Because that innocence is going to spike the numbers. This room isn’t full of romantics. It’s full of men who want to stick theirdicks where they haven’t been before. They want to wreck her innocence, leave their mark.
And if she’s connected to my world, if this becomes a story, then it won’t just be her who pays for it.
It’ll touch the Family.
It’ll touch the business.
I don’t acknowledge the part of me that reacts to her. The visceral, possessive pull that has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with instinct.
Mine.
I want her out of this room.
I want her off that stage.
I want her away from the kind of men who snicker when someone says “spreads her legs” like some idiot teenager.
The host lifts his hand, the room quieting again as if on command.
“Now,” he says, “for our special introduction—let’s start the bidding at five thousand dollars.”
Chapter Three
Erica
The door clicks shut behind me, and the sound is too final.
For a second, I just stand there in the suite, staring at the same velvet couch, the same polished bar, the same warm lamps, like I might wake up and realize I never left this room at all. Like the stage and the dark crowd and the microphone were a fever dream my body invented to survive the last hour.
It isn’t. My feet still hurt from the heels. My throat still tastes like adrenaline. My skin still feels too tight over my ribs, like my heart is trying to break its way out.
Seventy thousand dollars.
I say it in my head once, like that will make it make sense.
Seventy thousand dollars.
My stomach lurches. I clamp a hand over my mouth and swallow hard, forcing it back down. I don’t throw up. Not yet. I can’t, not with the smell of lemon polish in my nose and the memory of that room still sitting behind my eyes.
Seventy thousand dollars.
I needed twenty thousand dollars.
Twenty.
The number I repeated to myself every night like a prayer. The number I scribbled on the back of receipts and the inside cover of my planner as if writing it down would turn it into something I could earn.
I walk to the vanity like my legs belong to someone else. My fingers grip the edge of the marble until my knuckles go white.
I can still hear the host’s voice in my head. Calm. Practiced. Like he was talking about a charity auction or an exclusive bottle of wine.
Five thousand.
Ten.
Twenty.
The numbers rose so fast I stopped being able to process them. I stopped being able to follow. I only knew when it went up because the host said it did, and his voice kept climbing, the cadence changing, the room feeding off it like an animal scenting blood.
