Sold to the Mafia King

The first thing I felt was the cold. Not the kind that makes you shiver—this was the kind that bites into your bones and makes your teeth hurt. My cheek was pressed against concrete that smelled like bleach and old piss, and my arms were pulled so tight behind the chair that my shoulders felt like they were tearing in slow motion. I tried to open my eyes. The left one worked. The right one was swollen shut, a hot, pulsing knot of flesh that made my stomach roll. I didn't remember getting hit. I didn't remember much of anything after the van doors had slammed shut outside my apartment building. My wrists were bound with zip ties. The plastic had cut so deep into my skin that I couldn't tell where the tie ended and my blood began. I tried to move my fingers. They tingled, then went numb. Bad sign. I knew that from nursing school—before my father had gambled away my tuition, my future, and apparently, now, me. "Lot seventeen is awake." The voice came from behind me. Male. Bored. Like he was reading a grocery list. I turned my head, the concrete scraping my good cheek, and saw a man in a black suit leaning against the wall. He was eating sunflower seeds. Spitting the shells into a paper cup. "Where am I?" My voice came out as a rasp. My throat felt like I'd swallowed sand. He didn't answer. He just looked at his watch—a cheap digital one with a cracked screen—and then back at me. His eyes did a slow crawl over my body, not with interest, but with appraisal. Like I was a used car he was checking for dents. I looked down at myself. My gray nursing scrubs were still on, stained with blood that wasn't mine. My shoes were gone. My bare feet were filthy, the soles blackened, and I could see a bruise blooming across my left knee like a dark flower. Then I saw the number. Someone had written on my forearm with a thick black marker. The ink had bled into the creases of my skin, permanent and ugly. 17. "What's happening?" I asked, louder this time. My heart was starting to do that thing where it beats so hard you can feel it in your neck. "Please. I have money. I can—" "Shut up." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. He just pushed off the wall and walked over, and before I could flinch, his hand was in my hair, wrenching my head back so hard my spine cracked. "You don't talk. You don't move. You sit there until they call your number. That's the job. That's all you are now. A number." He let go. My head snapped forward, and I tasted blood where I'd bitten the inside of my cheek. From somewhere beyond the wall—close, maybe just a curtain away—I heard voices. A crowd. The low murmur of men talking over each other, and then a sharp, rhythmic sound that took me three seconds to recognize. Auctioneer. "Lot sixteen," the voice boomed, muffled but clear. "Twenty-three years old. Trained dancer. Clean medical history. Do I hear fifty thousand?" My blood turned to ice. No. No, no, no. This wasn't real. This was one of those nightmares where you think you've woken up but you haven't. I closed my eye and counted to five. When I opened it, the concrete was still there. The number 17 was still there. The man in the suit was checking his phone. "Fifty-five thousand," a voice called from the crowd. "Sixty." "Seventy-five." I started pulling against the zip ties. Not thinking—just moving. My wrists burned. The plastic dug deeper. I didn't care. I twisted my arms, trying to angle my thumbs, trying to make my hands smaller, anything. The chair was metal. Bolted to the floor. I kicked it anyway. The leg scraped against concrete with a shriek that made the man look up. "Don't," he said. I kicked again. Harder. The chair didn't move, but my foot did—straight into his shin. He grunted, and then his palm cracked across my face. The swollen eye exploded with fresh pain, and for a second, the world went white. When the color came back, he was leaning over me. His breath smelled like cigarettes and sour coffee. "You want to go out there with a broken nose? Keep fighting. They pay less for damaged goods, but they still pay. Either way, I get my cut." He straightened up. Spit another seed shell into his cup. "Lot sixteen sold for one hundred twenty thousand dollars to the gentleman in the back. Lot seventeen, please prepare." My whole body went rigid. The voices beyond the wall got louder. Footsteps. Someone laughed—a high, brittle sound that had no humor in it. The man in the suit grabbed my arm and hauled me up. My legs didn't work right. They'd tied my ankles too, I realized now—a rough rope that left me staggering, hopping, trying not to fall as he dragged me toward a slit in the black curtain. "Wait," I gasped. "Please. My name is Elena Voss. I'm a nursing student. My father—he's the one who owes money. Not me. Take me to him. I can—" "One million." The voice cut through everything. Through the crowd noise, through the auctioneer's patter, through my own ragged breathing. It didn't shout. It didn't need to. It was a low, flat sound that landed like a stone in still water. Silence. Absolute, total silence. I could hear the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. "Cash," the voice added. "Delivered in ten minutes. I want her now." The man holding me froze. His fingers, which had been digging into my bicep like claws, suddenly loosened. I felt him turn. Through the slit in the curtain, I could see the auction floor—a concrete pit lit by harsh white lights, rows of men in expensive suits, and every single one of them was looking at the back corner. Where the shadows were. A figure stepped forward. Tall. Dressed in black that seemed to drink the light rather than reflect it. I couldn't see his face. Not yet. But I could see his hands. They were in his pockets, relaxed, and I could see the glint of something metal on his left wrist. A watch. Thick. Heavy. The auctioneer—a fat man with a bow tie that was too tight—was sweating. "One million dollars. Do I hear—" "No one bids against him," someone whispered near the front. It was a hiss of warning, not advice. "Sold," the auctioneer said, and his gavel came down so fast it sounded like a gunshot. "Lot seventeen to Mr. Romano." Romano. The name meant nothing to me. Everything to them. The man in the suit let go of my arm. He stepped back. For the first time since I'd woken up, he looked nervous. "Mr. Romano. I didn't—I wasn't told you'd be attending tonight. If there's anything we can do to make the transfer more comfortable—" "Leave." One word. The man in the suit left. Fast. His paper cup of sunflower seeds hit the floor, scattering shells across the concrete like dry bones. I was alone. Standing in the harsh light of the auction pit, my ankles bound, my face throbbing, my wrists bleeding, wearing scrubs that smelled like antiseptic and fear. I tried to stand straighter. My knees shook. I locked them. The man in black walked toward me. Slow. Unhurried. Each step echoed. When he reached the edge of the light, he stopped. And looked at me. Not at my face. Not at my body. At my shoulder. My left shoulder. Where the scrubs had torn during the struggle, exposing a patch of skin and a scar I'd had since I was six years old—a jagged, white line that ran from my collarbone toward my shoulder blade. A burn. From a fire I barely remembered, a night of screaming and smoke that my father never talked about. The man stared at that scar for five seconds. Maybe six. His face was in shadow, but I could see his eyes. Not flat. Not dead. Empty. The way a coroner looks at a Jane Doe before filling out the paperwork—like the person is already gone, and he's just waiting for the body to catch up. Then he spoke. "You look like someone I failed to save." His voice was quieter now. Almost human. But there was something underneath it—a c***k, a fault line, like ice over deep water. He reached out. I flinched so hard I nearly fell. But he didn't touch my face. He didn't touch my arm. His fingers stopped an inch from my scar, hovering in the air like he was touching a ghost. "What's your name?" he asked. "Elena." The word came out broken. "Elena Voss." He withdrew his hand. Put it back in his pocket. And when he looked at me again, the almost-human thing was gone. His eyes were flat, cold, and focused on my mouth like he was deciding whether to let me speak again. "Elena Voss," he repeated. "You just became my property." He stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell him—expensive wool, gun oil, and something underneath that I couldn't name, something that made the hairs on my neck stand up. His hand came up, not fast, not rough, but with a kind of absolute certainty that made my breath stop. He gripped my jaw, his thumb pressing into the bruise on my cheek, tilting my face toward the light. His skin was warm. His fingers were calloused. He held me there for two seconds, studying me like a specimen, and then his thumb traced down to my throat, resting over my pulse. "And if you try to run," he said, his voice dropping to something just above a whisper, "I'll find you. Not because I want you back. Because I don't leave loose ends." He let go. My knees buckled, but I caught myself before I hit the floor. He turned and walked toward the exit. A man in a suit—different suit, bigger shoulders, a snake tattoo curling up his neck—stepped forward and grabbed my arm. Not rough. Not gentle. Mechanical. He pushed me after the man in black. I stumbled. My bound ankles made me clumsy. But as I hobbled through the crowd of silent men, through the stink of expensive cologne and fear, I realized something. My stomach wasn't twisting because of the auction. It was twisting because of the way he'd looked at my scar. Like it was a promise. Or a death sentence. I didn't know which. The door to the outside world opened. Cold air hit my face. A hand shoved me toward the back seat of a black car. I fell in, the leather cold against my legs, and as the door slammed shut, I looked up. The rearview mirror was angled so I could see the driver's eyes. He was watching me. Not my face. My shoulder. My scar. And in the dim glow of the dashboard, his expression didn't look like a man who'd just bought a woman. It looked like a man who'd just found a ghost he wasn't sure he wanted to exorcise.