The room falls silent. Tux Guy holds his gavel aloft, his mouth hanging open as he shields his eyes, trying to see where the voice came from.
I squint, trying to do the same, but the blinding stage lights mean I can only make out shadows.
“We should get to see her virgin pussy at least,” a lone voice calls out, but it’s met with an eerie silence as thick vines of tension begin threading their way through the room.
My still-trembling knees want to buckle, but I breathe deeply. In. Out. I need to stay focused. Need to be alert to any and every opportunity to gather any information that may be of any use to me.Knowledge is power, Imogen.
Yet I can’t stop wondering what kind of man is capable of bringing a room so full of evil to silence. Surely only someone who is more of a devil than all of them combined.
“Any advance on ten million?” Tux Guy asks, his voice shaking with excitement.
Silence.
“Sold to Mr. Knight!”
My knees give way. I drop to the wooden stage with a thud.
Panic overwhelms me.
In. Out.
One, two, buckle my shoe.
“Deliver her to my car,” Lincoln Knight demands.
In. Out. Three, four, knock at the door.
The spotlights seem to grow closer, and I’m blinded by them. Then there are hands grabbing me, lifting me. Instinctively, I struggle, forgetting all my years of conditioning.
Until I hear her voice.They may touch you. Defile you. They may take your body, my sweet child, but they can never take your spirit. Never have what’s inside of you. That is yours and yours alone.
I stop fighting, close my eyes, and breathe.
In. Out.
I will not break.
Chapter 2
Lincoln
She stumbles onto the stage like a newborn foal, all long limbs and glossy dark hair, blinking in the harsh spotlights illuminating her face. Full pink lips and long lashes flutter against the olive skin of her cheeks. I can recall her striking green eyes even if I cannot see them.
Imogen DeMotta. Daughter of Luca DeMotta and tonight’s most prized auction lot, which is why she has been saved until the last. No sense in selling off the most sought-after goods first. How, then, would the Brotherhood retain the attention of their most affluent customers? This isn’t the first auction of its kind. The Brotherhood hold them every other year, however it’s only the second one I have ever attended. The first was sixteen years ago, when my cause was a new one. I no longer attend such events, at least not in person. But I’m aware of every single one, and of every single lot that is sold.
Perhaps it’s a misguided attempt at some redemption—an effort to save my blackened soul. Not that my soul is worth saving.
Nothing has changed in sixteen years. It’s still a room packed full of men in custom-tailored suits, reeking of cigars and the finest Scotch money can buy. Businessmen, lawyers, supreme court justices, politicians, oil barons—they come fromevery walk of life. All of them linked by a common thread: They see women as a commodity to be bought and sold and have zero qualms about watching it happen. Even if they do not have the means to buy, they still like to watch the show. Men who, to the outside world, appear to be respectable gentlemen. Yet within these walls—without the disapproving eyes of their wives, their colleagues, their friends, or their family upon them—those men behave like animals.
Mob mentality has always fascinated me. How individuals can be so easily swayed by the will of the crowd. Those who are attending these events for the first time are easy to spot. They fidget uncomfortably at first, eyes shifting left and right as though they’re naughty schoolboys fearing they’re about to be caught doing something they shouldn’t be at any moment. But after the first few women—for it is always women—are sold, they lose their inhibitions. Enthused by the new and illicit nature of it all, they lose sight of their sense of right and wrong and join in with the rest, often with even more vigor than their more seasoned counterparts.
Sex is a trade as old as time, and the Brotherhood has perfected it into an art form. The biannual auctions last an entire day and are as elaborately catered as the wedding of an oil baron and a society princess.
A whole smorgasbord of women is put on display. Some are as old as their late twenties andused,as they’re referred to in the glossy catalog that is emailed to a secure database and can only be accessed with a thirty-eight-digit passcode. Then there are the girls as young as eighteen who have been groomed for this life from a tender age. And they are always the most highly prized.
The crowd, full of lobster, Scotch, and champagne by this point in the proceedings, calls for Imogen to remove her dress as soon as they catch a glimpse of her. Someone a few feet to the left of me demands to see her virgin pussy, and I bite downon the inside of my cheek, having to physically restrain myself from crushing his skull with my bare hands.
What these sick fucks—deviant little boys who like to playact at being very important men—don’t understand is that she is mine. And I would gouge out the eyes of every single one of them before I allow them even a glimpse of what lies beneath her dress.
