Page 12 of Contempt

“Twenty million—that’s the average one makes between the auction, and a four year contract with a buyer. So, they’ve rounded it out for you.”

Shit.

“What happens if after the five years, it’s not all paid back?”

Cree arched a brow. “I imagine, you’ll go under contract again.”

Nope.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Renzo sat up on the bed, and swung his legs over the side. His combat boots hit the cement with a hard smack, and then he was standing up straight. “So, all I have to do is make sure my buyer pays more than that at the auction, right?”

Cree laughed. “New York, at the rate you’re going, you’ll be lucky to get anything at all. Useless, remember? Typical purchase is ten million—fifteen if you’ve got a specialty worth taking a second look at. You’re six months into this and causing more trouble than you’re worth. Don’t get in over your head. You’ll drown.”

Maybe so.

“What’s basics for today?” Renzo asked, switching the conversation altogether.

“Explosives. Bombs.”

“That sounds fun.”

Cree gave him a look. “Earn what you want, Renzo.”

He would.

He’d have to.

• • •

A loud chime rang through the room filled with red lights and wall-to-wall mirrors. He knew, somewhere behind one of those windows, Cree was watching his trainee. Probably behind the only mirror without a light overhead to his right, but Renzo didn’t know.

And then, the distorted voice came over the speakers again to say, “Sold—twenty-five-point-three million. R.Z., please step down from the platform, and return to the door.”

Renzo felt like a robot.

That number was still ringing in the back of his mind even as he was shuffled in the opened door that he had also been brought in through, and found familiar faces waiting behind it. Cree … others who came from Cree’s team. One of the handlers for The League—Renzo would call the man an owner, but he barely spoke to any of them, and he seemed cold whenever he was around—stood in the corner with a red phone pressed to his ear as he fixed a button on his three-piece suit.

“That’s a fucking record,” he heard Cree say.

A hand slapped his back.

His debt was paid with that bid, but he still had four more fucking years here. Four years owed to The League, and whoever now owned his contract.

Four years without the people he wanted the most.

But who was his buyer?

“Tell M the product will be ready for the first job whenever he needs him to be sent out … as soon as the money is transferred,” the man in the corner with the red phone said. “Transfer must be done within twenty-four hours.”

Renzo almost wanted to scoff. He’d spent the last year of his life being molded into … a machine, frankly. Unfeeling. Indifferent. A killer. And he was reduced to being called a product.

And M?

M.

Well, who the hell was that?