I assembled my top security guys to go with me as backup, and wearing my new suit, straight from the final fitting, I headed over to Luigi’s later that night.
It was oddly quiet outside his house. Normally, his parties had cars parked halfway down the hill, lining the streets and annoying the ritzy neighbors. Tonight, however, when I gave the gate guard a look that told him he better let me through, there were only a dozen or so cars. So how was he expecting to make a ton of money tonight and slam the Petrovs at the same time if there were only a handful of people present?
I left one of the guards to keep the guy at the gate from announcing my arrival, and headed up the long driveway. None of the cars were recognizable as belonging to anyone I knew, which didn’t bode well, considering Luigi might have been actively working with my enemies by now.
The guy at the door was accepting tickets of some sort from three men dressed in clothes that made my fourteen-thousand-dollar bespoke suit look like it was off the rack at a cheap department store. I spotted an antique watch that I knew for a fact was one of a kind because I’d tried to win it at auction myself a year before. These men were rich in a way that mostpeople didn’t even know existed, even putting those famous billionaires at the bottom of the prosperity heap.
What the hell was going on?
“Ticket for the auction?” the doorman, decked out in a damn tuxedo with a red bow tie, said.
I cleared my throat, and he looked up, turning pale as he recognized me. “And what are we auctioning off tonight?” I asked. The pleasant tone of my voice didn’t fool him. Poor guy nearly pissed his pants. “Go ahead and tell me. You need to be way more scared of me than anyone in there,” I added when he balked.
Shaking in his shiny shoes, he admitted there was a virgin up for offer. It cost the creeps with the tickets a quarter of a million just to walk in the door. It seemed like Luigi was expecting to get closer to a hundred mil after the winner’s final bid.
“Based on who she is,” the doorman said.
“Who the hell is she?” I demanded.
“I really don’t know, sir,” he said, on the verge of tears. “I really don’t. I’m not allowed in, just supposed to verify tickets.”
It was clear he was telling the truth, scared out of his wits at what I was going to do to him. My blood pounded in my veins like drums of war. This was so much worse than gambling. I may have been a criminal born and bred, but I drew the line at human trafficking. Now I knew what this event was all about; I didn’t just want to knock some heads together, I meant to take Luigi and his crew out of the organization altogether. Completely off the face of the earth if they gave me any trouble about shutting this down.
The inside of his house looked the same as usual until I followed the sound of music to the pool area. A stage had been set up across the water, with about a dozen sickos gathered around, drinking and laughing together. With a dozen men at a quarter mill a pop, Luigi was already ahead by three million dollars, and that was before their VIP virgin even came onstage.
How many of these things had he gotten away with already? The thumping club beat dropped lower, and my degenerate second in command strolled up on stage to polite applause.
“Oh, come on, gentleman. You can do better than that,” he said, the consummate performer.
Maybe I was wrong about the unfinished screenplays, and he’d always wanted to be a movie star. I waved my hand to get his attention, glaring at him when he caught my eye.
He went pale but kept going as if he didn’t see me at all, hurrying up the big speech and cutting short his sales pitch.
“You know what’s up for bid,” he said, tugging at his collar. “Why waste any more time? Let’s get our little beauty out here.”
I was angry enough to fly across the length of the pool to strangle him as the music picked up again and a terrified girl was shoved onto the stage. She stood, huddled over, trying to cover her nearly naked body, her long blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders and hiding her face.
I shoved my way past the men who crowded together as close as they could get to the stage without falling into the pool. One ended up tumbling into the laughter of his competitors, but he just kept treading water and kept shouting bids. Every last one of them had gone completely feral, forgetting that they were oil magnates, stock market wizards, founders of charities forGod’s sake. They shoved back as I fought my way forward to put an end to their fun.
It was only a pity I couldn’t kill all of them, but that was too many billionaires to go missing at once.
Upset that the girl wasn’t putting on a show, Luigi grabbed her hair and dragged her to the middle of the stage. I stopped dead in my tracks when I got a clear view of her face.
Know your enemies. It was an important rule of warfare. I knew every single Petrov, even if I had never met them or come face-to-face. This was one of them. The youngest, if I wasn’t mistaken, recently brought over from Moscow.
Shaking to the point I didn’t know how she was standing, she tried to turn away, but Luigi jerked her back. Her face was ethereal, even slack with terror. Lush lips pressed together as Luigi twisted her pale golden hair around his fist. Every inch of her slender body was on display, and it made my blood boil. Not just with rage. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. The surveillance photos I’d acquired didn’t do her justice.
Yes, it was Lilia Petrov these idiots were trying to sell. Fuck.
So now I not only had to kill some people on my own side, I had to either start some groveling negotiations to get her back to the Petrovs or go fully ballistic on them to avoid being wiped off the map myself. So much for regrouping. So much for my grand plan.
I finally got to the steps leading up to the stage and tossed the man guarding them into the water with a splash that got Lilia’s attention, turned my way. Her eyes met mine, full of fear, so blue I could see their clear color from six feet away. Something snapped in me. Everything went out the windowexcept this beautiful, trembling goddess. I wasn’t negotiating because I wasn’t giving her back.
I was going to buy her for myself.
Chapter 5 - Lilia
I almost lulled myself to sleep in the trunk of the car, trying to pretend I was in my own room, safe under the covers. No one could hurt me.
