“Good evening, gentlemen,” she finally purred. “Welcome to the finest party you’ll attend all year.”
There were murmurs of appreciation throughout the room. There were no women present, other than the one on stage at the moment.
“We have a wonderful charity event planned for you tonight. As you know, we’ve scoured the land for the prettiest ladies we could find, and they’ve agreed to participate in our little bachelorette auction. You will be bidding for a date, gentlemen.”
She paused and arched an eyebrow as if daring someone to disagree with that understatement. “Any further arrangements are between you and the young lady, of course. You have your paddles. Raise them to bid. When the auction is finished, someone will come to your table. You’ll be required to provide payment before you can begin your date. Once your payment has been confirmed, you and the young lady are free to go wherever you choose.”
She shook her hair and laughed as if she were amused with herself. “And now, gentlemen—are you ready for our first bachelorette?”
A cheer went up from the crowd. The curtains on the stage glided open. A young woman in a diaphanous garment that hid next to nothing stood in the spotlight. Her dark hair was piled on her head and her lips were red. She was exquisite, and the bidding started enthusiastically before rising to ridiculous heights.
Brett raised his paddle a few times, to cement his cover as one of these men, though the heat of anger curled in his belly even as he did so.
When he’d taken this assignment, he’d known full well what he was in for. Didn’t mean he liked it though.
But he had to keep his focus on the bigger picture. The money that flowed from these events had thus far been untraceable. He was here to find out as much as he could.
He’d had to pay an entry fee—they all had—but Ian’s IT team hadn’t managed to follow the transfer to the final destination.
Which meant they didn’t know who was behind the auctions, or what they were funding.
Young woman after young woman stood on the stage, in various phases of dress and undress meant to appeal to a variety of tastes. Some of the women trembled visibly. Some stood on the stage with utter defeat written on their features. Others were lethargic and vacant-eyed, though to the untrained eye they seemed shy and maybe even virginal.
They’d been drugged, which ratcheted up the tension in Brett’s gut. His mama had used drugs. Whether to dull her senses to the men who used her body, or simply for an escape from poverty and never-ending toil, he’d never know.
The curtains opened again and the last woman stood on the stage. She was no more than a girl, really. A teenager.
Blonde, pale, and slender, she wore platform heels that rocked every once in a while as she tried to hold her balance, and a white lace nightgown that skimmed her body and ended a little higher than mid-thigh.
Her golden wheat hair was pulled up into two short pigtails that gleamed beneath the spotlights. Her creamy skin made her seem ethereal. Her eyes appeared to be different somehow, but he couldn’t tell what it was that made them different at this distance.
Nevertheless, she was strikingly pretty—and utterly terrified.
He could see it in the way she shook, the way her gaze searched the crowd, seeking a friendly face. A face she could plead with, perhaps. Brett’s senses went on alert. Of all the women tonight, this one seemed the most afraid. The most confused.
“Gentlemen,” the hostess purred. “We have a special treat for you tonight. The lovely bachelorette standing before you, our last of the evening, is unspoiled. Utterly unspoiled. See how innocent she is? How pure? And there’s a bonus as well. This lovely young thing has one blue eye and one golden. Very rare, gentlemen!”
A murmur went over the crowd. Brett could feel the excitement in the room like a palpable thing. He stared at the girl, his heart twisting. Poor kid. Poor, poor kid.
“Place your bids for this prize so that you may guide our sweet innocent into a world of pleasure. We will start at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
The bidding erupted with paddles shooting into the air and animalistic shouts from some of the men. Brett watched the petite blonde blink rapidly, her gaze darting around the room like a cornered rabbit.
He wanted to act, but he couldn’t save them all. He knew that. He’d known it when he’d taken this assignment. He’d mostly taken it for his mother’s memory. Because nobody else had done a damned thing to help her when she’d needed it. They hadn’t even cared that she’d been murdered.
That’s why he had to be here. If he could help dismantle this sick event and bring the organizers to justice, then he was in all the way.
As the bidding intensified, he told himself to walk away. To turn his back, get his coat, and slip into the Venetian night. He could find a quiet canal and puke his guts out, then he could head back to his hotel and call Ian.
He could wash the putridness of this night away in a hot shower, or he could go for a run through empty streets until he was ready to drop from exhaustion. Anything to clear his mind of the images currently crowding it.
But the girl stood on the stage, looking younger and more vulnerable than any of the previous ones had, and his heart throbbed. Her gaze met his—or it felt like it did—her eyes pleading with him.
Do something. Help me.
Brett felt something hot flare in his belly. “Goddammit,” he growled.
Then he lifted his paddle and joined the frenzy.
The room was freezing. It wasn’t an important detail, not compared to everything else Tallie was going through, but it was probably the most normal thing about the situation.
She was standing on a stage in a glittering room filled with men in black tie—and some in long robes—wearing next to nothing and tottering on her high heels. She was groggy, but not so groggy she wasn’t aware of her surroundings.
As much as she wanted to open her mouth and say something—anything—she couldn’t make her lips work. Her throat wouldn’t form the words, her mouth wouldn’t release them. It took everything she had to stand in place and not fall.
The woman with red hair stood nearby, calmly reciting numbers into her microphone. The men in the audience raised paddles and then the lady asked for greater and greater numbers with each paddle being raised.
Tallie peered into the room beyond the stage. But the spotlights shined directly in her eyes, not enough to make her squint, but enough to obscure the faces in the crowd.
Think, Tallulah.
But what could she do? She told herself to move, to fall if that’s what it took, but her body didn’t obey. She simply… stood.
How many days since she’d climbed into the taxi? Three? Four? She didn’t know. She’d heard enough to know the men intended on selling her to someone. But then they’d drugged her and everything became a blur.
She had an impression of lying in a moving vehicle for hours while men spoke to each other in a language that wasn’t French, or even European in origin. She didn’t think those were the original men who’d taken her because they had spoken French in the taxi.
At a certain point the new men had blindfolded her, removed her from the vehicle, and taken her onto a boat. That was how she’d ended up here, wherever here was.
The light shifted, one of them fading until she could see faces. She swept her gaze over them in a panic—until she connected with one man in particular.
He seemed angry somehow. For her? Hope flared in her soul even though she had the barest evidence on which to base it.
“Please,” she thought. “Oh please. Do something.”
The spotlight that had burned out shined in her face again as someone repaired it—and the man was gone. Her heart thumped.
The fog of whatever they’d given her was strong, but she could still find herself within it.
I am Tallie Grant. I’m an American. I’m an interior designer. This is a dream. I’m going to wake up soon and this will all be over…
“Very nice, gentleman,” the red-haired woman purred. “We are down to three very determined bidders. Who will give me one million dollars?”
Chapter Three
If Brett had been a different kind of man, he’d be sweating under his tuxedo. Not because he was about to spend a million dollars of Black Defense International’s money to rescue a teenager, but because he was going against orders to do so. And not just any orders, but orders issued by Ian Black.
He shot a cool look in the direction of the two men bidding against him. One was the German from earlier. He looked coolly furious as he kept raising his paddle.
Determined.
Brett knew that look, and also knew the man’s reputation.
Heinrich von Kassel wasn’t the sort who liked losing, especially when he’d made up his mind about something. He spent time at the casinos in Monte Carlo, and he was known to wager huge sums on games. It was rumored that he’d put his own daughter up as a prize when he’d run short on funds one night.
A man who would do that would probably do anything.
The other man was more of a mystery. He didn’t appear as determined as Von Kassel. It almost seemed like he was bidding just to drive up the price.
Brett considered giving in. Letting Von Kassel or the other man win and then finding a way to steal the girl away later. If it was Von Kassel, then Brett could break into his hotel, immobilize his people, and take her before Von Kassel could do anything about it.
But what if the other man won? Brett didn’t know who he was yet, and had no idea where the man was staying or if he could find the girl in time.
No, the best way to save her was to win the auction, the expense be damned.
“Gentlemen?” the auctioneer asked. “Who will give me one million dollars for this lovely blonde goddess? She is like a fairy queen, so small and perfect. And she can be yours if you desire her enough.”
“One million dollars,” Brett said firmly.
Von Kassel didn’t say anything. He didn’t raise his paddle again. But the look he shot Brett dripped with malice. He didn’t have the money.
The other man seemed to consider it. He also turned to look at Brett, but it was a more considering look than Von Kassel’s. Perhaps he was trying to decide if Brett, aka Carter Walker, had enough money to keep driving up the price.
He must have decided that Brett did because he shook his head and dropped the paddle.
The auctioneer tapped her golden gavel against the podium. “Going once… going twice…”
She paused for a long, long moment while Brett ground his teeth together and waited for someone else to jump into the fray at the last possible second. Or for the mystery man to change his mind.
“Sold to the gentleman at table twenty-two!” The gavel came down and the auction was final.
Brett had just bought his first human being.
“Dammit, man,” Ian Black spat into the phone. “This wasn’t the way we planned it.”
Brett stood on a terrazzo overlooking the Grand Canal and watched water taxis and gondolas slip through the dark waters below. He had a cigarette in his hands, because Carter Walker smoked—and Brett Wheeler did sometimes too, especially when his nerves were jangled by long buried memories. He took a soothing drag and held the smoke in before letting it rush out again.
“I know.”
“Why did you do it? You told me you could handle this.”
“I can handle it,” Brett growled, spinning to make sure no one else was near. “I am handling it. This is another opportunity to follow the money trail. Besides, I’ve gone as far as I can here. They don’t let anyone see too much of the operation. But tonight puts me on their radar as a serious buyer. There’ll be more opportunities now. More chances to learn who’s behind it all.”
He couldn’t see Ian but he could hear the wheels grinding away in his boss’s mind. Finally, Ian let out an explosive breath.
“I hope you’re right because we’ve got no choice but to play it your way now. Jesus H. Christ.”
“I’m right. Paloma has already suggested as much.” The redhead had introduced herself to him after the conclusion of the auction. Her smile had filled him with disgust. Her touch, when she’d brushed her fingers along his sleeve, had nearly made him shudder. He hadn’t, but just barely.
Ian tapped the keys on his keyboard. “She’s been working for the organizers for the past year. She liaises between them and the men who find the girls. Then she runs the show, from the sets to the guest list to how the women are presented.”
“Yeah, she’s a real winner,” Brett said bitterly. Any woman who was willing to profit off the misery of other women was somehow worse in his mind than the men who did it. Might not be fair, but that’s how he felt.
“She knows things. Don’t let your disgust cloud your judgement.”
Brett dropped the cigarette and ground it beneath his foot. “Not about to, boss.”
“So you’ve bought yourself a virgin. Now what? You can’t just let her go.”
No, he couldn’t. It would blow his cover entirely to free the girl right away. He had to keep her for the time being, and he had to learn who she was. Where she came from.
“After I know who she is, I’ll make a plan.”
“She might have come from a bad situation. Sending her back won’t change anything. She’ll probably wind up on the auction block again. Or worse.”
He thought of Heinrich von Kassel and how angry he’d been to lose. He wouldn’t lose a second time, of that Brett was certain.
No, somehow he had to make sure this girl didn’t end up in the auction ever again.
“What about the others?” Brett asked, still seeing the young women who’d stood on the stage one after the other.
“We’ll track them down. I have your list of the men you recognized. We’ll identify the others.”
Ian didn’t say more, but Brett knew that Ian intended to make sure every woman who’d passed through the auction tonight would regain her freedom. The beauty of Ian Black was that he didn’t care how it happened, either. He wasn’t going to adhere to anyone else’s idea of justice: the idea that the men who’d dared to buy human beings should merely lose their prizes and nothing more. If they could be punished, they would be punished. Brett liked that about the bossman.
“Good.”
Ian snorted. “We’d have freed her, you know. You didn’t have to bid.”
“Yeah, but how long would it have taken? She’s young. Too young. And it might have taken too much time to identify her purchaser.”
“We’re on the path you chose now. Get back inside and take care of business. The money will be there.”
The call ended and Brett returned to the palazzo’s ballroom. Paloma smiled as he walked in.
“Ah, Mr. Walker. Your payment has gone through. Shall I send your prize to your address?”
Carter Walker owned a small palazzo on the Grand Canal, but of course it was really Ian’s. BDI had lodgings around the world, some of them in incredible places like this one. The beauty of the place didn’t quite make up for the nastiness of the assignment, though.
“Thanks a lot, ma’am,” he drawled. “But I’ll take the girl with me. No sense troubling you further.”
Paloma’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, of course. You are eager to enjoy your treasure. I quite understand. She should give you no trouble. She has had a mild sedative for her nerves, but it will not affect your plans.”
“Wonderful,” Brett said. “When will you have another event? I’d love to be on the guest list again.”
Paloma squeezed his arm as she blinked up at him. “Oh, you most certainly are on the list, Mr. Walker. As to when, I cannot say. Someone will contact you.”
Brett forced himself to smile. When he turned on the charm, women rarely resisted. And as much as this one disgusted him, charming her was a good idea.
“Call me Carter.”
“Carter, then.”
“Will you be holdi
ng the event here again, or somewhere else?”
Paloma shrugged. “It changes. I don’t know until I’m told. But rest assured that all preferred guests will be notified.”
Brett knew better than to keep pushing. “Ah, well, I’ll look forward to it then.”
“And I will look forward to seeing you.”
She offered her cheek for him to kiss. He did so, then kissed the other one in the Italian way.
“Ciao, Carter.”
Paloma handed him off to a uniformed man who took him down to the dock where a gondola waited. Inside the gondola, the blond-haired girl lay against the cushions. He thought she might be asleep, but she stirred when he stepped into the craft. Bright eyes stared up at him as he settled in beside her on the plush seat. He got the impression she wanted to speak but couldn’t seem to do so. The drugs, no doubt.
The gondolier pushed off from the dock and plied the waters of the canal smoothly and efficiently. Soon, they were coming alongside the dock of Ian Black’s palazzo.
A dark shape stood on the edge of the canal, waiting for him. When the gondolier brought the craft to a stop, Colton Duchaine stepped forward.
“I see you stopped for takeout,” he said wryly.
“Shut up and help me,” Brett said, gathering the girl in his arms. She was limp but her eyes blazed with fear as she searched his face.
He hated seeing that fear but he couldn’t reassure her yet. Not in front of the gondolier, who might be on Paloma’s payroll and report everything back to her.
He handed the small form of the girl up to Colt, gave the gondolier a generous tip, and climbed onto the dock. The gondolier rowed away, whistling a tune.
Brett wanted to take her from Colt’s arms, but he didn’t. Instead, he led the way toward the wrought iron gate that protected the interior courtyard. He slipped a key in the lock and let them inside. It was a short journey to the top floor where their rooms were. The palazzo had a caretaker, and servants when required, but it was late and everyone had gone home for the night.
Black Tie Page 2
