Chapter 2
The omega stepped onto the platform with his head bowed, his shoulders tense beneath the red latex. He looked very young and very innocent under the spotlights.
Ren clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.
Malachi Kovac appeared from the side with the ease of the perfect host who turned cruelty into a spectacle. An impeccable dark suit, a courteous smile, his ring-laden hands outstretched as if presenting a work of art.
“Gentlemen,” Kovac’s voice filled the room, “tonight we have something exceptional.”
He approached the omega and placed a hand on his shoulder. The boy flinched.
“Sweet as honey. Obedient. And intact.”
The words hung in the air, thick with cigarette smoke and anticipation. Ren felt a wave of revulsion wash over him.
“Certified virgin,” Kovac continued, pulling a white envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. He held it aloft. “Complete medical documentation. Tests from just forty-eight hours ago. All verifiable, of course.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Interest. Greed. Disgusting.
“Given the rarity of the merchandise,” Kovac stroked the omega’s dark hair as if displaying a valuable object, “the minimum bid will be twenty thousand.”
The omega lifted his head for a second. His eyes swept the room, searching for something—anything—other than the nightmare surrounding him.
His gaze met Ren’s.
Two seconds. Maybe three. Long enough for Ren to see the pure panic etched into those pale features. His own face must also show the same expression. He felt the same animal terror as he knew he was trapped, exposed, and reduced to numbers and flesh.
God.
The other omega looked away first, swallowing hard, and Ren noticed it even from where he stood. His hands were shaking.
“One hundred thousand,” said a voice from the front row.
It sounded casual. Like someone ordering another drink.
Ren closed his eyes for a moment, but that only made it worse. The darkness amplified the sounds—the satisfied murmur of the buyers, the rustle of expensive suits against the leather of the seats, his own racing pulse pounding in his temples.
He opened his eyes. His peripheral vision was narrowing.
Breathe. In. Out.
“One hundred twenty thousand.” Another voice. From behind.
“One hundred forty.”
The numbers rose with the obscene nonchalance of those buying livestock.
No one flinched. No one questioned the fact that there was a flesh-and-blood boy on that platform, that he could hear them, that he understood well they were deciding who would buy him as if he were a piece of luxury furniture.
The omega kept his gaze fixed on the floor. His fists clenched at his sides. His ragged breathing made his chest rise and fall beneath the latex.
Ren clenched his fingers around the paper Rocco had given him. It was still there. Small and real.
“When the lights go out… run.”
When? When would the lights go out? What if they didn’t? What if it were just a joke?
“Three hundred sixty thousand.”
Kovac’s voice floated above everything, moderating, encouraging, extracting every additional dollar with the mastery of a shark that smells blood.
“We have three hundred sixty. Does any gentleman wish to continue?”
A brief silence.
“Five hundred thousand.” A bald man with a solid gold ring. His accent was foreign, German, perhaps, or Austrian.
The omega swayed. Almost imperceptibly. As if his knees were threatening to give way.
Ren’s stomach lurched. Acidic bile burned his throat. He swallowed hard, but the sensation remained, thick and nauseating.
The edges of his vision flickered. Dark spots danced around him. Hang in there. Just a little longer.
“Nine hundred thousand,” said a fresh voice. A deep, self-satisfied voice that drew gasps of surprise and murmurs of envy.
Pause.
Kovac smiled. He turned on his heels, scanning the room with that calculating gaze that took everything in.
“Nine hundred thousand at one…”
Ren’s heart was pounding so hard he was sure the men sitting nearby could hear it.
“Nine hundred thousand at two…”
The omega stood with his mouth agape, as if the identity of the alpha who had made that bid filled him with both confusion and dread. He shook his head once, incredulous.
“Sold for nine hundred thousand.”
The gavel fell with a sharp thud that echoed like a sentence.
Applause scattered through the crowd—polite, brief, civilized.
Ren watched as the two bodyguards who had been holding the omega down dragged him without ceremony. The boy didn’t resist. He was so stunned that there was nothing left in him that could resist.
He disappeared through the archway on the other side of the room.
And then Kovac turned toward where Ren was standing.
Their eyes met across the chamber filled with smoke and predators.
Kovac smiled.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “allow me to introduce our next piece.”
The same bodyguards who had accompanied the omega dressed in red latex helped Ren up onto the exhibition platform.
The spotlights focused on his head hit him full force.
He blinked, dazzled, trying to let his pupils adjust to the abrupt change in lighting.
The black latex jumpsuit clung to his skin, a synthetic reminder of his own vulnerability.
He clenched his right fist, feeling the faint rustle of the paper Rocco had given him, now a crumpled mass of sweat and fragile hope.
The air caught in his throat. He tensed. Breathe. In. Out. Ren forced himself to stare at a fixed point on the dark wooden floor—an imperfection in the varnish, something to anchor him to the present.
“And now, gentlemen,” Malachi Kovac’s voice boomed, unctuous and full of cordiality. “A… special piece.”
Ren felt the weight of those men’s pheromones envelop him, even though he couldn’t see them. The spotlights shining on him made his position resemble that of someone on a stage. Complete exposure. No visibility.
“This omega is no novice in the art of giving pleasure. Though circumstances have changed, he grew up in luxury. A stifled laugh rippled through the room. The mention of his family, of his father’s downfall, was a deliberate stab.
“He possesses an innate ability to please. I assure you, he knows how to bring a man to orgasm in seconds.”
Whispers. Tense interest in the air.
“He has a divine mouth,” Kovac continued, savoring every word.
“But I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you.
The contract is for a full year. During that time, the lucky winning bidder may do with him whatever he pleases.
Anything except mutilating him and, obviously, killing him. Business is business.”
Ren took a breath. Nausea rose in his throat, thick and bitter. He focused on his breathing, on the crumpled paper in his hand. Rocco’s promise. When the lights go out… run. It was his only mantra, the only prayer he had left.
“The starting bid is one hundred thousand,” Kovac announced.
An expectant silence filled the room. Ren’s heart was pounding against his ribs.
“One hundred thousand.”
The voice.
Ren froze. He didn’t have to look up. He knew that voice, an echo of past nightmares, of awkward dinners where that same inflection masqueraded as kindness. A chill ran down his spine. It was a voice that smelled of expensive cologne and buried cruelty.
Dimitri Reznov.
“We have one hundred thousand,” Kovac confirmed, with a half-smile that suggested the night was just beginning. “Any higher bids?”
“Two hundred thousand,” someone shouted from the side.
“Two hundred twenty thousand,” replied another voice with an eastern accent.
The figures climbed, overlapping one another in a cacophony of possession.
Ren’s head was spinning. He was a piece of meat hanging from a hook, a possession they were competing for.
Each new bid was another nail in his coffin.
He clung to the mental image of the paper in his hand.
Run. The word flickered behind his open eyes.
“Five hundred thousand,” Reznov’s voice rang out again, cutting through the noise. It had a tone of finality, as if he were ending a child’s game.
But someone else disagreed.
“Five hundred fifty.”
“Six hundred.” Reznov’s voice, now with an edge of impatience.
“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 that failed 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.