Eve waves me off. “Honey, let the girl have a little fun. You’ll be right across the hall if shit starts to go south.”
I turn to look at her, confused why she seems to know more than she should.
“Jim briefed us all this morning about the stalker situation,” Cat offers. “He explained that she’s a cam girl who’s dealing with a stalker, but she’s also exploring becoming a Sinner.”
“And you think all of this is just okay?” I ask.
“No, I agree with you about tonight’s auction being dangerous,” Kindra says, always the voice of reason. She looks at Quinn and takes her hand. “If you’re at all nervous, we’ll all pitch in and make the high bid. Then you can just hang out with us all night.”
Quinn squeezes her hand. “I appreciate that, but this is my purpose, isn’t it? To bait him into the open?” She turns to me, and her eyes have never been greener. “I want to do this, even if it’s risky. You think that’s him, don’t you?”
I nod. “Aye. I do, lass.”
She takes a deep breath and sets her jaw. “Then I say we catch him. No matter what, we have to let him win the bid.”
Once again, I had no idea this was the plan. Hell, I don’t even know ifJimknows this is the plan. Knowing Quinn, she came up with this harebrained scheme in the moment, and I hate that it’s so fucking brilliant. No matter how much it terrifies me—or enrages me—I have to let Nathaniel/Desmond get the winning bid tonight. It all but guarantees he’ll take his shot and try to spirit her away, which gives me the right to take his sorry life.
All I need is a reason, and he’ll give me that tonight.
Chapter Seventeen
Quinn
Itook dinner in my room with Aven, Jim, King, and Frankie. Part of the reason was so that we could ensure no one slipped anything dangerous into my dinner, but the other part was so that we could discuss my plan and the myriad risks associated with it. Surprisingly, no one bitched at me for coming up with something on my own. Not even Aven.
But now, I’m alone. As I prepare to auction myself to the man who wants to kill me, there is no one here to save me. Sure, Aven is directly across the hall, but he won’t have time to rush into the room and prevent my demise if the winner pulls out a knife and decides to field dress me on the bed. Knowing this, Frankie took a moment to teach me a few self-defense moves. She even gave me a knife that belonged to Kindra. I test its heft in my hand before I tuck it under the mattress.
“Are you ready to do this?” Aven says through the speakers, and his voice comforts me. He’s here, even if he’s not.
“Almost,” I say. “I need to change into something a little more alluring if I want to get any bids.”
“You’d get bids if you wore a shower curtain,” he mutters, and I smile.
With shaking hands, I pull a see-through babydoll teddy from my bag and slip it over my body. The emerald fabric makes my eyes pop.
“Ach, don’t wear my favorite color, lass,” he whispers, and I realize he doesn’t know his mic is still hot. “This is bloody torture.”
I smirk to myself and glance at the clock. It’s a quarter till six, meaning I still have fifteen minutes to fuck with him. Pretending I’m oblivious to his grunts and groans, I keep going.
“Should I go with these?” I ask myself as I raise a pair of six-inch black heels. “Hmm...maybe a kitten heel would be better?” I pluck a shoe with a shorter heel from the small assortment I brought.
“Yes, anything but those stilettos,” he mumbles overhead.
I bite my cheek to stave off the smile as I lift the shoes with the break-neck heels. “Yeah, definitely these.”
He lets out a groan. “You’re killing me.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and fasten the straps around my ankles, all while he laments about how miserable I make him. For the following ten minutes, I practice poses and all of those glorious little sounds that drive men crazy. It’s no different from an actress rehearsing her lines before a take, and my lucky audience member certainly appears to enjoy bearing witness to last looks.
It's all fun and games until I glance at the clock and realize we’re about to go live. Sweat collects on my palms and forehead. Shows don’t usually make me this nervous, but I’ve never put myself up for auction before. What if Desmond actually bids and wins?
Or worse . . . what if no one bids at all?
I think I’d rather be murdered and remembered fondly than be alive to realize that I won’t be remembered at all. That I’m unwanted. That the entire reason I’m a cam girl is because I crave the feeling of being loved that was taken from me when my mother abandoned me at an amusement park almost twenty years ago.
Jesus Christ, I am seriously overpaying my therapist.
“Your mother didn’t abandon you,” I whisper to myself. “Something happened that night.”
