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The bodies are shrouded in thick, velvet cloaks, edged with silvery gemstones. Their faces aren’t unveiled—yet, at least. Only one of them is led up onto the platform, before the veil of fabric is unceremoniously ripped away. Beneath it, the woman blinks dazedly against the light. Her skin is the color of porcelain, and her hair the color of honey. Her eyes are glassy. Not all there. She’s been drugged.

Her hair is tangled. A mess, at odds with the glittery, skimpy costume she’s being presented in—though, not as much as her raw wrists, where I can see the zip-ties bit into her thin skin.

The bidding begins.

I can’t trust myself to move. I don’t touch the keypad allocated to my own fucking pod of iniquity.

When I look back at Miron, his back is towards the spectacle. A sigh heaves from the depths of my chest. I can’t do what he is. I didn’t drag us here for nothing.

I don’t know who the fuck the woman in the photo is. But it’s clear to me that she is one of the cloaked figures. In whatever way, she is the bait being dangled in front of my face. She is the key—to which door, I don’t have a fucking clue. She’s who I’ve been brought here for. I can’t look away. Because, whether I like it or not, can stomach it or not, I’ll be touching the fucking bidding keypad sooner rather than later.

She’s the last one brought forward. Her number is called: “Lot seven.”

Like all of the women before, the hood is ripped off her head, too. She blinks up blearily against the harsh lighting. The bronzed glow of her countenance has been sapped of life. She’s taller than I expected. Her soft, full figure trapped in the glittering scrap of fabric they’ve trussed her up in is atrocious. The contrast between the woman in the photograph and the one my eyes drink in now is stark enough to make me sick.

My hand reaches for the keypad.

Fifty thousand.

Instantly, a countering bid appears on the display.

Sixty.

Miron hisses at my ear, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“What does it fucking look like?” I snap back.

His lip curls in a sneer. “Looks like you’re spending a fuckload of the family’s money on a woman you’ve never met based on a fucking text message.”

It’s the truth, and it isn’t. I up the bid to eighty.

“Leonid—”

Opposition counters with ninety grand.

“Shut the fuck up, Mir,” I breathe softly. We’ve been chasing after this fucking mole for a year. A goddamn year. And in that year, no bites. No leads that went anywhere. Our own men turning on us, losing their trust because we can’t give them ours. Blow after blow being landed, and never one we see coming. It’s fucking enough. Whoever it was that reached out, they led me here and pointed me, specifically, at this woman. No, I have no fucking idea why. I don’t know who the fuck she is, beyond stunning. I just know no one else is buying her tonight.

I key in one-twenty.

The counter-bid lags this time. Seconds flit past, in rapid pounds of my heart in my chest. Until: one-thirty.

Whoever’s on the other end wants her bad. It’s enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I up the ante. One-fifty.

Miron groans, his face burying in his hands. He doesn’t argue it. He sees that the number is going to keep climbing until either the other bidder folds or I run out of digits to counter with. Only one of those has any likelihood of happening.

One-eighty, I counter.

The counter-display is empty.

The automated voice floods the chamber, dispassionate and absolute. “Lot seven sold.”

Sold—to me. She belongs to me now.

Bile sits sour and acidic at the back of my throat. I swallow it down and shove out of the seat. Yuris do not traffic in people, Trifon’s voice snarls in my head.

And yet, I have.