I plan to utilize that feature later.
Inhaling my cigarette, smoke unfurls in the confined space as I press the button, placing my bid.
“Going bid, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” the woman drones directly after I hit the button.
Someone else bids, and before the speaker can finish, I click the button again, prompting her to announce the bid as three hundred thousand dollars.
She will be the fifth girl I bought tonight. She’s also the fifth girl that has been auctioned. Every single girl—they will be leaving with me.
The payment is wired out of my account with each confirmed sale, but everyone will be dead by the end of the night, and Jay will have transferred it right back to me. Not that I’m hard up for it, but my money will never line the pockets of the Society.
My finger presses that button three more times before getting the confirmed sale. I inhale again, a low buzz vibrating beneath my skin as another girl is pushed onto the stage. She stumbles but manages to catch herself in the five-inch heels before she face-plants.
She's a mousy girl with big doe eyes and glasses that cover half her face. The others will fight over her purely because she appears young and childish. Just like the last five, she’s draped in fine jewels that cost more than what these men are willing to pay for the body beneath them.
Click.
“Going bid, fifty thousand dollars.”
“Three more girls after this one,” Jay tells me, his voice soft in my ear.
I don’t speak. These rooms are bugged, and I want their deaths to be a surprise.
Click.
“I don’t think Addie is here, man.”
I knew that already, but Jay—sweet Jay—was hoping for the best. I’m not here because I thought Addie was going to scamper on this stage where I can buy her and whisk her away from all this evil.
She’s never going to be auctioned. Claire would never risk it—not with me watching. She’s very aware I have the means to track down victims within human trafficking, so it defeats the purpose to sell Addie into a trade that I’m very well acquainted with, just for me to rescue her anyway.
She’s going to be handled differently—that I’m sure of.
It’s been over two months since Addie’s been gone. Each day that passes, the black circles under my eyes deepen and the angrier I grow.
I’ve lost my mind. My patience. My strength. Everything. The only thing puppeteering my body is sheer will and desperation.
Wherever she’s being held, it’s off-grid, and she hasn’t been moved, most likely because they know I’d find her if she were. When girls are stationary in an undisclosed location, it’s almost impossible to find them in the skin trade. If they’re not being handled through proper channels where they’re being transported or sold, then there’s nothing to fucking track. She hasn’t even been taken into town. No cameras on this entire fucking planet have seen Addie’s face since she left that hospital.
Nor have they seen Rio or Rick—two of the three people that could lead me to her. I assume her kidnappers are wherever Addie is, but Claire… she knows how to move under the radar. The few times I’ve been able to locate her, an army surrounds her, and infiltrating takes planning, which is impossible to do when she disappears again. She’s a red herring, moving in a way that’s designed to distract me. I have every intention of taking out Claire but using her to get to Addie has only proven to waste my time and resources.
And that… that just isn’t going to work.
Which is why I’m here tonight, intent on destroying yet another facet of the shadow government. More importantly, I’m hoping one of these girls has seen Addie. Jay has identified each of the girls being auctioned tonight, and several of them are native to Oregon. Which means if Addie is still in this state—one of them could’ve come from the same household as her.
Click.
“Going bid, four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Sold.
I buy the next three girls, too, and though I can’t hear or see the outrage from other bidders, I can tell from the increasingly competitive bidding wars as each girl is sold. They all fold eventually, most likely with the intent to buy a girl from a different auction.
Moments after the last girl steps down from the stage, there’s a soft knock at the door.
“Jay, lock all the doors in the building and barricade the exits. No one gets out except me,” I tell him quickly before calling out louder, “Enter.”
“Got it,” Jay responds, just as Lee Morrison enters the room. While he’s not the owner of this auction house, he keeps this well-oiled machine running. His job is to escort the bidders to their rooms, make sure their accommodations are satisfactory, and oversee the women coming in and out, ensuring the auction runs smoothly and without a hitch.