After the raucous laughter died down, he continued. “We picked her up clean. She went straight from her daddy’s hands to mine. I made damn sure none of my crew laid a hand on her. Sure, she’s got a bruise or two but that’s only because she ran her mouth. I’m sure you know, but that just means she has spirit. But that’s no problem for men like us, right?”
Laughter from the men in front of the stage stoked my anger. She was a human being, not an object. How could these men act like this?
Suddenly Celt’s Irish accent cut through the air. “This is some crazy ass shite, cousin. Get the feck off me, you cretin.”
I looked over my shoulder to see that Storm had Celt face down in the dirt and had him pinned with a knee between his shoulders. Celt was more protective of women than anyone in our club. Our club president was literally holding him back from pulling her off that stage and burning it to the fuckin’ ground. That’s how I knew whatever they were talking about didn’t pan out. I took one last look at Celt’s furious expression and decided to take matters into my own hands.
When I refocused on the auction, they were already bidding.
“Five grand,” someone called out from the crowd.
Dog, the Vulture’s Pride sergeant-at-arms, grinned.
“Only five thousand to start?” he said. “That’s low. She’s easily worth twice that.”
Viper lifted the mic. “We’ve got an opening bid of five thousand. Do I hear more?”
My jaw locked. Five thousand for a woman wearing nice clothes and a busted lip. A woman who had been given away to pay off debts, then dragged in front of bikers to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
“Six,” another voice called from the crowd. I did not recognize the voice. But his cut was from another small club, with a reputation for being stupid and heartless.
“Eight,” Dog shouted.
“Ten,” someone else yelled.
Then the numbers climbed in jumps. Twelve. Fifteen. Seventeen. Dog kept bidding, even when his club brothers started to look annoyed. Viper just kept asking for more bids and the brothers kept answering. It was like a feeding frenzy that didn’t make any sense. Women weren’t particularly hard to come by in the MC world. Hell, I’ve had them chase me before, but nothing in my life could ever compare to this.
I kept trying to think of what to say to make it all stop. Bidding was out of the question. Storm had drilled into us that no meant no and our club doesn’t traffic women. Not that any of us needed to hear him say what we already knew. The Dark Slayers’ patch stood for something. We were one percent because we claimed property and lived by our own rules. Not because we ran drugs, took hits, or bought and sold women like cattle. I prospected because their values matched my own.
None of that high and mighty shit would help this woman. Not if the Vulture’s Pride MC walked away with her. She would disappear into the kind of life a woman like her couldn’t hope to survive. At some point in the future stories would reach my ears of how the Vultures got a hold of a virgin, used her until she couldn’t take any more, and finally broke her for good.
I was dragged from my internal thoughts by another bid.
Then Viper shouted gleefully, “We’ve got a bid of thirty thousand with the Vulture’s Pride.”
The crowd fell silent.
Viper shouted into the mic, “Going once. No more bids? Going twice.”
This was all going so fuckin’ fast. If I was going to save her, I only had one play, and it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Crossing this line would cost me everything, including my patch. It would bankrupt me and shame me before my club brothers. Still, if I did nothing, I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the damn mirror. Some things were worth risking everything for and this was one of them.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t turned my cheek a time or two in my life. I’d told myself it was not my business. That I couldn’t police the world or fix everyone’s problem. But not this time. I could do this one thing, this one time and maybe it would make up for the times I minded my own business when I should have acted.
When Viper opened his mouth to say ‘sold’, I shouted. “One hundred thousand.”
My voice carried across the crowd, louder than I expected because they were all quietly listening to the bidding.
Dog turned to me and spat out, “What the fuck, Slayer?”
I swallowed, my throat dry. “I said one hundred thousand dollars. That’s my bid. Either match it or shut the fuck up.” Yeah, I was aggravated with the fucker and didn’t care who knew it.
A slow smile spread over Viper’s face. “So, the Slayers aren’t the straight arrows you pretend to be.” I wanted to slap that smug expression right off his face, but I wanted to save the girl more.
Storm’s head snapped towards me so fast his neck might have complained later. Thunder stared. Renegade’s eyes wentwide. Celt actually muttered “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Thank fuck one of us had some balls.” under his breath.
“I’m Fuse and yeah, I’m a Dark Slayer. I just bid a hundred grand all on my own. This ain’t club business.”
I did not have one hundred thousand. I did not have even half of that. My savings were thin. I had some tucked away but nothing near that amount. I knew that even as the words left my mouth, and I said them anyway.
