“Fuck!” he groaned, stumbling backward with both hands over his bleeding nose.
My eyebrows rose instantly, astonished by what I’d just witnessed.
“Hold her down!” someone ordered from behind the curtains.
Two other men rushed to grab her. One wrapped his arms around her waist from behind while the other hurried toward her front. She lifted her legs in the air, slamming her feet against his feet. The impact was so powerful that the man—almost twice her size—fell off the stage.
Now that’s what I’m talking about.
My interest was piqued, and I relaxed back in my chair, enjoying the snow with a crooked smirk on my lips.
While struggling with the man behind her, his grip around her waist tightened. Seeing she couldn’t get him to let go, she struck him hard in the face with the back of her head.
Before the pain could even register, she snuck her foot behind his leg. And with one tactical sweep, he fell backward like a dry log. She sprang to her feet and tried to flee, but she was restrained by four others, each one throwing punches at her as though she were a worthy opponent.
She still didn’t back down. This strange girl fought back, her moves tactical, throwing blows and kicks with practicedease. She was a lioness, and she stood her ground against those men, proving she wasn’t easy prey.
It took five men to hold her down as if she were a wild animal on a rampage. “Cowards—you’re all cowards!” she snarled, eyes burning with rage. “Shame on you!”
Two men pinned her to the ground, her chest pressed against the floor as they bound her wrists behind her back.
“You won’t get away with this!” she added, her voice dripping with venom and echoing off the walls. “You’ll pay for this—for all your crimes. You’ll all rot in hell!”
The host tapped the microphone and forced a smile as she was pulled onto the stage. His fear of the wild girl was clear in his eyes and the way he shifted away from her.
He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. We, uh…we have a, uh…special addiction tonight. Unlisted. Unexpected. And….” He paused, then swallowed hard. “Well, as you can see…untamed.”
She let out a low growl, restrained by two hefty men.
I leaned back in my chair, fingers stroking my jaw as I watched her in silence. The men around me were already making noises about how violent she was. But it was that particular character that made her different from the others.
I liked that unbroken spirit of hers—that wild fire burning within her. That was exactly what pulled me to her like steel to a magnet.
She glared at the host, then shifted her gaze across the room, seething in silence. She spat at the floor, earning a harsh jerk from one of her captors.
Someone laughed from the left row. “Fiery little filth!”
“She’ll learn!” another echoed from the back. “Or she’ll break!”
The audience laughed.
“We’ll start the bidding at ten thousand!” the host announced, tugging nervously at his collar.
“Fifteen!” a man in the front row barked, raising his paddle.
“Twenty-five!” someone else shot back.
“Forty!”
“Forty-five!”
While they were at it, my attention was fixed on the wild cat on the stage. Her shirt was ripped at the collar, revealing a glimpse of her cleavage. She stood barefoot, her toes bleeding, skin covered in dirt. Her brown curls were yanked into a messy ponytail, her stormy green-gray eyes burning with fury.
Even in the face of danger, the defiance etched in her intense gaze was remarkable. For the first time since I arrived at this auction, something had piqued my curiosity.
The girl was boiling with rage and hate. If she got her hands on a gun, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill every last one of us in this room. That was the kind of spirit that resonated with mine. And although I had no intentions of buying anything tonight, because of her, I’d had a change of heart.
“Seventy-five thousand!” A voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
