Chapter 1
Imogen
“Have you heard who’s here?” The whispered question comes from the girl with brown eyes as wide as saucers. In my head, I call her Kit because she reminds me of the kitten I found hiding beneath a dumpster when I was nine.
I take a furtive look around to make sure she isn’t caught speaking. The tallest guard, the one with a cobra tattoo on his neck, is staring at the exit. One lone steel door—that’s the only way in or out of this room. The other two guards are watching us, eyes greedily ogling our bodies like they own us. No doubt imagining all the things they’d like to do if they only had the chance.
My skin crawls, but I refuse to let it show on the outside. Eighteen years of my life have been spent in preparation for this, and I will not break. Especially not now that I’ve heard the crowd’s reaction when a girl breaks down onstage. It spurs them on. Drives their cruelty.
“No, who?” the girl sitting beside me asks quietly, her knees tucked up to her chest and her back to the wall. I call her Sam because she looks like a character from the kids TV show that I was occasionally permitted to watch.
While our guards observe us still, they no longer seem interested in stopping every attempt at conversation. I suppose now that we’re so close to the end point, they have no need to prevent us from talking to each other. From forming bonds that would have made our time together a little less hellish. Now, it’s certain that we’ll never see each other again. Many of us won’t make our next birthdays.
But that won’t be me. I’m a survivor. Larissa taught me well.
I remain silent despite our guards’ reduced interest in our conversation. I won’t do anything to incur their wrath. They are no longer allowed to physically harm us, since we must be unblemished for the customers, but there are other ways to break a person’s spirit.
And I will not break.
“Lincoln Knight,” Kit whispers even more quietly than before.
My ears perk up.
There are seven girls left in here, and Sam waits for the guards’ leery gazes to drift to the ones on the opposite side of the room before she risks responding. “No way. How do you know that?”
I stare at the door, perfecting the art of looking like I’m not paying attention to either the girls or the guards while being finely attuned to every movement happening around me. And most importantly, I don’t want to reveal just how intrigued I am to hear Kit’s answer. Because Lincoln Knight is...
Well, he’s Lincoln Knight.
Billionaire. Recluse. Genius. Psycho. Depending on who’s telling the story.
“I was near the door earlier, and one of the guards told the ugly one that he was here.”
Sam lets out a barely audible gasp. Her legs are trembling, and I have to stop myself from resting a reassuring hand on her thigh. I figure the ugly one is the guard nearest the door whohas an unfortunate overbite that makes him look like his chin has sunk into his neck. They are all equally ugly to me. Vicious. Pawing. Evil.
But Lincoln Knight. What the hell is he doing here? Of all the labels he has been given over the years, recluse is the one I know to be true. The man hasn’t been seen in public in over a decade.
“You think he’s here... here to buy?” Sam murmurs out of the corner of her mouth.
“Shut the fuck up!” Snake Tattoo bellows, causing both Sam and Kit to clamp their lips together.
Of course he’s here to buy. I guess we can add sick puppy to his list of titles.
I’ve remained as detached as possible for the duration of tonight’s vile proceedings. Years of conditioning can do that to a girl. I stared ahead, unblinking, as almost every girl to leave the room pleaded and begged for her life. I didn’t flinch when the crowd cheered as Sam stumbled out the door with urine running down her bare legs. Or any of the times when they clamored to see more.
Each of us will leave this room in an elegant black dress, but once onstage... Well, then we must submit to the will of the crowd. Show off ourassetsin whatever way they demand.
But when it’s Kit’s turn to leave—Lot No. 50—something inside me finally cracks. She’s the last to go before me. The last to be sold into a life of... what? A quick death at best. Years of slavery, torture, and pain at worst. I already know I cannot hope for the former, highly prized as I am. The daughter of the most infamous disgraced ex-member of the Brotherhood. Here to atone for his sins eighteen long years after his death. I suspect most of my peers are aware that the men who attend eventslike these aren’t here for any kind of benevolent purposes, for anyone who trades in human life cannot possibly be anything other than morally bankrupt. But I’m blessed to know a little more about the kinds of men who buy women at Brotherhood auctions. They come from all walks of life, but one thing they have in common is that they are rich and powerful enough to serve the Brotherhood in some way, and to do the kinds of things that ordinary mortals could never hope to get away with, and they act with impunity. Perhaps this knowledge is not a blessing at all, but a curse.
But it’s not the knowledge of my almost certain fate which nearly unravels me. It’s Kit’s face. Her huge brown eyes swimming with tears. The wobble of her plump lower lip.
“Move!” Ugly shoves his semiautomatic into the small of her back, and she stumbles forward. And then she lets out a strangled cry, filled with terror and despair. It has every hair on my body standing on end, but still I don’t move. I don’t react. Don’t show weakness.
“Please! Let me go. I’ll do anything,” she pleads with Ugly.
“Yeah, you’re gonna, little girl.” He sneers at her, his face twisted with cruelty. How can anyone with a soul partake in this sick trade? How can anyone look into the face of another human being and then...
I blink away a single tear and hope that nobody notices, but thankfully, they’re all focused on Kit. Taking twisted pleasure in her torment. In her abject terror. The girl is no more than eighteen, if that. Poor thing.
