Chapter 18 Bad Memories #2
I was in a fucking metal box. The same kind Father used to store his ‘merchandise’ for auctions that were strong enough to hold shifters.
Holes were drilled into the top, letting small beams of light no wider than my pointer finger pierce the dark.
There would be a padlock on the outside, keeping the lid shut.
My blood chilled, even as my heart began to race and pump adrenaline through my veins like gasoline for the fire of my rage that followed.
I thrashed hard against the walls that felt like they were closing in.
“Get me the fuck outta here!” I screamed my head off. “Let me out, you bastards! I’m Lorelai McGregor!”
My box muffled the chuckle of a man nearby. “We know who you are, bitch,” he answered. “Who do you think put you in that box, hmm?”
I couldn’t breathe, and my muscles froze in shock. My eyes refused to blink as I stared up at the small holes until they burned and watered from the dryness. “No…” The denial squeezed past the tightness in my chest. “No, no, nonononono!”
The box rocked a little when I began slamming my shoulders against either side with all my strength.
It was too heavy to topple over. Nails scrabbled against the smooth metal, barely able to catch on the welded seams. Still, I tried flipping over onto my hands and knees to ram my back against the lid in a fruitless attempt to bust out.
The clank, clank of the lock hitting the side was the only indication I’d done anything at all, and even that only proved how soundly I was trapped in here.
“Settle down, princess,” the man sneered. “Your turn is coming up soon. You’re the main event of tonight’s auction.”
Now that the adrenaline had burned off the remainder of whatever drug kept me sedated, the missing pieces of the last day became clear.
Elio visiting right before a scheduled auction.
His hungry stare as he sat beside me at that small, round table all during dinner.
Father’s knowing smirk when I mentioned growing tired suddenly.
Then… nothing. I didn’t even remember getting up from my chair.
Those motherfuckers drugged me!
I cursed my stupidity and blind trust. I should have known something was off with so many guards lurking around the restaurant that they were plotting something.
It wasn’t like I didn’t have my fair share of enemies, separate from just being a daughter of the Heathens’ mob boss.
My online persona as Cyber_Fox was a Robin Hood character, stealing from the illegal auctions run all throughout Europe and doling money out to anti-trafficking organizations while keeping less than half a percent for myself to squirrel away in offshore accounts.
Father knew about it, even if he didn’t wholly approve.
I was weakening his enemies, both current and potential.
Even his allies could turn against him if they reared their heads, so I helped keep him at the top of the ecosystem by slowly draining their finances.
But if anyone found out the hacker who made their lives hell was Ryan McGregor’s daughter, he’d face the wrath of the whole Assembly.
The collection of twenty organized crime groups that formed an uneasy truce among each other, and that was shaky at best. For Father to betray me so horribly…
did someone find out I was a hacker? Was he being blackmailed?
The lock clattered again. I barely had time to look over my shoulder when a beefy hand tangled in my hair and wrenched my head back at a painful angle. “Come on, princess,” the owner of the hand mocked. “It’s your time to shine.”
Tears pricked my eyes at the pain of being hauled from the metal box by my hair.
Throwing my limp body on the floor, he chuckled and planted a foot on my back.
Something wrapped around my neck and cinched tightly.
“Looks like she’s still pretty out of it.
” A second man fiddled with whatever he put on my neck.
It felt smooth and cold against my skin, like it was made of chains… a choke collar.
My assumption was confirmed when the foot on my back moved and tension pulled against the front of my throat, making me gasp and choke with the force. “Get the fuck up!” He jerked on the collar again, hard. “Let’s go.”
I was half-dragged by the end of my leash in his merciless hand, still weak from whatever drug knocked me out. It was dark, but I could make out that we were in some kind of storage room with several other open boxes. That explained why it was so quiet here.
The man hauled me up a short flight of stairs behind him, flanked by the other one who kept the muzzle of a gun firmly planted on the back of my head. Like I was any match for either one right now in my condition. I couldn’t even force a shift despite being an alpha. I might as well be… human.
The top of the landing led into a backstage area of sorts, filled with armed guards holding their own crying wards.
Their moans and wails had no effect on the men’s stoic faces.
Jesus Christ, there were even children slumped on the floor in chains!
I wasn’t completely naive to the skin trade.
I knew what kind of trafficking my father specialized in.
But knowing about his predilection for snatching up young shifters without families and seeing it firsthand were two jarring realities now colliding with each other.
It was my own little act of rebellion to hack into other known traffickers’ accounts and siphon off funds, but unless I wanted a bullet straight to my brain I wouldn’t dare touch Father’s profits.
He wouldn’t give it a second thought to kill his eldest daughter for less.
My handler pushed through heavy black curtains, and suddenly my eyes were accosted by a blinding light.
I couldn’t settle on where to put my arms or hands—how do I cover enough skin to preserve some sliver of dignity?
—as I was pulled by the leash to the center of a stage overlooking a massive crowd.
A well dressed, sophisticated looking crowd, despite the fact they were worse than mangy animals in their suits and sparkling dresses.
“Lot number eighty-four,” an announcer spoke over the low din. “A young female fox shifter, no documented heats or mates, but experienced in sexual acts and confirmed to have lost her virginity. The starting bid on this one is two hundred thousand euros–”
How degrading. To have my value summed up with my age and breeding record in such a detached, analytical way made me want to vomit all over this polished stage.
I was under no illusion that I was nothing more than a tight cunt and baby machine in the mob world.
But maybe for the first time in my short life, I wished I had been born a man.
The horrors that waited for me on the other side of this auction were not for the faint of heart.
If I only had to fuck an old man for the rest of my life I’d be lucky.
The announcer’s voice cut through my spiraling dread.
“Bidder four-oh-eight wins, with five-hundred-eighty thousand euros. Please use the number on your paddle to collect your winnings at the conclusion of the auction. This concludes the companion segment, after a ten-minute intermission, we will proceed with the art…”
The collar cut off my air supply for a moment when my handler jerked me off my feet, and dragged me on my knees across the stage until my knees burned from the friction, forcing me back onto my feet.
“You got a pretty penny, bitch,” he snarled into my ear, the breath brushing against the shell, humid and sour.
“Maybe the bidder will be kind enough to let me have a go at you before he hauls you off. To put my dick in the great Ryan McGregor’s precious daughter would be the highlight of my night. ”
“Fuck… you!” I spat out. Even those two words sounded garbled to my ears.
My head still felt like it was filled with cotton.
I barely managed to stay on my feet long enough to make it to some kind of loading dock off the back of the staging area, down another short hallway lined with plush carpet.
There was already a truck backing into the ramp with a cage loaded in the bed, the walls of it made with some kind of dark plexiglass.
“Hello again, lovely.” The voice that purred sent a cold wave of shock down my spine all the way to my feet and back up.
I was chilled to the bone by the time I lifted my head a few excruciating centimeters to see the familiar owner of it.
Just as I met Elio Messina’s cold eyes, one of his beefy hands palmed my naked breast. His fingers dug into the tender flesh hard enough to make my eyes water.
“I must say you look even more enchanting without clothes. You will be worth every euro.”
Panic immediately overwhelmed my system, flooding it with adrenaline that burned away the last of that potent drug that kept me manageable.
I kicked and thrashed and lashed out with manicured nails, spitting and howling with everything I had left in my weak body.
Even as the collar tightened around my throat to a debilitating cinch, I whipped around and lunged for the one who held the leash, going right for his eyes and digging into the sockets.
The satisfying squelch and agonizing howls as he dropped my leash fueled my bloodlust…
until the press of something cold and metallic to my side gave me a moment’s warning before stinging electricity coursed through my muscles.
They locked up instantly, dropping me to the ground as I twitched violently in the aftermath.
Elio stood over me, a wretched smile on his tanned face as he held a sparking taser in one hand.
“Oh, you will be a joy to break, Lorelai McGregor. There will be nothing left of you when I’m done.”