My chest was tight. I couldn't breathe properly. My hands were shaking and I couldn't make them stop.
This was insane. I didn't know her. Didn't know anything about her except what was on the screen and what I could observe from three rows back. She could be manipulative, dangerous, completely wrong for me.
Except every instinct I had—the analytical ones and the ones I didn't have names for—was screaming the same thing.
She needed someone. She needed me.
And I needed her. It made no sense, but it didn't matter.
"Kolya." Kostya's voice was quiet, concerned. "What's wrong?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't look away from the stage. From her.
Sophie's eyes swept the crowd again. Found mine for just a moment. Grey-green and terrified and furious. Trapped.
Something in my chest cracked open. Something I'd kept locked down for twenty-eight years because vulnerability was dangerous and caring meant losing control.
I didn't care about control anymore.
I cared about her.
The auctioneer continued his pitch, explaining her skills, her training, her photographic memory. Making her sound like a prize acquisition instead of a human being who was counting to four over and over again to keep from falling apart.
"Bidding starts at fifty thousand dollars," he said.
I should stay out of this. Had no strategic reason to acquire a debt bondage contract. No reason to buy a woman I didn't know. No reason to derail whatever plan Mikhail had orchestrated by staying tonight.
But when the first bid came—seventy-five thousand from a Morozov associate—my hand started to rise.
Kostya grabbed my wrist. "Don't," he said quietly.
"Let go."
"Kolya, you don't need—"
"Let. Go."
He released my wrist but his eyes were burning into the side of my face. Demanding an explanation I couldn't give.
Because I didn't understand it myself. Didn't understand why this woman on this stage at this moment felt like the most important thing in my entire life.
I just knew she was.
The bidding climbed. One hundred thousand. One-fifty. Two hundred. Three hundred.
I should let it go. Should let someone else buy her, deal with the debt, handle the complication.
But then Anton Belyaev's voice cut through the room like a blade. "Five hundred thousand."
And I understood exactly why Mikhail had told me to stay.
My hand was in the air before my brain authorized the movement. "One million dollars."
The words came out clear. Calm. Like I announced million-dollar purchases every day.
The auction hall went quiet. Not completely—there were still dozens of people breathing, shifting, existing—but quiet enough that I heard Kostya's sharp inhale beside me.
Heads turned. All five families, their soldiers, the auction staff, everyone trying to identify who'd just doubled Anton Belyaev's bid.
