“Do we understand each other?” I ask sharply, and his gaze returns to me.
“It’s a complicated process,” he falters, “but I’ll give it my complete attention when I return to Washington next week.”
“Excellent,” I smile benignly. “I’d hate to have to give Carlotta a call with my concerns. She’s planning your daughter’s wedding right now. She must be so busy.”
The mention of his wife makes Martin hastily drain his glass and signal for another. “Blackmail?” he says, no doubt thinking he’s the injured party here. “I thought that was beneath you.”
Maybe it would just be easier to expose him… find another senator on the committee…
The image of his puffy, anxious face on TV next to the title “Human Trafficking” gives me just enough happiness to keep my gun in my shoulder holster. Over his head, I see my Second, Callum raise a brow hopefully, his hand drifting toward his gun. I give a slight shake of my head.
The lights suddenly dim and a spotlight focuses on the stage. There’s a smirking emcee and a raised dais. Bloody hell, they’re starting the auction.
Chapter Three
In which we discover just how expensive revenge can be.
Alastair…
The foul truth of the club surges up as the first group of cages are pushed from the cold room on the left and out onto the stage. The cages are hanging from meat hooks - fifteen in all - dangling over the men in the audience like macabre Christmas ornaments. Each one holds a girl, most sobbing, a couple of them staring blankly, rocking back and forth.
The bastards are quite literally selling them as cuts of meat.
“Welcome, gentlemen!”
The auctioneer’s a sharp-faced, dark-haired man who looks like a jackal, licking his lips and strutting across the stage. “We have an especially beautiful crop of girls tonight. I guarantee you will not leave… unsatisfied.” The men roar their approval, clinking glasses together and sending up choking clouds of cigar smoke.
Standing, I button my suit jacket. The good senator’s useless for the rest of the night, the scant blood flow to his brain is all heading south and I don’t want to be here to witness it. One of the cages is lowered to the stage with a thump and two men, wearing bloodstained meatpacking aprons, pull out the girl clinging to the bars. They’re not gentle.
The auctioneer starts his greasy monologue, and I’m heading for the exit, backed by Callum when one of the cages close to the bar shakes.
“Let me out of here, you fecking sons of bitches and I’ll convince my brothers not to torture you to death!” The girl’s slamming her fists against the bars and I admire her spirit. She has no idea how bad things are about to get.
Still, it’s not my problem.
She throws her tangled hair over her shoulder and I stop. It’s red. You can’t take three steps in Scotland or Ireland and not run into a redhead, but this color is special. Memorable. Her hair is a particular shade, a peculiar one, so dark a red that there are burgundy and purple highlights. It’s long and thick, flowing halfway down her back.
Ah. A MacTavish.
It’s Sorcha MacTavish, in fact, the subject of much speculation. Word is that she’s never left the family estate after her brother Cormac rescued her and her young cousins from a human trafficking Triad several years ago. Despite myself, I feel a surge of sympathy for this girl, rescued from one group of utter pigs, only to be captured by another.
She’s still shouting and kicking at the cage as the other girls are lowered to the stage, sold off one by one. Each girl is thrown back into her cage after the top bid is accepted, and the expressionless meat workers push the cage through the cold door into the other meat freezer on the right.
This is going to go very badly for little Sorcha. Half the men in this room hate the MacTavish Mafia for one reason or another. I have my own reasons to wish a fiery death on the whole entitled, useless lot of them. But she’s so young…
As the pulleys attached to her cage begin to move, drawing her closer to the stage, our eyes meet for a moment. Her’s are wide and terrified, an odd light gray, silvery like a seagull’s wing. Then the cage is yanked forward on the tracks moving the hooks and she’s thrown to her knees as they lower her to the stage.
“Ah, we have saved the best for last, my friends!” The oily, ingratiating tone of the auctioneer makes my teeth grind together. Word obviously spread about tonight’s auction because every seat is taken, an ugly, restless energy filling the huge room like poison gas.
“I suspect many of you fine gentlemen know who this is,” the emcee croons. “Sorcha MacTavish.”
A roar goes up, the grunting and hoarse shouts sounding inhuman. Despite the response, Sorcha stands as straight as she can in lingerie that barely covers her breasts and arse. Even from here, I can see the dusky shade of her nipples under the thin cloth. Her jaw is set and she’s glaring at the crowd as if her gaze alone could kill them.
Her father, Cormac MacTavish Senior is a treacherous, pathetic piece of shite and his sons are no better. There are dozens of men here who’d buy her to just rape and torture her and dump her remains outside the MacTavish gates. The other half would buy her because the girl is exquisite; with round, perfect breasts and arse, and creamy skin that sets off her blazing hair and those pale, gull-wing eyes.
“The House has requested an opening bid of ten million pounds,” the auctioneer coos. “What do I hear?”
Twenty paddles go up, and despite my firm intention to leave, I lean against the mahogany bar. The numbers keep ratcheting higher as the girl realizes what is about to happen to her,squinting, trying to see past the lights to the animals who are bidding on her.
