeva."
"Where am I?" My voice came out rough, raw.
"Newark. The Settling auction house." She hung the garment bag on a hook by the door. "You're Lot 37."
The numbers clicked into place. The auctioneer practicing. The industrial setting. Lot 37.
"What is The Settling?"
"Neutral ground for the five families." She said it like I should know what that meant. "We facilitate transactions that would otherwise result in bloodshed. Items, information, services. Your father's debt was sold to us six days ago. We're liquidating the asset."
"I'm not an asset."
Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "Sadly, you are. Debt bondage. $2.3 million. Whoever buys you owns the debt and your service until it's paid off. Could be a year, could be ten. Depends on the buyer and what you're worth to them."
My photographic memory served up statistics without asking. Human trafficking in the United States: 400,000 people enslaved at any given time. Debt bondage: most common form of modern slavery. Average time in servitude: 7.2 years. Survival rate after ten years: 34%.
"This is slavery." I stood, testing my balance. The room stayed level. Good. "Illegal. Trafficking. You can't—"
"No, honey." She checked her tablet, scrolling through information about me. About my life reduced to data points and market value. "Slavery is illegal. This is business. Debt collection. Asset liquidation. All perfectly legal under the right contracts."
"Debt bondage is illegal in the United States."
"You're very smart." She looked up from the tablet. "Your file says dual enrollment at City College before you dropped out. Photographic memory. High IQ. That'll help your price. Smart girls are worth more than pretty ones, and you're both."
The compliment made my skin crawl.
"You can't sell people."
"We don't sell people. We sell debt contracts with service obligations. The person comes with the contract. Semantics matter in legal terms." She set the tablet on the cot. "You have thirty minutes to prepare. The dress is your size. Put it on. There's a bathroom through that door—clean yourself up. Someone will come get you at eight o'clock."
"What if I refuse?"
Her expression didn't change. "Then you go on stage exactly as you are, looking like you've been drugged and stuffed in a storage facility. The buyers won't care. Might even prefer it—shows you're a fighter. But it'll hurt your price, and a lower price means longer servitude. Your choice."
She moved toward the door.
"Wait." My brain was starting to work again, processing information, calculating odds. "Who buys at these auctions?"
"The five families. Occasionally outside parties if they have the connections and capital." She paused at the door. "But tomorrow night is family only. Volkovs, Besharovs, Kozlovs, Sokolovs, Morozovs. One of them will buy you. Probably the Besharovs—they have the capital and they like smart girls. You could do worse."
"I could do better by not being sold at all."
"That ship sailed when your father put you up as collateral." Her voice gentled slightly. Almost sympathetic. "I'm sorry. I know you didn't ask for this. But the debt exists. The contract exists. Running won't change that. Fighting won't change that. Your best option is to go out there, present well, get bought by someone with money who'll treat you decently. That's survival."
She left. The door locked behind her with a heavy click.
I stood in the institutional beige room, the garment bag hanging on the hook like a promise or a threat, and listened to the auctioneer practice numbers through the wall.
"Lot 35, opening at two hundred thousand . . ."
Two lots before me. Two lots before I became a number, an asset, a thing to be bought and sold like my father's samovar or his chess set or anything else that used to mean something.
Ihad thirty minutes. I used five of them to throw up in the small bathroom, the rest to attempt to become someone who could survive what came next.
The dress was grey, simple, but clearly expensive. I unzipped the garment bag and pulled it out, checking the size. Four. Perfect. Which meant they'd been watching me long enough to know my measurements, to know that I was small-framed and short, that I still had a dancer's proportions despite three years of not dancing professionally.
The thought made my skin crawl.
But the dress had a loose waist. Good for hiding the Polaroid. The shoes were basic black flats. Good for running, if I got the chance. No jewelry. No makeup. Nothing personal. I was a blank slate for whoever bought me. A canvas they could paint however they wanted.
I changed mechanically, and as I did, I thought back to dancing. I'd spent sixteen years of my life in studios and theaters, learning to perform while injured, while exhausted, while my body screamed at me to stop. Learning to smile through pain. Learning to be whatever the choreographer needed.
This was just another performance. Different stage. Higher stakes.
The dress fit perfectly. The fabric was soft, probably silk blend, the kind of thing I couldn't have afforded even when I had a salary.
I slipped on the shoes. They fit too. Of course they did.
Through the wall, the auctioneer's voice grew louder, more animated. The practice session was over. The real auction had started.
"Lot 28, sold for one hundred and fifty thousand to the gentleman from the Sokolov family . . ."
I sat on the cot and tried to calculate odds. Five families. Besharovs, Volkovs, Kozlovs, Sokolovs, Morozovs. The woman had said the Besharovs would probably buy me. Smart girls, money, decent treatment. That was something. Better than being bought by someone who wanted me for physical labor or worse.
But I knew the bratva world. Had grown up on the edges of it, watching my father navigate the politics and violence and codes that governed criminal families. Knew that "decent treatment" was relative. Knew that debt bondage meant ownership. Meant years of service. Meant my life wasn't mine.
"Lot 31, sold for two hundred thousand to the Kozlov representative . . ."
Six lots away. Maybe twenty minutes.
My camera was gone, but I remembered the photos.
Especially the one of Sergei. It had been taken three years ago, at our apartment in Brooklyn, the one with the bay window and the good light. I was sitting in his lap, wearing pink overall dress and striped tights, my hair in pigtails. Twenty years old but looking fifteen, small and soft and completely safe. Little Sophie. His little girl.
We were both laughing at something off-camera. I couldn't remember what. Could remember everything else about that day—the way his arms felt around me, solid and warm. The way his voice gentled when I was Little, became patient and careful. The way he'd read to me, made me lunch, let me color in coloring books while he worked on theater business.
The way he'd made me feel safe enough to be vulnerable. Small enough to be held. Loved enough to let go.
"Lot 33, opening at seventy-five thousand . . ."
I stared at the photo. At Little Sophie who didn't exist anymore. Who couldn't exist anymore.
The night Sergei died, I'd been in his lap. We'd been watching a movie—something animated, Finding Nemo maybe—and I'd been Little, completely regressed, sucking my thumb and playing with his hair. Safe. Happy. Small.
The shots came through the window. Drive-by, the police said later. Gang violence. Wrong place, wrong time. Except it wasn't wrong place. It was exactly the right place if you wanted to kill someone with bratva connections.
Three bullets. Two went through the window. One hit Sergei in the chest.
He'd pushed me off his lap as he fell. Trying to protect me even as he died. I'd landed hard, my knee twisting wrong, something tearing inside. The pain had been immediate and sharp and nothing compared to watching him bleed out on our living room floor.
I'd held him. Still in my pink overall dress, my pigtails coming loose, my thumb wet from my own mouth. Little Sophie holding her Daddy while he stopped breathing.
The paramedics had to pull me away. I'd fought them. Screamed.
It was my fault. I’d been too small and safe to notice the danger. If I'd been big, been alert, been watching the window instead of the TV, maybe I would have seen the car. Seen the guns. Pushed him out of the way.
Maybe he'd still be alive.
"Lot 34, opening at one hundred thousand..."
I'd regressed twice after that. Once in the hospital while they operated on my knee, the anesthesia pulling me under and bringing Little Sophie up. Once two weeks later, alone in the apartment we'd shared, surrounded by his things and his smell and the bloodstain on the floor I couldn't afford to have professionally cleaned.
Both times I'd surfaced feeling like I'd betrayed him. Like Little Sophie was a weakness I couldn't afford. A vulnerability that got people killed.
So I'd stopped. Buried her. Built walls. Stayed big and alert and armored every minute of every day for three years.
It had worked. Kind of. I'd survived my father's death. Survived six months of debt collection. Survived long enough to be drugged and sold, which was its own kind of achievement.
Little Sophie would have broken by now. Would have regressed and curled up and needed someone to take care of her. Would have been useless.
I needed to be useful. Needed to survive. Needed to stay big.
The door opened. The woman in the grey pantsuit stood there with a neutral expression.
"You're up. Come with me and I’ll explain the rules."
"Okay," I said. My voice was steady. Adult. Big.
Little Sophie stayed buried where she belonged.
We walked through concrete hallways that smelled like a heady mix of expensive cologne and sweat.
The woman in the grey pantsuit moved efficiently, her heels clicking on concrete, not looking back to check if I followed. She knew I would. Where else would I go? Every door we passed was locked from the outside, every turn leading deeper into the facility.
Through one door, down another hallway. The sounds grew louder—hundreds of voices, the rustle of programs, the clink of glasses. A party. A business event. A market.
We stopped at a heavy velvet curtain, deep red, the kind theaters used for wings. Professional. Expensive. Everything about this place screamed legitimacy, like if they just invested in the right lighting and decor, they could make slavery look like commerce.
The woman turned to face me. Her expression was neutral, practiced. How many people had she walked through this curtain? How many assets had she prepped?
"Listen carefully. I'll only explain once." Her voice was crisp. "You'll walk to center stage when your number is called. Stand still. Face forward. Don't speak unless asked a direct question. Don't make eye contact with the buyers. Don't try to run—there's security everywhere and it only makes your price drop."
I wanted to laugh. As if my price mattered. As if I cared whether I sold for ten dollars or ten million when the result was the same—owned, controlled, used until the debt was paid.
"Hands at your sides," she continued. "No fidgeting. No crying. No emotional displays. The buyers want to assess the asset, not manage your feelings. If you're asked a question, answer clearly and honestly. Lying will be discovered and punished. After the sale, you'll be taken to a private room to finalize paperwork with your buyer. Do you understand?"
"I understand you're selling people and calling it business."
Her expression didn't change. "Do you understand the rules?"
"Yes."
"Any questions?"
I had a thousand questions. I asked the only one that mattered. "What happens if no one bids?"
Something flickered in her eyes. Might have been pity. Might have been impatience.
"Every lot gets sold eventually. It's just a question of price." She checked her tablet. "You're up in three minutes. Stand behind the curtain until you hear your lot number."
She pulled the curtain back slightly, just enough for me to see.
The auction floor spread out before me like something from a nightmare dressed as a corporate event. Rows of chairs, maybe three hundred people, all well-dressed, all holding numbered paddles. Professional lighting illuminated a raised stage with a podium on the left and a massive screen on the right displaying lot numbers and starting prices.
On stage right now: Lot 35, a crate of military-grade weapons. I could see them through the plexiglass display case—assault rifles, handguns, something that looked like it belonged in a war zone. The auctioneer's voice boomed through speakers.
"Lot 35, sold for two hundred and seventy-five thousand to the Kozlov family. Congratulations."
Applause. Polite. Professional. Like they'd just bought art.
Two men in tactical gear wheeled the weapons off stage. The screen changed.
Lot 36. Three paintings in ornate frames. The auctioneer began his pitch. "Lot 36, authenticated Impressionist works, stolen from the Gardner Museum in 1990. Opening bid at five hundred thousand . . ."
I watched them sell stolen art. Watched paddles rise, watched the price climb to $1.2 million, watched the Sokolov representative stand and claim his purchase while everyone applauded.
The paintings were wheeled off.
The screen changed.
Lot 37.
My photograph appeared on the screen. The one they must have taken while I was unconscious. My face pale, my hair messy, my eyes closed. I looked dead. I looked like evidence.
Below my photo: detailed information. Name, age, education history, physical statistics, skills assessment. My photographic memory listed as "intellectual asset." My ballet background listed as "physical training, flexibility, performance experience."
They'd reduced me to selling points.
"Lot 37," the auctioneer's voice boomed. "Debt bondage contract, $2.3 million obligation. Female, age 24, high intelligence, photographic memory, dual enrollment at City College. Asset includes full service obligation until debt satisfaction. Opening bid at fifty thousand."
Fifty thousand. That's what I opened at. A fraction of the debt. Someone could buy years of my life for less than a luxury car.
The woman touched my shoulder. "Up you go, milashka."
Through the gap in the curtain, I could see the crowd. Row after row of faces. Some bored. Some interested. Some calculating. In the front row, I spotted the family representatives. Five groups, separated by empty chairs, each group marked by their own sense of power.
The Kozlovs—brutal, obvious, the pakhan with scarred knuckles and a face like violence.
The Sokolovs—older, traditional, the pakhan with white hair and cold eyes.
The Morozovs—I recognized Viktor Morozov from photographs my father had kept. Severe face, expensive suit, watching the stage like he was assessing livestock.
The Volkovs—my family, technically, though they'd exiled my father decades ago. Three men, and even from here I could see the family resemblance. The oldest sat in the center, ice-blue eyes tracking every movement on stage.
The Besharovs—the woman had said they'd probably buy me. Three men, the one in the center younger than the others, dark hair, sharp grey eyes, watching the stage with analytical precision.
One of these men would buy me. Would own the debt. Would own me.
The auctioneer gestured toward the wings. "Ladies and gentlemen, Lot 37."
The woman pushed me gently toward the curtain. "Remember the rules. Still, silent, compliant."
I took a breath.
"Go," the woman whispered.
I stepped through the curtain into lights so bright they burned, onto a stage where hundreds of people waited to decide what I was worth, and I kept my hands at my sides and my face neutral and my mouth shut because that was survival.
The auctioneer smiled. "Gentlemen, please welcome Lot 37."
The bidding began.