Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
“Kiernan?” My voice cracks as I say his name into the darkness that surrounds me. My throat is dry, my head heavy, and a weird metallic taste invades my senses. “Kiernan!”
Jesus, did I get run over by a semi-truck?
What happened? The last thing I remember is slipping the USB drive to Kiernan, and then my father—
My stomach churns, bilious and sour. Groaning, I clutch it, unable to hold back the bile rising in my throat. What have they done to me? I heave into a small bucket until my stomach is empty. There isn’t much in there to start with. I was too nervous to eat before the gala.
The cobwebs in my mind start to fade, and I shake my head a little to clear it.
Pushing myself up off the floor, I look around.
Hushed voices and the sound of clinking glasses and moving chairs filter through the walls.
There aren’t any windows in the small room, and I have to take several deliberate breaths to control the fear that threatens to swallow me whole.
I don’t do well in small spaces.
“Hello?”
Nothing. Fucking shit. Where the hell am I?
That is a stupid question. I am obviously in a basement of some kind, waiting for the auction to start.
My father planned this all along.
No.
Not my father.
The man who stole me from my father. The man who used me as a pawn to control my actual father. The files in his office safe had been more than eye-opening. My entire life, since I was three years old, was in those folders.
Now I know everything.
Mostly everything.
Now that I look back on it all, the pieces have come together in my mind.
I can’t believe I have been so blind. The woman I remember as my mother had been nothing more than a jealous woman.
She had stolen me and bartered me away, thinking she could fill the empty space in my biological father’s life.
She had been wrong.
God, am I pathetic. The number of people who have used me for their own gain before throwing me to the wolves is increasingly growing more every day. The junkie woman, Richard, the Kavanaughs.
Kiernan…
That bastard handed me over to whom they believe to be my father without a second thought.
Why? Had that been part of the plan the entire time? Use me and then throw me to Crowe when they have had their fill?
God, why had I been so stupid? Of course this had been the plan. They used me. Gotten what they wanted, then they got rid of me like yesterday’s trash. All of them. There was a point they hadn’t made me feel like a captive, and maybe that was the red flag I should have been paying attention to.
Instead, I let myself believe the lie they sold me. That they wanted me. Cherished me. Loved me.
They had been honest about the man who calls himself my father. Richard Crowe is a despicable man. Wretched as they come. Maybe this is part of the plan. They are going to catch him in the action. Take everything down.
Right?
Before I can be swallowed by the pity that threatens to overwhelm me, the silence is broken by the sound of several abrupt cries. Heavy footsteps thud outside my prison, stopping directly in front of my door. The lock twists and disengages, and the door swings open on its rusty hinges.
My heart races, and I prepare myself to use whatever tactic necessary to get out of this hellhole.
I won’t allow myself to be sold. There was a reason I caught on to Seamus’s training so well.
The style of fighting is different, specialized, but Crowe’s men had taken me under their wing growing up.
They taught me how to defend myself. How to fight dirty.
The heavy wooden door swings open, the light from the hallway outlining the broad frame that fills the doorway. He steps into the cell, and I don’t waste any time launching myself at him, hoping to catch him off guard.
I manage to catch him by surprise, since he probably wasn’t expecting a docile submissive to fight back and land a blow to his face, knocking him backward.
“Little bitch,” he sneers. His accent is thick, but I can’t place its origin. It isn’t Russian, that I know, and it sure as hell isn’t Italian. I don’t bother to stay and ask before I dart out the cell door and take off down the hallway without bothering to look back.
Except that it’s full.
I run smack dab into the hard chest of another mountain of a man, and he doesn’t look particularly pleased at my escape attempt.
Then my body lights up like the Fourth of July.
I hit the floor hard, my body convulsing as shock after shock of electricity courses through me like hot magma. My muscles are locked tight, and my teeth are clenched together so hard I think they might shatter. The current pulses through me again and again until I am begging him to stop.
The man whose nose broke curses at me in another language as he bends down, a cattle prod swinging loosely between his legs. His hand comes down across my face. I groan in pain as he drags me to my feet by my hair before tossing me to another guard.
“Get her in line with the others.”
The brawny man I ran into takes my upper arm in his grasp, shoving me toward the line of girls who stand primly, one right next to the other, their heads bowed but their shoulders erect.
“Stand here,” he barks, shoving me next to a young girl with strawberry blonde hair, who is wearing nothing more than a sheer slip. “You move and you get punished, understood?”
Recognizing this is not a battle I should fight, I nod my head meekly.
“Good,” he sneers. “Eyes on the floor.”
I obey, but inside, I am going over all the ways I can carve him up. Him and the fucker with the cattle prod.
We stand in line for what feels like hours. My legs begin to burn, knees growing tired and threatening to give out. I am on the brink of tipping over like the little teapot when the door to the hallway bursts open.
“Kneel.” The harsh command has the girls scrambling to kneel. I follow, cursing him under my breath. At least I am not at risk of falling over any longer.
“As you can see, we have an amazing lineup this year.” A nasally voice drifts through the room anxiously. “Some of the top women from our donors.”
“Yes.” A woman’s voice joins his, her voice a smooth rumble that reminds me of dark chocolate. Her heels clack along the stone floor, joined by the tapping of what sounds like a cane. “Ward does seem to have luck when it comes to finding the perfect candidates for our program.”
Program?
Keeping my head down, I let my gaze wander slightly beneath my lashes. Red heels and a black cane enter my vision briefly before passing on down the line.
“I hate to resort to finding women this way,” she continues, her voice tinted with disgust. “But with two of our assets having gone rogue, I am in need of immediate replacements.”
“Of course,” the man acquiesces. “We are at the Dollhouse’s humble service, Madam Therese.”
Dollhouse. I’ve run across that name before while searching for Lina. One of her contacts tipped her off to it, but none of her notes went into detail. There is an obvious connection to the trafficking ring, but until this moment, I hadn’t known what it was.
Is it a brothel? Or some kind of secondary ring? The woman’s voice holds the same accent as the guards but softer.
I swallow hard when the cold tip of the woman’s cane rests beneath my chin, forcing my head up.
She stands above me, clothed in a black wrap dress that is accessorized by a dead rodent’s fur wrapped around her shoulders.
Her silver hair is swept back into an elegant bun.
She has a long, angular face with pinched red lips and narrow eyes.
This is what I expect a brothel manager to look like.
“This one has potential,” she purrs. The nasally man, whom I now recognize as Tatem Jones from the pictures I’ve seen, shakes his head.
“I’m sorry, Madam Therese.” He bows slightly. “This one is not up for grabs. I didn’t realize our men had cleared her from her cell. She is already slotted to go to someone else. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Pity,” the woman drawls. “I had hoped to be the one to break that spirit in her eyes.”
I would like to break your nose and those coffee-stained teeth. Maybe feed you to a shark.
Her cane whips out, hitting my side with fierce precision, causing me to shriek at the sudden pain.
Oops. Did I say that out loud?
Tatem shakes his head at me before barking at the girls to stand.
“I’ll take four and eight.” She signals to her men, who haul the two girls away. Not that they put up a fight. And here I thought I had Stockholm syndrome. “Let me know if this one ever becomes available. I do love a challenge.”
Tatem smirks. “I don’t think there will be much left by the time her new owner is done with her, but I will pass along the message.”
New owner. Like I have a previous one.
Then again, I do. Drew. My receipt of sale was also among the folders I had uncovered.
Drew’s father bought me for his son for three million dollars.
He wanted a strong link between him and Crowe, as well as something to lord over my biological father.
I would have been expected to give him a child, since his woman of choice couldn’t bear any.
Tatem growls something in Italian, his words too fast for me to translate, and a few more guards appear.
They aren’t as bulky as their predecessors and are distinctly Italian.
They lead the remaining women down a short corridor and up a small flight of stairs before guiding us to the back of a stage.
The voices I heard through my cell are louder now.
The clinking of glasses and cheerful conversation more distinguishable.
They are laughing. Having a good time while we are to be sold like livestock at the county fair. I stagger slightly when the guard behind me pushes me to move, but I manage to catch myself before I face-plant.
The guard roughly grabs my upper arm and pushes me onto the stage. The other women kneel on the wooden floors, their heads bowed in submission, knees parted so obscenely that it gives the audience a full view of what they are offering.
Of what they are here to buy.
I kneel, refusing to spread my knees apart.
The guard growls at me in Italian, but I ignore him, choosing instead to search the crowd.
I can see Drew in the back with Brittany on his arm, her ice-cold gaze on me, a cruel smile stretched across her Botoxed lips.
The auctioneer, a man in his early forties, begins to speak, acknowledging the generous donations given tonight.
The light of the room is dim compared to the stage, making it slightly harder to see out into the crowd.
I just need to find an escape. All attention is on the auctioneer as he describes the “submissions” that are to be auctioned, so no one is watching me case the place.
There are two doors in and out of the room, both marked by two armed guards.
The trick will be determining which one leads to freedom and which one leads to a dead end that could end up getting me killed.
Drawing my eyes away from the doors, I pull my attention to inspecting the other inhabitants, sweeping my gaze across the room until something catches my eye.
No, not something.
Someone.
Lina.
In a room filled mainly with men, she stands out like a sore thumb. She has donned a swanky evening dress and low heels, and her head is bowed in conversation with someone who looks awfully familiar.
All at once, my heart shatters into a million pieces.