Bought (The Owned Series Book 1)
Page 4
Biding my time, I watched the auction time clock counting down while her bid price only continued to go up. With more than a half-hour to go, the bid was already 140 Bitcoin, which was just over a million dollars. Every few seconds, the number would increase.
I was determined to wait until there was just under 30 seconds to go in the auction before I made my move. It made me nervous because anything could go wrong and cause my bid not to be counted, but I wanted to avoid a bidding war at all cost. I figured by bidding with such limited time left, it might not allow the others enough time to analyze whether or not they wanted to counter me.
As soon as the timer showed 30-seconds, I made my move, entering a bid for 320 bitcoin, which was just a bit under $2.2 million. It was a big jump in price, but still gave me a cushion in case anyone came behind me and I needed to bid one more time. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case and before I knew it, my screen was flashing that I was a winner.
I smiled to myself, knowing that several of the creeps in the rooms around me were probably cussing me, but when I looked up, I was brought back to reality. I may have been able to save Hannah, but there were still nine other women about to embark on their own nightmare journey. Nine other women that may or may not be saved whenever the FBI decided to finally rescue the girls from their new lives as sex slaves.
The screen on the computer changed automatically to a secure Bitcoin wallet, where I input the payment information. Once that was finalized, a screen appeared telling me to return to my vehicle and wait for delivery.
I hesitated for a moment, realizing that it was quite possible that I could walk out to my car and these people could lock the doors behind everyone, keeping the girls and our money. In all honesty, that would have been a brilliant plan. What were any of the bidders going to do? Call the cops and tell them that they just had their money stolen at an auction selling girls to slavery?
Before I turned to leave, I saw the masked men return to the room and remove the girls one by one. When Hannah was the last one in the room, they handcuffed her hands behind her back and placed a black hood over her head before leading her away. Within five minutes, they were delivering her to my vehicle, handing me the handcuff key and thanking me for my business through the most disgusting smirk I’ve ever seen in my life.
Biting my tongue to avoid saying the wrong thing, I took Hannah by the arm and guided her into the backseat of the car. I toyed with the idea of removing her hood and cuffs, but I thought it was best to leave them in place until we got to our destination. Even though I bought her to protect her, I also bought her so I could have her to myself and the last thing I needed was for her to pay attention to where we were going and running off the first chance she got.
I wasn’t taking her back to my place. As a matter of fact, I was only going to go back to my place one more time to collect some of my things because there was a damn good chance that as soon as the FBI found out about what I did, they’d come looking for me and my apartment would be the first place they went. Instead, I was going to take her to a house I purchased for cash years ago when I was looking for a place to practice shooting my guns.
The house was perfect for both keeping her safe and giving me all the privacy I needed for her. It was located on 120 acres of wooded land with no other properties around for miles. Even more important, it was a fortress. There was no getting in, and more importantly, no getting out unless that’s what I wanted.
I wasn’t going to quit my job as a contractor for the FBI. I was going to go to work as normal and file my reports as to what I witnessed at the auction. How the FBI was ever going to find these people were beyond me. They ran a tight ship and never gave any indication as to who they were.
After buckling her in, I got in and left the parking lot as quickly as possible. I drove in the wrong direction, taking many turns down side streets until I was satisfied that I wasn’t being followed. Eventually, I made my way to the highway and made my way to the house where Hannah and I would get to know one another.
“Try not to be afraid,” I told her. “I’m not like most of the creeps who were probably bidding on you back there. Have some faith in me and you’ll come out of this okay.”
She started to laugh.
9
Hannah
I didn’t mean to laugh. The last thing I wanted to do was upset the man who had just purchased me, but I couldn’t help it. His words were just too absurd and before I could stop myself, I began to laugh.
How could this man tell me he wasn’t like the other creeps at the auction? Was that supposed to make me feel better somehow? He was at the auction too. He won me. He purchased a human being in the same way that someone might purchase a cow. My situation was no laughing matter, but him saying that he wasn’t a creep was just too much for me to take.
“It’s okay, you can laugh all you want. You’ll see that I’m not like the rest of the people who were bidding on you,” he said, speaking in a low controlled tone. It almost sounded as if he was trying as hard as he could to come off as non-threatening, which actually made him more intimidating to me.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, trying to collect as much information as I could.
“You don’t need to worry about that right now. I’m taking you somewhere safe.”
“Somewhere safe for you or for me?”
“Believe it or not, your safety is my only concern right now. Let me get you to where we’re going and once we get you all settled in, I’ll explain more.”
“Once you get me to where you’re taking me, which is the place you won’t tell me where it is. Got ya.”
“Please just try to relax.”
“Relax? Are you kidding me?”
“Yes, just try. I’m not going to hurt you.”
His promise to not hurt me rang hollow. Even if he did mean it, it probably just meant that he wasn’t going to hurt me personally. I knew what type of auction I was just involved in. Even if he didn’t plan to hurt me, he couldn’t guarantee that none of the men he sold me too wouldn’t.
“It’s hard to relax with my hands cuffed and this hood over my head. It’s really hard to breathe.”
“I’m sure it is, and I will get them off of you as soon as we get to the house.”
“You don’t want me to see where we’re going, right?”
“It’s not that exactly. This is more for your safety than anything else.”
Was this guy serious? I had a hood on my head and it was for my safety? Who did this guy think he was? I wasn’t a stupid girl. I’m not sure what types of girls they usually have at those auctions, but judging by what I saw, very few of them spoke english or were young enough that they would believe everything they were told.
I decided that no matter how much he talked, I wasn’t going to say another word for the remainder of my trip. I watched enough crime shows to know that all it takes is one wrong word to set men like him off. If I kept quiet, I couldn’t say anything wrong.
We drove for a long time. I became more and more anxious with each passing minute, knowing that the longer the drive, the more remote location we were probably heading to. I had no sense of time, but I eventually felt the car turn off the paved highway and onto a gravel road, where we drove for at least another 10 minutes.
My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest when the car came to a stop and the engine was shut off.
Keep it together, Hannah. You’ll find a way to get out of this.
10
Reed
I knew there was no way she was going to believe a single word I said on the ride to the house. I’d just bought her at an auction for God’s sake. Still, I felt as though it was important to at least plant the seed so she’d remember the conversation later when she realized that there was more to me than just the asshole that bought her.
The tension in the car was thick when we pulled up to the house and I shut off the car. Her body tensed up, which didn’t go unnoticed by me.
“We’re here,” I told her. “Let’s get you into the house.”
I walked around to her side of the car, opened the door, and helped her out. I was expecting her to start screaming or attempt to kick me, or try to run, or something. Much to my surprise, she didn’t do any of these things. She just calmly got out of the car and followed my lead as I led her into the house.
As soon as we entered through the door, I locked the double-keyed deadbolt behind us and then set the alarm. She simply stood next to me, her head down.
“Now, I’m going to take the hood and handcuffs off of you,” I told her. “Now before I do that, are we going to have any problems?”
“No, sir.”
Walking behind her, I removed the cuffs from her wrist. It was at that point that I realized how tightly they had been applied and how much they were cutting into her skin. Once the cuffs were removed, I slowly lifted the hood over her face.
Her eyes were red and bloodshot, certainly a combination of lack of sleep and plenty of tears. Still, she looked radiant, even more beautiful than I remembered when seeing her out on the street.
“Hannah, it’s not necessary for you to call me sir. My name is Reed and you’re more than welcome to call me that.”
“Sure, whatever you want.”
Hannah
I wasn’t sure exactly what I was expecting to see when he removed the hood from over my head, but the man in front of me definitely wasn’t it.
While he was intimidating, it wasn’t in the ways I thought he would be. I was expecting someone fat, dirty, and obnoxious. Instead, he was tall, well-kept, and dare I say, extremely attractive. Why a man who looked like him would have to buy someone at an auction was beyond me.
The thought made me freeze in place. Maybe it wasn’t the way he looked that made the auction purchase necessary. Maybe he was into terrible, depraved, fucked up things that no woman in her right mind would be willing to do. Things that he is probably going to want to do with me.
“Come with me and I’ll give a quick tour of the house,” he told me in a very matter of fact tone. Not wanting to cause any unnecessary problems for myself, I followed behind him while he showed me around.
Although I could tell that it hadn’t been lived in recently, the house was huge and was obviously very well taken care of. The kitchen alone was the size of my entire apartment and the entire place had nicely updated furniture and electronics.
“These are just your standard rooms. This is the kitchen, the living room is over there, there’s a bathroom at the end of the hall, but there’s actually a bathroom attached to your room as well,” he told me. “As a matter of fact, let’s take a look at your room now.”
The fact that I had a bathroom attached to my room all but confirmed what I had feared the most. I was probably going to be locked into a room and only let out when something was needed from me.
While I was waiting for the auction to begin, I overheard a couple of the masked men talking about previous girls who had been sold off and the conditions they were living in. It wasn’t uncommon for the girls to be locked in a room, sometimes even a cage, and given limited food and water, often just enough to keep them alive. The only times they’d let the girls out was when they were being used for sex or they needed to bathe.
I held my breath when he opened the door to what would be my room, but was relieved when I found that there was no cage in the room. Looking at the door, it also appeared that there was only one lock on it and it was the type that could only be locked and unlocked from the inside.
The room wasn’t anything special. It had plain white walls, a bed in the center of the room and a dresser. There was a small television hanging on the wall. As promised, there was a private bathroom attached that was complete with a tub and shower.
What surprised me the most about the room was the window. I was sure I would be placed in a dark, damp basement with no natural light, yet I was staring at a large window that overlooked the back of the property.
I was trying to be inconspicuous about checking out the window, knowing that if I had any chance of escape, that was probably going to be my best option. Unfortunately, I failed and was a little too obvious.
“Yes, the room has a window in it. I’m not a monster and I’m sure as hell not going to keep you in a dungeon or anything like that. This whole situation is probably not at all what you think it is. The longer you’re here with me, the better you’ll understand.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, surprising myself as the question rolled off my tongue involuntarily.
“I’ll explain more about that over time. Right now, there’s a few things we need to go over. First of all, I’m gone a lot so you’re going to have full reign of this place most days. With that said, I need to let you know that the house has an active alarm at all times. Every door and window in the house is covered, so don’t get too excited about having that window in here. It can’t be opened anyway. There are also cameras in each room so I’ll be able to keep an eye on you while I’m away, at least at the beginning. There’s no way in or out without me.”
“So in other words, I’m your prisoner?”
“Not exactly.”
“All right, then all I have to do is say I want to leave and you’ll let me go?”
“No, it’s not that easy.”
“I didn’t figure it would be.”
11
Reed
“Hannah, are you awake?” I asked while knocking on the door after her first night in the house. I knew I didn’t have to knock before entering the room, but I wanted Hannah to know that, despite the unique circumstances we found ourselves in, I respected her enough not to barge in on her when she wasn’t expecting me.
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Hey, how did you sleep?” I asked.
“How did I sleep? I slept about as good as you’d expect a girl being held against her will to sleep,” she told me, her voice sounding every bit as cold as I expected.
“You must be hungry,” I assumed, desperate to try to change the subject. “I am far from the world’s best cook, but I’ve made some breakfast for the two of us.”
“No thank you, I’m not very hungry right now.”
“Look, it’s nothing fancy. Just some scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Why don’t you get dressed and meet me in the dining room in five minutes?”
Not waiting for a response, I turned and made my way back to the kitchen. I grabbed two plates out of the cupboard, filled each with eggs, three strips or bacon, and two pieces of buttered toast.
I wasn’t sure that she was going to come out of the bedroom, but I went ahead and took the dishes to the dining room anyway. Sure enough, she came walking out, looking every bit as skeptical as I expected her to be.
“Thank you for joining me,” I told her. “I was hoping to see you out here.
“It wasn’t as if I had a choice. If I wouldn’t have come out here on my own, I’m sure you would have been in the bedroom forcing me to do what you wanted anyway.”
“Have a seat. I think you and I need to get to know one another.”
I slid a chair out from under the table for her and she sat down, looking completely defeated.
“Do we really need to get to know each other? There are only two possibilities here. Either you are going to act as a pimp and whore me out to whoever offers you cash or you’re going to keep me to yourself so you can play out whatever depraved fantasies are in your head. Am I close?”
“No, you are actually way, way off the mark.” She cocked her head, obviously not hearing the answer she was expecting. “I think the two of us got off on the wrong foot.”
“You think? You purchased me at an underground sex club. I’m pretty sure there’s only one way that feeling can go.”
“Listen, I bought you, yes, but it wasn’t for reasons you think. I’ve been seeing you all around Vegas. When I saw that you were going to be a part of this auction, I knew I had to buy you.”
“So you were stalking me before all of this?”
“No, not at all. I would just see you around at restaurants, or at the gym. Most of the time, I would see you out running.”
“So let me get this straight. You would watch me around town, saw I was going to be in this auction, and decided you needed to own me? What kind of sick shit are you into? You could have just come and talked to me!”
“It’s not like that, Hannah. I don’t buy girls at these auctions, but you were different. You don’t know the full story.”
“Are you going to tell me the story? I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that I’m stuck here until you get tired of me. What happens to me after that, I have no clue. I’m just hoping you’ll let me go instead of killing me.”
“I’m not going to kill you. I have no interest in hurting you at all.”
“Can I just go home then? Can you just let me go?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. At least not right now.”
“I didn’t think so. I’ll just be a good little prisoner and do whatever you say. Can I go back to my room now?”
“I really think you need to eat first. I meant what I said. Let’s use this as an opportunity to get to know one another. I think you’ll find out that I’m not really a bad guy.”
12
Hannah
Was this guy for real? He wanted to take the opportunity for us to get to know each other? He wasn’t such a bad guy? This sounded like typical narcissistic, sociopath banter.
“Okay, so you want us to get to know one another. I get the feeling that you already know quite a bit about me. Do you want to tell me about you or should I just start asking questions?” I inquired.