Chapter Four #3
My cock was hard. That was nothing new. The cold, possessive certainty settling deeper into my chest was newer.
A man stopped beside me.
I did not turn immediately. I knew the shape of him from the surveillance stills and the nights I had watched him collect money from her at the staff door. Dario Rizzo. Thick through the shoulders. Gold chain. The sour edge of cheap cologne and whatever he had been smoking.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” he said. His voice was low, conversational, the tone of a man who thought he was opening a negotiation between equals. “Best one they’ve got on the secondary stage right now.”
I looked at him then. Slow. Measured. Let him see nothing useful in my face. “She is.”
Dario’s eyes flicked over my clothes, my watch, the way I stood. Calculating. Greedy. He had no idea who I was. That was useful.
“You been watching her a while,” he said. “I’ve noticed. Most men look for a few minutes and move on. You don’t.”
He shifted his weight, lowering his voice further. “If you’re interested in more than the view, we can talk numbers. Private arrangement. Overnight. Weekend. Longer if the price is right.”
“How much?” I asked.
He named a figure that was insultingly low for what she was and offensively high for what he thought I was. I let the silence stretch just long enough to make him uncertain.
“You underestimate her,” I said.
Dario’s eyebrows rose. The greed in his face sharpened, but something else moved underneath it. Possessive. Uncomfortable.
“Underestimate’s a big word,” he said. “She’s not a standard product. Still untouched where it counts. I’ve been careful with her. Kept her off the private rooms. Kept the worst of the hands off her. That kind of quality costs.”
“What makes you think I can’t afford it?”
He studied me for a moment longer, then gave a short, ugly little smile.
“Yeah. Well. Here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about keeping her for myself.
Properly. I have something she wants. Makes her real obedient.
I’ve got plans for that mouth and that tight little virgin cunt that don’t involve sharing.
A man gets used to the idea of owning something like that full-time, you know. ”
Disgust slid through me, cold and clean. The image of his hands on her, of his voice calling her name, of the way she had looked last night after whatever he had said to her in the car, settled behind my eyes.
“You’re leaving money on the table,” I said.
My voice stayed mild. “There’s an auction here in three weeks.
Private. High-end. The kind of men who pay permanent prices for permanent ownership.
A documented virgin with her look and her fear would go for more than you will ever see from a few private nights. ”
Dario’s expression tightened.
“I know about the auction. I considered putting her in it.” He shook his head once. “Changed my mind. Some things a man doesn’t sell. Not when he’s decided he wants to be the one breaking them in.”
I turned fully toward him then. The shift was small. It was enough. Whatever he saw in my face made the color pull slightly from under his skin.
“You will put her in the auction,” I said.
Dario tried to hold the stare and failed. His throat moved. “Or what?”
I stepped closer. Not enough to draw attention from the floor. Enough that he had to tip his chin up to keep my eyes. “Or I erase you. But understand this, if you try to run first, I will still find you. And I will make what I do to the Vernizzi brothers look merciful.”
Dario’s breathing had gone shallow. The bravado drained out of his face in stages, leaving something pale and cornered underneath. He was a man who hurt people who could not hurt him back. He had never stood this close to someone who could destroy him without raising his voice.
“You don’t know who you’re talking to,” he tried. The words came out thin.
“I know exactly who I’m talking to.” I held his eyes. “A man who loves the dollar sign and himself more than anything else. So put the girl in the auction. Take the money. Walk away. That is the only version of this week in which you keep breathing.”
Silence stretched between us. On the far side of the room someone laughed. Glassware clinked. The bass from the speakers rolled under the floor.
Dario looked away first.
His jaw worked. For a moment I thought he might actually try something stupid. Then the greed won, the way it always did with men like him.
“Three weeks,” he said, voice tight. “But if the number doesn’t justify it…”
“It will.”
He swallowed. Nodded once. The movement was jerky, already calculating how much he could still squeeze before he handed her over.
“Three weeks,” I said. “She stays untouched until then. No private arrangements. No new bruises. No changes of mind. If I hear otherwise, the conversation we just had will look like a courtesy.”
He did not answer. He simply turned and walked away toward the staff hallway, shoulders tight, the back of his neck flushed with the particular humiliation of a man who had just been told what he would do and found he lacked the spine to refuse.