Lahat ng Kabanata ng FORBIDDEN AFFAIR WITH THE BIKER I CAN'T HAVE : Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 140

KNOX’S POVThe party before the auction was exactly what I’d expected…wealthy people in expensive clothes and masks, drinking expensive alcohol, making small talk about investments and real estate and other mundane topics that had nothing to do with why we were really here.I stood near the bar, nursing a whiskey I had no intention of finishing, and tried to blend in.“First time?” a man beside me asked. American accent, confident bearing. His mask was black with silver trim.“Yes,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “A friend recommended that I attend.”“You’ll find it… educational.” The man smiled in a way that made my skin crawl. “The quality has improved significantly over the years. More sophisticated screening. Better training methods.”He was talking about human beings like they were wine.I forced myself to smile back. “Looking forward to it.”The man moved on to talk to someone else, and I turned away, scanning the room.That’s when I saw her.The woman in the green dress is

ELARA’S POVWe sat in Mei’s room, the five of us crowded together in the darkness, and for the first time since I’d arrived at this compound, I felt like I was looking at allies instead of competition.“Before we go any further,” I said quietly, “I need to know everyone is committed to this. If anyone disagrees, if anyone thinks we should just accept our situation and hope for the best, speak now.”I looked at each of them in turn.Caroline, who’d been here four years and had built her entire identity around being Dmitri’s favorite.Sophie, who still had scars from her early attempts at resistance.Lily, who barely spoke and seemed half-broken already.Mei, who’d helped plan the last escape attempt that had ended with her friend dead.“If we do this,” I continued, “we all have to be in. No one can back out halfway through. No one can tell Dmitri. Because if even one person breaks, we’re all dead.”The weight of those words hung in the air.“I’m in,” Sophie said immediately. “I’d rathe

ELARA’S POVI was in my room trying to sleep when I heard a knock on my door. Except it wasn’t the kind Maria did, it was heavy and scary. It was Dmitri’s knock. It was usually heavy and commanding.My heart rate spiked, but I forced my face into calm compliance as I opened the door.“Good evening,” I said, keeping my voice soft.Dmitri stood in the hallway, perfectly dressed as always, a cigar in one hand. His eyes traveled over me with that predatory assessment I’d learned to hate.“Come with me,” he said. “I want to spend time with my dark angel.”The words made my skin crawl, but I smiled. “Of course.”I followed him down the hallway to his private suite…a room I’d only been in a handful of times, always for “rewards” that felt like punishments.He closed and locked the door behind us.The room was elegant in that cold way everything about Dmitri was. It had expensive furniture. And everything was filled with dark colors. “Sit,” he said, gesturing to the bed.I sat on the edge,

ELARA’S POV“Yes.” I tightened my grip on her arm. “Yes. Fire. We have to go. Right now. Can you stand?”A pause that felt like years.“Should I…” She stopped. Seemed to search for the rest of the sentence from somewhere very far away. “Move?”“Yes,” I said, crying now, and I hadn’t even noticed when I’d started. “Yes. Please. Please move.”Something completed behind her eyes.She stood. Her legs nearly gave out immediately. Mine weren’t much better. We went down to our knees together and stayed there, both of us below the worst of the smoke, and I hooked her arm over my shoulders and mine around her waist and we moved.Not running. We couldn’t run.We crawled and shuffled and half-dragged each other back through her doorway into the hall, which was worse than when I’d left it. The ceiling above us was actively burning now, sections dropping in slow, glowing pieces.“Stay low,” I gasped against her ear. “Don’t lift your head.”She didn’t answer. But she kept moving. Inch by inch, he

ELARA’S POVThe guard’s hand found my arm.I walked out.The lights on the platform were brighter than they’d seemed from behind the curtain. The faces below were partially obscured by the downward angle of the stage lighting and the masks they wore. I could see shapes. The gleam of eyes. The glint of glasses.All of them looking at me.I fixed my gaze on a point at the back wall. A seam where two panels of dark wood met. I found it and I held it and I breathed.The auctioneer’s voice came from my right. He described me in the same terms he’d described all the others, the same cheerful professionalism, the same careful language.The bidding started at ninety thousand.It moved fast. Faster than the others before me. I could hear it in the rhythm of the auctioneer’s voice…the slight elevation of energy that meant something was happening worth watching.One hundred. One ten. One twenty.The woman along the wall moved twice. Two nods from the front row.One fifty. One seventy. One eigh