Chapter 3

Quinn

The room Caroline took me to was a lot cleaner than the one we left behind.

Other, half-naked women, were already here, bustling around, getting ready for the auction. They were all quiet, and they all had the same dead look of defeat in their eyes.

Caroline showed me to an unoccupied chair and ordered me to leave my ratty old backpack on it before she took me to the bathroom. At least it was clean and it smelled good, unlike the showers at the shelter that always smelled of cheap soap and mildew.

She handed me a toiletry bag, a single pair of black panties, a towel and a new razor. “Shave yourself,” she said. “Everything, including your cunt.”

The kind, soft-spoken young woman from the coffee shop was gone, replaced by a harsh, vulgar one. Her eyes were cold and cruel. This was almost better – at least I knew and understood this Caroline.

I could kick myself for trusting her. I should have known that she didn’t give a shit about me, but I wanted to believe her, and I fooled myself into thinking she cared.

Once I set foot inside Club Ninety-Nine, it was game over for me. They wouldn’t let me leave here with their secret. The only way out was if a man bought me or in a body bag.

I stood under the lukewarm spray of the shower, scrubbing myself with the flannel I found in the toiletry bag, trying to wash Gary’s slime off my skin. I scrubbed and scrubbed until my skin was red and raw, but I still felt dirty and gross.

“What the fuck is taking you so long?” Caroline called out. “Move your fucking ass, we only have an hour to get you ready.”

I quickly shut off the water and folded the threadbare towel around myself. My foot ached and throbbed like a living, breathing beast, but I had become very good at ignoring it. I limped over to the basin against the wall and took out the toothbrush and paste. At least it was all new.

I cleaned my teeth, dried myself, brushed my hair and at long last put on the pair of lacy panties, wrapping the towel around myself before I left the bathroom.

Caroline unceremoniously yanked the towel off and threw it over her shoulder. She regarded me with a critical eye, her gaze landing on my mangled foot. “We need to hide that,” she said. “No one’s gonna want to buy a gimp.”

I was tempted to cover my nudity again, but much like at the shelter, no one paid the slightest bit of attention to me. Every woman here was dealing with her own demons and didn’t have time for my foolishness and sense of misplaced modesty.

Caroline disappeared into a small, dark room and came back out with a garter belt and pair of stockings. “Put that on.”

I did as she commanded and looked down at my foot. The nylons did hide most of the scars, but they were still visible if I looked close enough.

“That’ll do,” she said. “No one’s going to look at your feet anyway. Don’t limp.”

The last two things she handed me was a black cloak with red lining that had a single button around the neck to hold it in place, and a pair of impossibly high black heels. I decided not to put the shoes on until the last minute, which came much sooner than I thought it would.

The main floor was still quiet, but workers were bustling around, setting up tables. The place was beautiful, with warm wooden tables, discreet erotic art against the wall, dim lighting and soft, clean carpets.

Caroline handed me off to another woman and disappeared. The new woman didn’t bother to introduce herself. She took me straight to a platform smack in the middle of the room. A large, hot spotlight shone from above, and a golden sign with black lettering read, ‘Do not touch.’

Exactly like a painting on auction.

The gilded double doors flew open and men filed into the room, filling the echoing silence with animated discussion and laughter.

Men broke off into little groups, ordering drinks and food before sitting down at the prepared tables with the flickering lanterns.

A few crowded around my platform, and without giving it much thought, I wrapped the cloak around myself. “Aw, look, she’s shy,” a man commented. “Show us your tits love.”

My whole body erupted with fire and shame. My dignity, what little was left of it, had been robbed in the span of a few hours, and it wasn’t over yet.

The one who asked to see my tits reached out to part my cloak, but the same guard that told Gary to stop molesting me, materialised out of thin air and smacked the man’s hands away. “No touching the merchandise!” he snapped.

Merchandise. That was all I was now.

I had no idea how long I stood there, subject to the men’s lascivious gazes and unsavoury comments. My legs were numb and both my feet ached from standing in the heels for hours on end, but every time I looked like I was about to wobble, someone would come up behind me and remind me to stand up straight.

I couldn’t even cry anymore. All I felt was shame and pain, blending together inside me like a toxic goo until it consumed me.

At some point, the auction started, and the men moved away, leaving me by myself for the time being.

I tried to remember the last time I had been happy, before I left home and came to this hellhole of a city. Maybe when my baby brothers were born. My mother didn’t care for them, and right from the start, I was more of a mother to them than she ever wanted to be, but it ended when they were six and I ran away from home.

I wondered if they were okay, or if my mother turned her rage on them after I left. I hoped that my father protected them against her, or better yet, took the boys and left her altogether.

My childhood wasn’t the best, but I made a mistake when I ran away.

I had been accepted into one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the country, I had a shining bright future, but my mother had other plans for me. She wanted to see me married to Nathanial Hawthorne. A fifty-five year old sworn bachelor who suddenly decided he needed a wife and an heir.

Looking back now, being a glorified breeder for a millionaire playboy who forgot he grew up wasn’t such a bad prospect.

All too soon, the auction moved on to me. My mouth dried up and I tried to blink away tears before they fell. Gary brought the microphone to his mouth. “Our last flower for the evening. I can confirm this one is a virgin.”

The men crowded around my platform. “Fifty thousand,” one of them started off the bidding right away.

“One hundred.”

“One-fifty.”

“Two hundred.”

Numb, I listened as the numbers went up. I’d get fifty percent of whatever I sold for, and the other half went to the club.

“Seven hundred.”

“Eight.”

No more bids came in. I tried to find the last bidder in the sea of faces, but they all looked the same to me. Horny, bored, old, rich men looking for anything that could get their blood pumping for a few minutes.

Gary stepped up onto the platform with me, and with one deft movement ripped the button off my cloak. It fell to the floor, pooling around my feet in a mass of red and black fabric. My arms moved on their own to cover my naked breasts, but Gary impatiently slapped my hands away.

The sharp stings hitting my skin only reminded me of my humiliation. “Come now, gentleman,” he said. “Come up and take a good look. She’s worth far more than that.”

“One million,” a gravelly voice called out, and this time I did see who placed the bid.

An older man, maybe in his fifties, with salt and pepper hair and a dyed, solid black goatee. When he grinned at me, the gold in his teeth flashed brightly.

“Come up, feel her,” Gary invited and slapped my ass, then grabbed a handful of flesh and jiggled my butt. “Step right up and feel how tight her little pussy is.”

He moved his hand to the front, going straight for my privates again. I gulped and tried to cross my legs. The men only chuckled, amused by my discomfort, their hungry eyes gleaming at me.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

I dropped my gaze and stared at my feet while I waited for the men to come along and start sampling the goods. I was so tired, so humiliated, that I didn't even care anymore.

“Stop,” a cold, deep voice commanded.

Confused, I looked up, trying to find the man who spoke.

“Five million,” he made his bid.

I scanned the crowd, my eyes hopping from face to face. Who the hell just made a five million dollar bid for me? Even a million seemed like way too much.

A tall, imposing figure confidently strolled through the crowd. The other bidders automatically parted, clearing a path for him.

My heart went off like a jackhammer and I started to sway in place. I didn’t know what was worse, the old guy, Gary, or the man directly in front of me.

I knew him. I’d seen him before. Troy Bailey. Probably one of the deadliest, most ruthless crime bosses in the city.

“Five million and you end the bidding right now,” he commanded, his voice still cold and calm.

I stared right into Troy’s golden eyes. He captured me with his gaze, pinning me in place. There was no denying that he was a good-looking man. From the perfect, angular cut of his jaw, to his straight nose, high cheekbones and full, almost pouty lips.

He had a spattering of freckles across the bridge off his nose that gave him an almost boyish appearance, but the illusion was quickly shattered when he opened his mouth to command. “End the bidding. Now.”

I held my breath while I side-eyed Gary. What was he waiting for? Did he think anyone else would bid? No one was that stupid or desperate, and I wasn’t worth that much money. “Anyone else?” Gary asked stubbornly. “She will be worth it. A perfect little doll for you to-”

“You motherfucker,” Troy hissed, interrupting Gary. My insides, already liquid, turned to ice, and butterflies flapped up a hurricane in my stomach. “I will rip your spine out through your asshole,” he warned. “End. It. Now.”

“Sold to bidder forty-two,” Gary said hurriedly and switched off his microphone.

I stared at Troy who calmly returned my gaze. His face was completely passive and unreadable. After a few minutes, he sighed deeply, ran his slender fingers through a mob of thick, dark blonde hair and held out his hand to help me off the platform.

When I put my hand in his, a strange kind of heat crept up my arm and washed over me. For a few, sweet seconds, the world around me droned out of existence, and the other people in the room ceased to exist.

As soon as I moved though, my extremities came back to life, splintering the sweet moment of bliss. Pins and needles shot up through my legs and I stumbled off the platform, heading face first straight for the floor.

Troy caught me and held me upright. My mouth, already so dry I could barely swallow, went even dryer and the overwhelming urge to cry was back. “Okay?” he asked after a few seconds.

I nodded and he pushed me away, wiping his hands on his expensive, perfectly tailored trousers. His mouth was pulled into a sneer of pure disgust. If he couldn’t even stand touching me, why in the hell did he buy me?

He undid the buttons of his tan-coloured jacket and held it out to me. “Cover yourself,” he said brusquely. “It’s bad enough everyone already saw you naked.”

I pulled the massive jacket on and buttoned it up, grateful that my body was no longer on display. Troy glided his eyes over me. “Do you know who I am?”

Shit. What was I supposed to say? Would he do something to me if I admitted that I knew him?

My frozen insides went warm and gooey and my heartbeat jumped up another notch. I nervously pushed my hair behind my ears and nodded.

“Hm,” Troy grunted. “Let’s go.”

Without so much as a by your leave, he folded at the waist, threw me over his massive shoulder like I was nothing more than a sack of potatoes, and carried me out of the club.