Chapter 5
Lincoln
It’s a relief to pull off this damn mask. I toss it onto my desk, and feel like I can finally breathe again. Rarely leaving
the house, at least as Lincoln Knight, I’m unaccustomed to wearing it for any long periods of time. I could have sent Edgar
to the auction in my stead, my occasional driver and my connection to the outside world. But he’s not me, and there’s no acceptable
level of chance when it comes to Imogen. She’s far too precious to risk losing for a second time.
Flicking the switch on my console, I light up the bank of screens in front of me.
Time to get to work. I haven’t slept in over a day, but a new auction means fifty more women sold into a life of slavery and fuck knows what kind of pain and cruelty.
A lot of the men who go to these auctions to actually buy them are ghosts—men like me, who live in the shadows—much like the Brotherhood they buy from.
I’ll be lucky if I manage to track down half of them, and that knowledge hurts me as much as it did eighteen years ago when I first discovered their sick little trade.
That was also when I discovered I had an older sister, Olivia—another woman I couldn’t save.
She died in my arms believing I was one of the men responsible for her misery.
Even after eighteen years, the rage at how badly I failed her would swallow me whole if I let it, so I push it all down, storing it away for when I can put it to better use.
Pierre’s familiar footsteps draw closer as he descends the spiral staircase to my haven. Or my lair, as he describes it, particularly when he’s berating me for spending too much time down here, which I sense he’s about to
do again.
I don’t ask if she’s okay, even though the question is the first thing that pops into my head. Of course she’s not. She was
just bought and sold, from one monster to another.
“What are you doing down here? Shouldn’t you be seeing to your guest?” His voice drips with the sarcasm I’m accustomed to.
“Is she settled?” I ask instead, keeping my eyes on the screen in front of me while I load up a computer program that will
trace the payment of ten million I recently made. Ten million is pocket change to the Brotherhood. Auctions aren’t a moneymaking
business for them, more like a loss leader. And while I hate that I gave their cause a single cent, I would have given it
all for her. The truth is, I would sacrifice every soul on this earth to save Imogen’s, and I would do it in a heartbeat.
And if that makes me a monster, then that’s what I am.
“I made her some sandwiches. Showed her to her room.” He flops down onto the seat next to me.
“And what’s she doing now?”
“I have no idea, sir.” I hate when he calls me that, but pointing it out is futile. “I hope I’m not expected to babysit her
while she’s here. I have more important things to be doing.”
He’s such a liar. “Things like?”
He huffs indignantly rather than answering my question, before spinning idly in his chair. “Why did you lie to her?”
I’m lying to her about a lot of things, so he’s going to have to be a little more specific than that. “About what?”
“You said you were the only person who could access the exterior doors.”
“I thought it would be easier for you if she didn’t know the doors can also be opened with your thumbprint.”
He snorts. “You’re worried a one-hundred-pound girl could knock me out and carry me to the door to secure her escape?”
Actually, I’d say she’s more like one-thirty than one hundred, but I don’t tell him that because then I might reveal to my
old friend that I’ve spent far too much of the past twenty-four hours looking at her body and wondering how it would feel
in my hands. I don’t even want to admit that to myself. “How do you know how much she weighs? She could be bigger than both
of us, for all you know.”
He snorts again. “From the sound of her footsteps. From the way she moved. She is slight, non? Or she is used to having to make herself appear small. Per’aps both.”
I concentrate on the screen, not wanting to think about Imogen making herself small for anyone, nor how much she weighs, because
that makes me think of the curve of her hips and her long lean legs. And thinking like that is more than fucking wrong.
Pierre mutters something unintelligible in French, and disapproval is practically seeping from his pores.
“What else was I supposed to do, Pierre?”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to, sir.”
“I can hear you cursing me in your head. You think I made a mistake bringing her here, don’t you?”
“And you do not, non?”
Yes, I absolutely fucking do. And not only for the reasons he’s thinking about, but also because I haven’t seen her for eighteen years and I did not expect her to look the way she did.
She was a child when I knew her and now .
. . now she’s very much a woman. A beautiful one too.
Although it wasn’t her beauty that made my body light up with desire when she walked out onto that stage.
It was her defiance. Her strength. She looked out into that room full of goddamn fucking animals and dared them to come for her.
“What other choice did I have? Let one of those sick fucks buy her. I made a promise to protect her.”
He huffs. “You can protect her without bringing her here. You could have sent her to one of the safe houses. Anywhere but
here.”
“But she’s not like the others, Pierre. How would we know she was truly safe? They’ve kept her hidden from me and the rest
of the world for all these years. You think they wouldn’t find out and come for her again? How would I protect her then, Pierre?”
He shakes his head and jumps up from his chair, pacing the room. “You are letting your guilt cloud your decision-making, mon ami.”
“I made him a promise,” I snap. But it’s overwhelming guilt rather than anger that has my temper so close to fraying.
With a heavy sigh he stops pacing before placing his hand on my shoulder and giving me a reassuring squeeze. “You can’t keep
living in the past, Lincoln, because one day soon it’s going to swallow you whole. And if you think that girl upstairs is
going to offer you any kind of redemption, I’m afraid you’re setting yourself up for a very big fall.”
I hate that he knows me too well.
He drops his hand and walks out of the room, leaving me to glare at his retreating back.
Redemption? The monster the Brotherhood made me is far beyond any kind of redemption.
It doesn’t matter that I believed Imogen was dead for eighteen years, because I should have known.
I should have looked harder for the truth instead of believing their lies, no matter how convincing they were.
God knows who that poor child was who perished in her stead, but it wasn’t Imogen.
Because of my carelessness I left her at the mercy of the Brotherhood, and I broke a promise to the only people who ever gave a fuck about me.
My only real family, at least the only one I ever actually knew.
Because I never knew about my biological family.
Not until the Brotherhood had already tracked my sister down and sold her like a piece of meat.
Olivia was broken beyond repair by the time I found her. She didn’t know who I was when I came for her, saw only that I was
one of them. I’ll never forget the fear in her eyes when I held her in my arms. I told her she was safe, praying that she’d believe me.
Hoping that at least she would die knowing that somebody cared about her. I don’t know if she did and that memory haunts me
still.
I left the Brotherhood the next day, swearing I would take every single one of them down. Eighteen years later and I’m still
trying.