Auctioned

by Lulu Pratt

  Anyways, other than my slight disappointment in the way this new chapter began, the shift went by rather smoothly.

  Though, I have to note, it was soon apparent that RES was a bit, shall we say, dicier than Dazzlers. This isn’t a thing I can illustrate, really, except to say — the patrons’ clothes were just a little dirtier, their hair more unkempt. The noises were louder and there were more machines broken and although I wasn’t getting drinks, I expect that the alcohol was watered just a little more than what I had served at Dazzlers. It wasn’t noticeably worse, and it certainly wasn’t unmanageable, it was just… not quite as high class.

  Then again, Dazzlers had apparently had a hand in selling underage girls, so perhaps all that glitters ain’t gold, right?

  We were about halfway through the shift, everything chugging along just fine, when I spotted a man across the casino floor. Sometimes it takes me a few moments to remember a face — I see a ton of people every day — but this one clicked instantly.

  He was the other man bidding on me from the sale.

  His bald head shone under the lotto lights, and I recognized him on sight.

  Oh fuck. What did that mean? Was I supposed to run and hide, or wave, or pretend like I didn’t know him? Who was he? What was the protocol?!

  Thoughts overwhelmed me, but just as I resolved to act like I hadn’t seen him, the man caught my eye and winked.

  Fuck, fuck, turn around, Kiki! I yelled at myself, but it was too late — he was already walking in my direction.

  I swallowed hard and managed a little smile. Whoever he was, it probably wasn’t a good idea to piss him off. Men with money like that weren’t enemies you wanted.

  “Hello, Kiki,” he said as he came to a stop just a bit too close to me. “Remember me?”

  “Yes, sir,” I mumbled, trying to keep my voice down.

  “You can speak up. This is, after all, my casino.”

  Wait. What?

  He laughed at the look of confusion that must’ve crossed my face.

  “Yes, I know, it’s all very complex. But in any case, I’m Mac. Sorry I wasn’t able to purchase your, ah, favor. It would’ve been quite an experience, I’m sure.”

  I clasped my hands together and stared at the ground, trying to remain as inert as possible.

  “Not a big talker, huh?” he continued, after I didn’t reply. “Doesn’t matter. I talk enough for the both of us. I’ll see you around.”

  He clicked his tongue, his eyes roving across my body, before striding back off.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath. What was that all about? He’d introduced himself, yeah, but now I had more questions than before.

  It was kinda weird that he’d hired me after the virginity sale, no? Or was I overthinking things? A virginity sale just didn’t strike me as like, a great job fair, if you know what I mean.

  But whatever. A job is a job, especially if it’s paying well. I’d keep my head down, save up some money, pay off my dad’s debts, then get the hell out of town.

  However, about an hour later, Mac had returned.

  “I need you to run an errand for me,” he said.

  I looked around, wondering if he was talking to someone else.

  “You,” he repeated. “Can you get me some print-outs on the current staffing levels?”

  “Uh… okay.” This would be a five-minute job. Why was he asking? “I’ll grab that right now.”

  He grinned and I walked to the managerial office, where as requested, I printed out some spreadsheets about staff breakdowns. Couldn’t Mac have gotten this from any other computer? We certainly weren’t the only people with access to these documents. Was I being paranoid?

  In short order, I went back to Mac, papers in hand.

  “Here you go,” I said, passing them over.

  “Excellent. Oh, and while I’ve got you here, could you also get a count on how many glasses we have? I’m considering replacing them, but I wanna know what the stocks look like.”

  This was definitely out of my work purview — he could’ve asked any number of employees about this without coming down in person — but I obliged. It was my first day and I didn’t want to come across as lazy or difficult. It took me all of two minutes to let him know that we had some five-thousand cups.

  Mac shook his head. “Huh, guess we won’t replace them. Thought maybe we’d broken more than that. One more thing. Kiki, would you mind heading to my office and replenishing the bar?”

  It was time to put my foot down.

  “I’m not sure that’s my job, sir,” I said, in the mildest tone I could manage. “I don’t want to step on someone else’s toes. I wouldn’t even know where to get that level of liquor.”

  That last part was because I was certain Mac required different liquor than the shitty stuff we kept in back. Hopefully that would shut down this test or game he was playing.

  “Call me Mac. And you can get it from the basement, just tell them it’s for my office. They’ll know what you mean. Don’t worry about whose job it is. I’m assigning you this responsibility, and I’m confident you can handle it. Understood?”

  He was mildly irritated, and I decided not to push my luck.

  “If you’re sure…”

  “I am. Go on, now.”

  With a slight bob of my head, as though I was an English maid at some country manor, I took my leave of Mac and, as directed, walked to the elevators.

  I’ve never been to the basement of a casino before, I thought with absent-minded interest. Maybe it’ll be cool.

  Probably not. More likely than not, it’d just be a football field’s worth of food and drink, nothing too fabulous.

  I tapped my toe, and the elevator dinged.

  The basement, as I predicted, was dull, just miles of concrete and stockpiles. I found the first employee I could, a man with a trim mustache and a beanie. He was conveniently stationed right near the doors of the elevator, almost as if he’d been bored and waiting for a visitor.

  In a higher voice than I intended, I asked, “Excuse me, do you know where the liquor for Mac’s personal office is kept? I’ve asked to replenish the bar. He said that you’d all know where it was kept.”

  A shadow of recognition crossed his face, and he nodded.

  “Yes,” he replied, in a thick Eastern European accent. “Come with me.”

  I followed him for what felt like two whole minutes, traversing an entire city block as we wove through mountains of cheap gin and gas station cigarettes. It was like a particularly sinful panic room for the apocalypse.

  At last, we reached a heavy steel door.

  “You keep his liquor in its own room?” I questioned, skeptical of this arrangement.

  “It is very expensive. Workers sometimes steal it.”

  Well, that did make sense, I supposed.

  He took out a key ring and found the appropriate key with little effort, as though he did this often. Guess Mac must like a drink, I thought.

  The man unlocked the door and swung it open.

  That’s when I felt a swarm of hands descend on me.

  I heard my own screams as though through another’s ears. The sound was dulled by the thick walls.

  There was a chair beneath me, and now the foreign hands were tying my hands behind my back. A gag was in my mouth, and I felt dizziness swim into my vision. There was too much flesh-colored movement — I couldn’t track it. I’m going to die here.

  I wanted to fight back, but I knew immediately that whoever was holding me — and however many of them — was far stronger.

  I tried to cry out “Help!” but of course, the gag muffled my words.

  Just as I was feeling unconsciousness envelop me like a warm embrace, a familiar voice sounded.

  “Glad to see you’re cozy.”

  My eyes refocused as I fought to stay upright or, rather, awake — the binds of the chair forced me into a seated position.

  Oh my God.

  It was Mac.

  He was st
anding a few feet in front of me, looking as smug as the cat who caught the canary.

  I struggled in my chair, trying to kick out and connect with his shins, but he was too far and my ankles had apparently been bound as well.

  “Shh, shh,” he murmured with a smile. “Calm down.”

  Tears stung my eyes and I furiously bit them back. I wanted to ask what was going on, to demand answers. He’d robbed me of my voice, the most powerful part of myself.

  “I imagine you’d like to know why I’ve brought you down here.”

  At this, I had to laugh or at least, as much of a laugh as I could manage. The noise was strangled but distinct. The You think? was implied.

  “There’s some money I’m owed,” he said casually, as though we were discussing this over brunch.

  Oh fuck. I didn’t know my dad frequented any casinos besides Dazzlers — I thought he was fairly brand loyal — but apparently, he’d racked up debts with RES as well. Despite myself, I had an insipid urge to apologize for my father’s shortcomings.

  But then Mac continued, “And you’ll be making the payment on Tate’s behalf.”

  Wait.

  Huh?

  I leaned as far forward as I could manage, waiting for some kind of explanation.

  The last thing I remember was a damp rag on my face and the world receding into black.

  CHAPTER 27

  Tate

  SHORTLY AFTER Kiki left Dazzlers, I was pacing the near empty floor of the casino, desperate to figure out some kind of solution.

  Mac definitely didn’t have innocent intentions in hiring Kiki. But how could I stop her from taking the job before it was too late?

  I thought on it, but came up empty. If she was insistent on handling herself, there was no way I could interfere without once again looking like the guy who didn’t have faith in Kiki’s independence. Anything I might do would anger her.

  With no other ideas, I sat down at a slot machine and had the one floor worker bring me over a huge container of pennies. Might as well kill the time between now and death, right?

  I slipped the pennies in, and slipped out of reality, floating somewhere between the present and another realm, where everything was easier and answers appeared without difficulty.

  Hours passed in this way — penny in, pull lever, wait for the columns to spin. Sometimes I’d win a few dollars, but mostly I lost.

  I’d pulled the lever for maybe the five-hundredth time when my phone rang. I picked it up in a haze.

  “Yeah?”

  “This is Mac.”

  That got my attention. I pushed back my chair and stood up from the machine.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’ll cut to the chase. I have Kiki in my possession, and if you don’t get here stat, I’ll take her virginity. Ish. What’s left of it, anyways.”

  My body receded into the background as my mind fell through what felt like a black hole in the universe. Was I still here? Was Tate, whoever he was, still present? Had the Earth spun out into the great beyond, somewhere between here and out there, and could it ever be reeled back in and forced onto its axis? The stars were so bright.

  Kiki is in danger.

  The thought snapped me back to reality. There was no time to panic.

  “Our debts have been settled,” I growled at Mac. “Kiki doesn’t owe you anything. At the very least, let her go and we’ll handle it between us, like men. She has no skin in this.”

  “She quite literally does have skin in this,” Mac laughed.

  I wondered, not for the first time, what my hands would look like wrapped around his throat.

  He was clearly still determined to get what would’ve been his secret take from Kiki’s virginity sale. She had no other outstanding debts with him, and he wouldn’t have called me if it weren’t relevant to the sale. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have even captured her for the money if I hadn’t been the one who purchased her. Four hundred thousand was a pittance for a man like Mac. RES made that in a single evening. This whole thing was personal. He didn’t like me, I didn’t like him, and now, Kiki was going to pay for it.

  “Let her go. The money is nothing to you. Stop this farce, and we’ll talk it out.”

  “Oh, Tate,” he sighed, sounding for all the world entirely unfazed by the hostage situation he’d initiated. “It’s not really about the cash, is it?”

  “Of course not.” Finally, something we could agree upon.

  “It’s about your incessant holier-than-thou attitude, your ‘I’m too good for this town and this business’ way. Somebody needs to put you in your place, and I guess that someone gets to be me.”

  “So you’ve been after me for some time.”

  I should’ve guessed as much. I knew I was never that welcome in those gatherings, and that my disdain was pretty raw, but who’d known that it would go this far?

  “Naturally,” he agreed. “You needed a good talking to for a while now. But up until recently, there was nothing you cared about. You had plenty of money and no family, no close friends. You were untouchable, pal. And then Kiki happened.”

  In a moment of folly, I tried to play off my relationship with her.

  “She’s just a girl I bought for a night, Mac. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  “Oh really? Because you sounded pretty concerned when I called you. And, more to the point, my spies at Dazzlers tell me that you’ve been hanging on her every word for quite some time, meeting her at her shifts, waiting for her like some love-stricken Romeo. Lie all you want, Tate, but you care for her.”

  Fuck. Fuck. I didn’t even know what to worry about first. Mac had spies at Dazzlers?! Wait, no, that shouldn’t be my biggest concern — I needed to focus on the fact that he’d said quite some time, plural. That meant his guys had been watching me talk to Kiki, it meant that…

  Had Mac selected her for the sale just to fuck with me?

  No way.

  I was losing my mind. I’d gotten in too deep. Stay in the present, I told myself. Whatever machinations Mac had prior to this point didn’t matter. What mattered was Kiki, and she was in grave peril.

  “You bastard,” I cried.

  Okay, probably not my smartest move, but it had to be said.

  “Now now, Tate, flattery will get you nowhere. Anyhow, I was looking forward to taking your money. That would’ve improved my spirits, somewhat. But now that you haven’t paid, I’m feeling less charitable. So I guess I’ll just have to take my jollies where I can, so to speak. Shutting down Dazzlers will be a good start. Did you like that little piece in the news? I know Kiki hated seeing that tidbit — she took a job with us so immediately thereafter.”

  “You’ve had your fun, you’ve slandered Dazzlers, and Kiki hates my guts. It’s over, Mac. Let her go.”

  “No, I don’t think it is. You’re right, it has been entertaining, robbing you of the only thing you seemed to care for. That part was great. But there’s still the small matter of my fee.”

  This made me snort. Of course Mac was hung up on the cash. I suppose you don’t make it this far in Vegas without being pretty attached to your coin purse, even if it was a minor amount of money. Besides, he knew that forcing me to pay, after my continual refusal to do so, would just be the final nail in my coffin.

  What could I do? Even though it went against every fiber of my being, I had to give Mac the cash. Kiki’s life was now at stake, and I couldn’t let her come to harm just because of my stubbornness. This had gone on long enough. I would humble myself and pay Mac money he wasn’t due, just to save her. I’d pay the man who had conspired to ruin my casino, and by extension, my father’s legacy.

  “In cash, if you don’t mind,” he added.

  “I’ll be there in less than an hour,” I told him, every word like a knife in my throat. “And you touch a hair on her head before I get there, there’ll be hell to pay. Understood?”

  “Don’t make threats, Tate. You’re no good at it. My guard will meet you at the door. If you’
re not here by then, I’ll… hm, let’s see… I suppose I’ll start undressing her. She is so very scrumptious. How does that sound?”

  Click.

  Mac had hung up, and I lowered the phone from my ear, my hand shaking with rage. Kiki was in danger, and it was all my fault. I was the worst kind of man — the kind who dragged others down with him.

  There was no time for self-contempt.

  I dropped into a dead sprint across the floor of the casino. Normally my progress would be hindered by the swarms of people, but thanks to Mac, there weren’t any bodies to push through, save one or two drunks who were firmly affixed to their seats. I made it to the elevator in no time, pounding the button over and over and silently begging the metal box to descend faster.

  “Come on, come on,” I muttered under my breath.

  At last, it dinged and the doors opened.

  I raced inside and pressed the button for my penthouse suite.

  The ride was one long minute. I paced the elevator to and fro, fretting for Kiki’s safety, cursing Mac and his mother and her mother before that. How had I gotten mixed up in this? All I wanted to do was stay far away from my father’s casino, let someone else take the reins so that I didn’t have to do the dirty work or become too involved with the sordid affair. Now, a woman I cared for was being ransomed by a fellow casino owner who hadn’t liked my attitude in those board meetings.

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wash myself clean of the stink of my father. Kiki had scented it on me, calling me a spoiled little rich boy. Was I forever bound to wallow in my father’s muck?

  The doors opened. I’d reached the top floor.

  I darted to my Dazzlers penthouse apartment, moving as fast as my legs would carry me, and fumbled with the key before at last swinging open the door.

  Okay, okay, now all I had to do was get to the safe. It was inset beneath a faux piece of marble beneath my kitchen island, probably because my dad had been rather paranoid about people trying to steal his money. In retrospect, given the current situation, he might have had a point.

  Kneeling onto the floor, I pried the cover off the safe. The combination was easy — my mother’s birthday. Prior to their divorce, my dad had been a sentimental man, I guess. Paranoid, but apparently not so paranoid as to pick anything but the most obvious combination key.