Chapter 1 #4
I forced myself still, swallowing the urge to claw my way free, my body rigid against his as his hand settled low on my hip.
His fingers dug in just enough to make the message unmistakable.
Mine. I hated that he was staking a claim, but I also knew how disastrous it could be if I didn’t play along.
The guards lining the perimeter discreetly with their guns made that much clear.
A server appeared, setting a plate in front of me.
The food was lavish, heavy with scent and heat, steam curling upward, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of eating anything in the presence of Buyers.
My gaze drifted instead to the wall behind the table, to the massive oil painting as the frame began to lift, rising just enough to reveal a thin seam of darkness beneath.
I went still.
Behind it, inch by inch, glass was revealed.
Beyond the glass was another room, washed in harsh white light that made everything inside look sterile.
Bodies were arranged with a precision that turned my stomach.
People stood there, some clothed, some not, hands bound, heads bowed, faces hidden or turned away.
A few lifted their eyes when the light shifted, wide and hollow.
They were assets. Just like me. Just like Creed.
Every one of them had a number fixed somewhere on their skin or collarbone.
My gaze drifted to the paddles being passed around the table, offered with the same polite efficiency as wine.
Alexander accepted one, his arm tightening around my waist. A woman’s voice filled the room through the intercom, the tone of someone welcoming guests to something celebratory.
“Welcome, Buyers. S.I.N. appreciates your on-going support. Today we have a plethora of phenomenal assets. Each have been thoroughly prepared for whatever your desires may be. We will begin the bid at ten thousand. Please raise your paddles to purchase.” The word bid settled into me slowly, heavily.
Behind the glass, the assets began to move with resignation, stepping into the light when summoned, pausing while they were assessed, priced, and reduced to products.
Voices around the table murmured numbers, and each time a paddle lifted, an asset disappeared from view.
I watched Alexander raise his own a handful of times, never urgently, never to win.
He wasn’t choosing. He was participating.
Observing. Allowing the process to unfold.
S.I.N.
I had spent years believing what happened to Creed and the kids at Viktor’s estate and Halden’s compound was isolated, the cruelty of individual men with too much power and no restraint.
But this wasn’t that. This was organized.
A…system. I wondered how many Viktors existed within it?
How many Haldens? The room felt tighter with every breath I took.
I stared through the glass at bowed heads and bound hands.
That place, it would’ve been my fate if I’d never stolen a car or went to Viktor’s courtyard to fight.
I knew it in the deepest marrow of my bones.
My mind betrayed me, dragging Leah into it, her gala dress and her broken smile and the syringe forced into her arm.
I imagined her standing there naked behind the glass, the man who raped her toward death lifting a paddle for a measly fifteen grand.
I shook, hard enough that I couldn’t hide it.
The truth was assembling itself too quickly to outrun.
I had been a fool to believe the cruelty I knew was contained, that Halden’s network was the whole of it.
Creed hadn’t been sent to silence dissent within a single system.
He had been enforcing something far larger.
All those evil men Creed killed…It was only so that a greater evil could thrive.
I gripped the edge of the table when the room tilted, breath turning shallow.
“Arden,” Alexander whispered discreetly. “Remain calm, darling.”
My chin trembled, my nose scrunching in pain.
It had only been a few days since I’d lost Leah.
Everything…it was just too much, and it was crashing into me all at once.
I shifted again, trying to keep my composure and failing.
The tiniest gasp left me as I tried to rake in a steadying breath, and I winced at the sound, drawing attention toward us.
“That one is pretty,” a man across said casually, his gaze settling on me. “How much, sir?”
Every head turned.
“Not for sale.” Alexander’s arm tightened around my waist just as another bid was called over the intercom, the numbers rising and falling like a chant.
Then, without warning, he lifted his paddle.
Murmurs passed in low currents across the table.
Another bidder raised his paddle, testing the waters.
Alexander didn’t look at him. He raised his own again.
The other man hesitated, then lowered his hand.
Behind the glass, the woman who had been standing under the lights was ushered away, her face drained as she disappeared through a side door. The gavel struck once. “Sold to Buyer 84: Alexander Mayhew.”
The words echoed through the room and lodged somewhere inside me.
Mayhew. I knew that name. Why did I know that name?
It made sense to me that he wouldn’t call himself Creed around Buyers, not with the name being so associated with assets like Rafe, Thorne, Kane, and me.
At the same time, Creed had been on his license.
It seemed to be the name he claimed most. So why Mayhew?
I squeezed my eyes shut. It nagged at the back of my mind, memories itching forward.
For the briefest instant, I was back in Halden’s compound, settled at my desk in the ASL classroom, Kane writing out CAT on the whiteboard and all of us realizing Rafe couldn’t read or write.
I pictured Florence’s frantic but fierce face.
“My life is on the line, too.” Then for the first time, we saw her.
Really saw her. “Mayhew. Florence Mayhew,” she said, lifting her chin a bit.
Alexander exhaled slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it drew me away from the memory and back into the present. He leaned in close enough for me to feel the warmth of his breath against my ear. “Do you see now why Creed is needed?” he murmured.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My fingers were numb, curled into the fabric of my dress.
I didn’t believe in coincidences. It was startling enough to know Alexander had some kind of connection to Viktor, but for him to then have a connection with Halden too?
I’d thought Viktor and Halden being his targets for me was purely to get me on his side, but I began to believe that there were far more stakes involved for him than he was letting on.
Was Florence a sibling? A sister. I could see it so clearly the more I thought about their resemblances.
What I didn’t know was if I should reveal that I knew Florence.
I didn’t want any woman within an inch of Halden for any longer than they had to be, but I also had to keep my family in mind.
If all of this was about getting his sister back, then maybe Alexander would be open to further negotiation.
Up until that point, I had nothing to use against him. Florence changed that.
The auction continued one body after another, one quiet transaction after the next.
Faces blurred. Numbers lost meaning. My focus narrowed until the only thing I could feel was the steady pressure of Alexander’s arm, the cadence of his breathing, and the way the room bent around him.
I didn’t register when the auction ended or when the Buyers began to rise from the table, chairs scraping softly.
I was barely there as the car ride back to the townhouse passed in a blur of streetlights and silence, my body moving through it without me, every sound distant, every sensation dulled like I was wrapped in glass.
When we were back in the bedroom, the door closing softly behind us, the weight of it all finally landed.
I reached for the foot board of the bed and gripped it hard, my fingers whitening as I bent forward.
Then the room tilted, and I bolted for the bathroom.
I fell to my knees, heaving into the toilet, my body purging what my mind didn’t want to believe.
I knew Alexander was behind me, watching me, looming.
Taking up space that didn’t belong to him.
Rafe. I wanted Rafe and Thorne and Kane.
I wanted to hold my family, to know that they were safe.
Leah. I wanted to braid her hair like she always did mine, and I wanted to see her smile again like she did that first year we met.
I wanted her to be alive, and I wanted even more to know that she never, ever saw the inside of that auction room.
Lies. I wanted lies.
“Syndicate of International Need,” Alexander’s voice came heavy at my back. “S.I.N. disguised as a nonprofit and available globally to anyone with deep enough pockets.”
I dry heaved into the toilet, closing my eyes against another wave of nausea, but what came next wasn’t more vomit.
A scream tore out of me hard enough that the water in the toilet rippled.
My stomach caved with the effort of its release, and I shoved up to my feet, spinning to face Alexander.
I closed the distance between us and wrapped a hand around his tie, lifting it between us in rage.
“While I’ve killed men with far less,” I said, giving him a firm tug so that his dark gaze held mine.
“I’ll spare you, Alexander. I will help you, but you have to help me.
I can’t just be some contracted Doll or murderer.
Not anymore. I will burn this townhouse to the ground and sacrifice my own life before I let you use me against my will any further.
I want to know Creed is safe. I need proof of life.
In exchange, I’ll give you everything I have from my skill set to information. ”
His eyes narrowed.
“Mayhew,” I said, and his lips parted. “That your real name? Your family name?”
He looked frantic. “Why?”
“Florence,” I said. “I met her.”
Alexander ripped back as if I’d struck him. His hands shook as he gaped at me. “What?”
“Clearly she’s important so I think you should agree to my terms,” I told him. “From now on, this marriage is a fucking partnership. You will not order me around. If you want me to do something, then it’s my decision. Am I clear?”
“Tell me right fucking now where you met her,” he spat, moving in like he planned to grab me by the neck and shake the answer out of me.
But I was quicker. I was fucking Creed. He may have had the mark, but he didn’t earn it in the same way I did.
I swept to the side as he charged and plowed my hand forward, grabbing the back of his neck and shoving him.
It was enough to knock him unsteady. He fell forward, his knees knocking into the bathroom tile and his palms slapping down.
“Answer me,” I demanded. “Agree to this compromise or I swear to god, I will kill you right now.” Familiar cool steel pressed into my palm.
I’d kept my hand slight as he passed, nicking Viktor’s lighter from where I’d watched Alexander shove it into his pocket hours before.
Thrill radiated through me, cold indifference settling over my features in the same way it always did when I was faced with my blood lust. I clicked the lighter, the little flame greeting me.
“You have thirty seconds,” I mocked him, using his own words against him that he dared to torture me with. “Twenty-nine…twenty-eight…”
“Fine,” he grit out and stood, wiping the back of his hand under his nose. A bit of blood smeared over his knuckles when he did, and I frowned, confused by it. Then my interest easily pivoted to his towering frame as he moved closer. “Proof of life will be available within the hour.”
“And my ability to make choices?” I asked.
“I’ll run everything by you,” he said.
I let the lid to the lighter fall closed. “I want your fucking signature.” Then I ripped off the wedding ring and tossed it at his chest. It bounced off and clattered to the tile between us, our glares matched. “And I only wear that disgusting ring if we’re meeting Buyers. I am not your wife.”