Page 6 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
Stefano doesn’t even waste a look at him before countering. “Five hundred.”
There's a murmur of gasps through the crowd immediately. Then utter, complete silence.
Even the crying woman beside me goes quiet.
“Five hundred thousand,” the auctioneer repeats, sounding almost in awe of the sum. “Do I hear five-fifty?”
This time, no one answers.
Five hundred thousand dollars.For me. For a cover identity built in a federal file room, fed slowly into criminal channels until it became believable enough to put me here. For a woman who does not exist. For a lie. For a carefully orchestrated trap.
Stefano’s gaze stays on my face. There is no heat in it, no obvious lust, no drunken greed, no smug enjoyment at having humiliated the other men. Just curiosity. Total, unnerving, and impossible-to-dismiss curiosity.
The man seated beside him leans in.
Close-cropped hair. Hard jaw. Capo, probably. Bodyguard if people are feeling polite. He murmurs something too low for me to hear.
Stefano listens.
Then that smirk returns, and I feel it like ghost fingers caressing the back of my neck, causing the small hairs there to stand on end.
The auctioneer lifts the gavel.
“Five hundred thousand. Going once.”
My wrist twists.
The plastic strains.
“Going twice.”
A crack sounds somewhere behind the main doors. Not clear enough for the room to understand. But enough for me. My heartbeat steadies.
There you are, Raven.
“Sold.”
The gavel comes down at the same moment, and the doors explode open. And for one suspended second, nobody moves.
Then the room becomes chaos.
Men shout. Glass breaks. Someone screams. Armed agents pour through the entrance in black tactical gear, shouting commands that ricochet off marble and velvet and panic. The guard nearest the bar reaches for his gun and drops before his hand clears his jacket. The auctioneer turns, pale and stumbling, and the woman beside me finally starts crying out loud.
My turn.The zip tie snaps against the metal edge in my sleeve on the third pull, biting deep into my wrist as it gives. Pain flashes hot and bright up my arm. I use it. Pain is grounding. Pain is honest. Pain tells the body exactly where it is.
I grab the crying woman first.
“Down,” I command.
She stares at me, uncomprehending. I push her flat as a bullet tears into the stage backdrop where her head had been. That makes her understand. The smiling woman on the other side of me moves before I reach for her, crawling behind the auction podium with the dead-eyed efficiency of someone who has survived worse than tonight.
Good. Smart. Stay alive.
I rip the remaining plastic from my wrist and slide off the stage while the room fractures around me. An agent shouts something. Not at me. Good. My cover is still in play for another thirty seconds. Maybe less.
I don’t have to waste another thirty seconds, though; the children aren’t in this room.
They were never going to be in this room. Leon wouldn’t risk displaying his own children in front of men who might know their faces, or worse, learn them. Not if he was moving them out of town tonight. He would keep them somewhere close enough to move, but far enough from the main floor to deny knowledge of their presence if anything went wrong.
