Chapter 1 #2
The man sitting in the back corner has not come closer to the stage.
He has not joined the men gathering like vultures at the front.
He is half in shadow, one ankle crossed over his knee, a glass resting untouched in his hand.
His suit is black. His hair is black. The tattoos disappearing beneath his cuffs and collar are black too, though the low light gives them the shifting quality of ink beneath water.
Beside the stage two guards following my gaze, perplexed perhaps at what could hold my attention in such a horrifying situation.
“Savarese doesn’t usually come to these himself,” one mutters just loud enough for me to hear.
The other answers with a hint of amusement, “Maybe he heard the inventory was worth it tonight.”
He looks completely still.
Not relaxed.
Still.
There is a difference.
Relaxed men are unaware of danger. Still men are the danger.
His eyes are on me. Only me. I know him instantly. Stefano Savarese, The Don of Miami.
I run through the facts internally: Thirty-five.
Old bloodline, with all the new violence.
A man with enough legitimate business holdings to shake hands with politicians, yet enough bodies behind him that men lower their voices when they speak his name.
Or avert their eyes when he enters a room.
He’s not supposed to be here tonight. Not according to any of the intel I was provided.
Not according to the informant Raven trusted enough to let me go undercover on this assignment.
Savarese was not on the list.
And yet there he is. My pulse changes as his mouth curves upward slightly.
And I’m forced to realize how irritatingly handsome he is.
The pictures in his file really didn’t do him justice.
It is the smallest of acknowledgments, and I hate that my body notices.
He is shockingly handsome in the way dangerous things are beautiful: from a distance.
A blade under museum glass. A hurricane observed from behind reinforced windows.
A predator too well-fed to run but not too well-fed to hunt.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer says, “shall we begin?”
The room settles instantly, glasses lowered. Chairs shift as bodies are turned to face the auctioneer. I try my wrist again, but the zip ties refuse to budge.
The woman beside me gives one soft, broken sound as we watch the first woman sell for fifty thousand.
She doesn’t fight when they pull her upright.
She barely seems to feel the hands on her.
Her buyer is an older man with a pink face and a wedding band he doesn’t bother hiding.
I memorize his face and everything I can note about him because there are things I cannot do tonight that I may still be able to do later.
The second woman sells for eighty thousand.
The one who was smiling. Her expression doesn’t change when the gavel comes down, and somehow that makes the room feel colder than before.
My wrist keeps moving, the abrasion of my skin against the plastic burning as the auctioneer turns toward me.
“And now,” he says, drawing the words out with reverence that makes bile rise in my throat, “our final item of the evening.”
Item. Not woman. Not person. Item.
I let my shoulders tremble slightly. And inside me, something goes very quiet as all the eyes in the room turn to me.
People like this count on the world staying quiet. They count on fear. Money. Shame. Jurisdiction. Complicity. They count on women disappearing cleanly because men with power are very good at convincing themselves that no one will bother looking too closely at the things they steal.
The first bid comes from the front.
“Twenty-five.”
“Thirty.”
“Forty.”
The numbers climb, and my mind separates itself from the sound of them because if I let the meaning in, if I allow myself to understand that these people are attaching numbers to my body while I kneel beneath their lights, I will stop being useful.
I struggle to focus on what matters, the task at hand.
The reason I am truly here tonight. The one person I need to find, and how I’m going to complete my mission.
I force my mind back to evaluating the situation.
The room, and the people in it. Four guards by the walls now.
One moved closer after the second sale. The auctioneer has a sidearm under his jacket, left side.
The man who brought me in has stepped down from the stage and is speaking to someone near the service door.
The zip tie is weakening but not enough.
“Seventy-five.”
“One hundred.”
A murmur moves through the room. I keep my head bowed but continue scanning with my eyes.
“One hundred and fifty.”
That one is close. I glance in the direction of the oily voice. Front table. Blue suit. He sounds pleased with himself even before he has won anything.
Then the room stills, except for a small motion in my peripheral vision.
“Two hundred.”
The voice comes from the back corner. Low. Unhurried. My eyes lift before I can stop them.
Stefano Savarese simply speaks, and the room rearranges itself around the fact that he has decided to participate.
I catch the auctioneer’s pleasant expression flicker. Only once. Then, clearing his throat, he returns to his chanting. “Two hundred thousand from Mr. Savarese. I have two hundred. Do I hear two-ten?”
Mr. Savarese, as if everyone in this room doesn’t already know exactly who, or what he is.
A man near the front laughs, a brittle, annoyed sound. “Two-twenty-five.”
Stefano doesn’t even waste a look at him before countering. “Five hundred.”
There's a murmur of gasps through the crowd immediately. Then utter, complete silence.
Even the crying woman beside me goes quiet.
“Five hundred thousand,” the auctioneer repeats, sounding almost in awe of the sum. “Do I hear five-fifty?”
This time, no one answers.
Five hundred thousand dollars. For me. For a cover identity built in a federal file room, fed slowly into criminal channels until it became believable enough to put me here. For a woman who does not exist. For a lie. For a carefully orchestrated trap.
Stefano’s gaze stays on my face. There is no heat in it, no obvious lust, no drunken greed, no smug enjoyment at having humiliated the other men. Just curiosity. Total, unnerving, and impossible-to-dismiss curiosity.
The man seated beside him leans in.
Close-cropped hair. Hard jaw. Capo, probably. Bodyguard if people are feeling polite. He murmurs something too low for me to hear.
Stefano listens.
Then that smirk returns, and I feel it like ghost fingers caressing the back of my neck, causing the small hairs there to stand on end.
The auctioneer lifts the gavel.
“Five hundred thousand. Going once.”
My wrist twists.
The plastic strains.
“Going twice.”
A crack sounds somewhere behind the main doors. Not clear enough for the room to understand. But enough for me. My heartbeat steadies.
There you are, Raven.
“Sold.”
The gavel comes down at the same moment, and the doors explode open. And for one suspended second, nobody moves.
Then the room becomes chaos.
Men shout. Glass breaks. Someone screams. Armed agents pour through the entrance in black tactical gear, shouting commands that ricochet off marble and velvet and panic.
The guard nearest the bar reaches for his gun and drops before his hand clears his jacket.
The auctioneer turns, pale and stumbling, and the woman beside me finally starts crying out loud.
My turn. The zip tie snaps against the metal edge in my sleeve on the third pull, biting deep into my wrist as it gives. Pain flashes hot and bright up my arm. I use it. Pain is grounding. Pain is honest. Pain tells the body exactly where it is.
I grab the crying woman first.
“Down,” I command.
She stares at me, uncomprehending. I push her flat as a bullet tears into the stage backdrop where her head had been.
That makes her understand. The smiling woman on the other side of me moves before I reach for her, crawling behind the auction podium with the dead-eyed efficiency of someone who has survived worse than tonight.
Good. Smart. Stay alive.
I rip the remaining plastic from my wrist and slide off the stage while the room fractures around me. An agent shouts something. Not at me. Good. My cover is still in play for another thirty seconds. Maybe less.
I don’t have to waste another thirty seconds, though; the children aren’t in this room.
They were never going to be in this room.
Leon wouldn’t risk displaying his own children in front of men who might know their faces, or worse, learn them.
Not if he was moving them out of town tonight.
He would keep them somewhere close enough to move, but far enough from the main floor to deny knowledge of their presence if anything went wrong.
Quickly, I run a list of the areas where they might be hidden: the back corridor, the service wing, near the helipad, if the property has one.
I cut left just as a guard comes through the side door with his weapon half raised, eyes on the raid instead of the stage.
I hit him low and fast, driving my shoulder into his ribs before he has time to decide whether I am merchandise or a threat.
His back hits the wall. The gun slips, and I catch his wrist. Twisting until something gives, before slamming his head once against the doorframe.
He goes down, and I take the gun. I don’t plan to use it unless I have to, but unarmed women get grabbed in hallways. Armed women get considerably more respect, especially in this group. And an armed woman searching for the children that mean everything to her is even more dangerous.