Page 5 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
And yet there he is. My pulse changes as his mouth curves upward slightly. And I’m forced to realize how irritatingly handsome he is. The pictures in his file really didn’t do him justice. It is the smallest of acknowledgments, and I hate that my body notices. He is shockingly handsome in the way dangerous things are beautiful: from a distance. A blade under museum glass. A hurricane observed from behind reinforced windows. A predator too well-fed to run but not too well-fed to hunt.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer says, “shall we begin?”
The room settles instantly, glasses lowered. Chairs shift as bodies are turned to face the auctioneer. I try my wrist again, but the zip ties refuse to budge.
The woman beside me gives one soft, broken sound as we watch the first woman sell for fifty thousand.
She doesn’t fight when they pull her upright. She barely seems to feel the hands on her. Her buyer is an older man with a pink face and a wedding band he doesn’t bother hiding. I memorize his face and everything I can note about him because there are things I cannot do tonight that I may still be able to do later.
The second woman sells for eighty thousand.
The one who was smiling. Her expression doesn’t change when the gavel comes down, and somehow that makes the room feel colder than before.
My wrist keeps moving, the abrasion of my skin against the plastic burning as the auctioneer turns toward me.
“And now,” he says, drawing the words out with reverence that makes bile rise in my throat, “our final item of the evening.”
Item. Not woman. Not person. Item.
I let my shoulders tremble slightly. And inside me, something goes very quiet as all the eyes in the room turn to me.
People like this count on the world staying quiet. They count on fear. Money. Shame. Jurisdiction. Complicity. They count on women disappearing cleanly because men with power are verygood at convincing themselves that no one will bother looking too closely at the things they steal.
The first bid comes from the front.
“Twenty-five.”
“Thirty.”
“Forty.”
The numbers climb, and my mind separates itself from the sound of them because if I let the meaning in, if I allow myself to understand that these people are attaching numbers to my body while I kneel beneath their lights, I will stop being useful. I struggle to focus on what matters, the task at hand. The reason I am truly here tonight. The one person I need to find, and how I’m going to complete my mission.
I force my mind back to evaluating the situation. The room, and the people in it. Four guards by the walls now. One moved closer after the second sale. The auctioneer has a sidearm under his jacket, left side. The man who brought me in has stepped down from the stage and is speaking to someone near the service door. The zip tie is weakening but not enough.
“Seventy-five.”
“One hundred.”
A murmur moves through the room. I keep my head bowed but continue scanning with my eyes.
“One hundred and fifty.”
That one is close. I glance in the direction of the oily voice. Front table. Blue suit. He sounds pleased with himself even before he has won anything.
Then the room stills, except for a small motion in my peripheral vision.
“Two hundred.”
The voice comes from the back corner. Low. Unhurried. My eyes lift before I can stop them.
Stefano Savarese simply speaks, and the room rearranges itself around the fact that he has decided to participate.
I catch the auctioneer’s pleasant expression flicker. Only once. Then, clearing his throat, he returns to his chanting. “Two hundred thousand from Mr. Savarese. I have two hundred. Do I hear two-ten?”
Mr. Savarese,as if everyone in this room doesn’t already know exactly who, or what he is.
A man near the front laughs, a brittle, annoyed sound. “Two-twenty-five.”
