He paused dramatically before continuing, “My club needs cash and this bitch should fetch a nice price.”
Storm spoke up, “Women are not property and you goddamn well know it.”
“Her daddy sold her to me to settle a gambling bet. That means she once belonged to him. Now, she belongs to me.”
Slim raised his voice to be heard over the mutterings of dissent. “I said no. Don’t do this kind of shit here. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let this be your last warning.”
Viper spat out, “Reckon your rally’s gonna get a lot less popular when people realize you discriminate against smaller and newer clubs. I guess we’re not all created equal here after all, right?”
When Slim’s arms dropped to his sides, I already knew who won this fight. My eyes roamed over to the young woman, as Storm, Celt, and Slim stepped aside to have a whisperargument. She had her arms wrapped around her waist. It was a pose that makes her look even more vulnerable. She must have been terrified.
I knew the others must have seen the same things that I saw when I looked at her. She was wearing a skirt, leggings, boots, and a sweater over her prim and proper button-up shirt. She looked like she just came home from Sunday school. Her hair was a bit of a mess, but it was easy to see that at one time those blonde curls had probably laid perfectly against her head. She was staring down at the ground and trembling slightly. When she glanced up for a second, I saw the bruises running along one delicate cheekbone and her mascara was running, likely from crying. My jaw tightened so much it hurt when I saw her bottom lip was split at the corner causing that half of her lip to be swollen. I fuckin’ hated everything about this situation. This young woman was not from our world at all—but even if she was, then whoever did this to her deserved to be put in the ground.
Thunder swore under his breath. “Aw, hell.”
“She’s not a club girl,” Renegade whispered. “She’s not even a hang-around.”
Storm and Celt broke away from Slim and stalked back over to our group. Storm’s jaw was locked tight.
Slim spoke up, so everyone could hear. “I’ve ruled in favor of Stolen Oath MC on this issue. Since there were no rules about auctioning personal property, Pacific Steel MC will remain neutral. That means the fallout is all on Viper and his club. Nobody is being forced to hang around for this auction. No matter how you feel about this auction, nobody gets to brawl over it. You either walk away, stay and watch, or you bid. If you win the bid, you pay, take your merch, and leave with her. That’s as much quarter as I’m willing to give on this.”
Chapter 2
Fuse
In a sickening twist, the crowd went wild. Apparently overjoyed that a woman would be sold today. Men were laughing, shoving each other to get to the stage, and pulling out their cell phones to check their bank accounts. Meanwhile a sick feeling twisted in my gut. I never would have thought that so many men would be up for something like this.
Sure, I liked a good time as much as any man, and I knew my club didn’t always play by the rules, but we had standards. No hurting women or kids and no trafficking.
Two assholes from Vulture’s Pride MC elbowed their way to the front of the stage to leer at the woman doing a bang-up job of not freakin’ the fuck out.
My shock quickly morphed into anger as they started crunching numbers on how much they could make trafficking her in three months and used that as the absolute limit of how far they would bid.
Meanwhile, the woman’s bottom lip began to tremble. She took an involuntary step back when a horde of men surged forward to get a look at her. She was being surrounded by the worst of us, and it was clear from her anxious expression and generalized jumpiness that she was hanging onto her sanity by a thread.
Without looking back at my club brothers, I called out to my Prez, “Storm!” It came out stressed and louder than I intended.
He glanced over his shoulder and caught my eye. “We’re workin’ on it. Give us a fuckin’ minute.”
He was huddled with a group of my club brothers. They were locked in a heated discussion and waving their arms around. I should have probably been over there with them, helping brainstorm solutions. But I was too focused on the innocent woman with the blonde curls and bruised face.
Viper lifted the microphone to his mouth again and spoke, “Gather around, brothers. Our club is auctioning off our most valuable asset today. And all you lucky dogs are at the right time and place to buy a twenty-one-year-old piece of heaven. Sweet and innocent and never been kissed. As long as you train her right, it don’t matter whether you keep her for yourself, share her with your club brothers, or rent her out, she’s not gonna disappoint.”
His voice reverberated through my very soul. Suddenly, my whole body went rigid and my nostrils were flaring because whatever had been building in my gut had sparked into a fire that was threatening to consume me.
“Strip her so we can see what we’re buying!” The shout came from the audience and was answered by a chorus of cheers.
Vulture, the unimaginatively named president of Vulture’s Pride MC, whipped his head around. “Fuck that,” he growled. “If you wanna have a look, you can pay for the privilege like everyone else, once she’s ours.”
Viper chuckled. “I can see you’re gonna be the man to beat in this auction. I just might pay you to have a little look myself.”
“And you’d be welcome,” the older man said with a grin.
I glanced around at the crowd. All the one percenters who earned dirty money were front and center. They were energized as fuck, leering and making crude jokes, like she wasn’t standing right there on the stage listenin’ to it all.
The other clubs, the ones with their heads screwed on straight, were nowhere to be found. I caught sight of Sons ofRage, Molten Horse, and Savage Legion members. They were standing all the way back, with their club presidents standing together, lookin’ none too happy at this latest turn of events.
Viper tapped his microphone to get everyone’s attention. “Gentlemen, this lady is top shelf. We’re gonna call her Betty, ‘cause her old man loved to bet and had to use her to pay off his debts.”
