SOLD TO A KILLER Page 2

  Zherkov leans in, smoke and whisky washing over me. “Good choice, my friend. Good choice. But before this conversation goes any further, I must ask you something. Is it true you are well respected on the drugs commission?”

  “Yes,” I say without thinking. “I am one of the most respected men in America when it comes to drug legislation.”

  I lie freely and Zherkov eats it up. Plans form behind his eyes, plans which involve me fixing various laws so he can sell more drugs. I can almost see the piles of money reflected in his irises.

  “Very good,” he grins. “That dear girl’s name is Fiona, and she’s a right beauty. We acquired her in France.”

  Acquired her, that’s one way to put it. In reality Felicity (Fiona to these folks) was on a solo backpacking adventure across the French countryside when Zherkov’s men got news of this prize, dancing unescorted over the hills, and then proceeded to do the only thing they know how: capture, terrorize.

  “How about she serves me drinks before the auction?” I say. “So I can get to know her better.” And so all your friends can not only see me talking to you, but also see her talking to me, and let them make the connection that if they outbid me, they’ve somehow hurt you.

  “Oh, yes, sure . . . So you’re very respected on the matter of drugs?”

  “I’ve been involved in closing down many heroin-recovery clinics,” I lie.

  Zherkov’s face lights up at this. To anybody who didn’t understand how the drug trade works, they’d think closing down clinics was a bad thing. But no . . . if the proper government-sanctioned clinics are closed down, that leaves more room for Zherkov to reclaim the addicts and get them hooked to his product again.

  “Then you can spend as much time with that pretty lady as you like, my friend,” Zherkov says. “Maybe you will bid on her?”

  “Definitely.” I look meaningfully into Zherkov’s eyes. A silent conversation passes between us: If I do not win this woman, I will be upset, and if I’m upset, my incredible (if made-up) influence might be lost to you.

  Zherkov turns to a group of men behind us, whispers to one, and then waves an arm toward a seating area a few yards away. A long couch covered with plush leopard-print cushions and a bear-skin run at its foot.

  “There you go, my friend. A seating area all for you. Your lady will be along soon.”

  I make a small bow, just enough to be respectful, but not too far as to be groveling. “Thank you,” I say.

  I go to the couch and throw myself down, just as a careless corrupt politician would do.

  I watch as Zherkov’s man walks through the crowd, touches Felicity on the shoulder, and then points to where I’m sitting.

  Felicity weaves through the crowd and joins me at the couch, looking down at me with the fake smile which is plastered on the faces of every woman here. I smile back, just as fake, and for a second we stare at each other’s masks. Then Felicity does a curtsey.

  “Would you care for some wine?” she asks.

  “Sure,” I say, though I won’t drink it. I need a clear head.

  She places the platter on a small table near the couch, uncorks the wine, and pours me a tall glass. “I’m told you have taken in an interest in me,” she says.

  “You could say that.” I take the wine from her. Our hands touch, our fingers brushing. The tips of her fingers are ice-cold. I wonder if she’s more scared than she looks.

  Chapter Two

  Felicity

  Hope, never give it up. Hold onto it like you’re a dog with your teeth clamped down on a bone. Hold onto it like you’re a woman adrift in a tortuous ocean gripping a piece of debris. Hold onto it like you’re a mother clutching your child. Hope is everything. The human spirit is strong, that’s what I believe, and hope is the bedrock of that strength. Hope, really, truly hope, and you can conquer anything. Even being captive on a Russian mafia yacht getting ready to be sold to the highest bidder? That’s the snide part of my mind. I ignore it. The snide part of my mind is always trying to beat me down.

  Our hands touch and a shiver moves up my arm. A tiny spark of warmth. His fingers are warm, on fire compared to mine, cold from holding the platter and the wine and, I have to admit, a thread of fear which runs through my entire body.

  The man—his name is Alexander Smith, I think—is tall and muscular in a taut, tight way. He looks capable, sinewy. I can’t deny that he’s dashingly handsome, a sort of James Bond look about him in his tuxedo. His jaw is square, strong, and clean-shaven. He has a dimple in his chin and a slightly crooked Roman nose, which adds to his good looks. His is tidy, neat, not a black hair out of place on his head. His eyes are dark blue, inscrutable, and watch me intensely, the same way I imagine a wolf watches its prey. He asked for me specifically, I think. Another shiver runs through me.

  “Sit down,” he says.

  “Sit . . . down?”

  This is strange. All night, men have slapped my ass and grabbed my breasts and jeered at me and behaved like complete animals. Nobody, not once, has asked me to sit down.

  “Yes,” the man says. “Sit down.”

  The blade in my underwear—a small carving knife taped to my hipbone, stolen from the kitchens—digs into me. A hundred times tonight, I’ve regretted taking it. But it’s my only lifeline. I will not let them touch me. That’s a lie. They’ve already touched me. But I won’t let them really touch me. The idea of these seedy Russian men, and this seedy American politician, touching me against my will makes me sick. Dad, I think. Where the hell is the secret service? Where’s the FBI? What’s the use being an ambassador if you can’t call in the cavalry?

  The man waves his hand. “Sit close to me. I want them to see you sitting close to me.”

  I swallow, the gulp loud in my ears, but I have no choice. I am, after all, a captive.

  I sit down next to him, being careful not to disturb the knife in my underwear.

  “Now we have to make small talk until the auction,” he says.

  We sit close together, our legs almost touching, but he’s the only man tonight who hasn’t taken the chance to grope me. All the others, the first thing they do is reach out and grab, slap, tickle. It’s like they’ve never seen a woman before. I guess it doesn’t help that they’re all off their heads on chemicals, snorting, smoking, drinking. My skin is constantly tingling with the anticipation of more unwanted hands. But not this man. He just sits there, holding his glass of wine but not once sipping from it.

  Get him to buy you! my mind screams.

  It’s a thought born of instinct. Maybe this man is worse than the others; maybe he just hides it better. But all I know is that every other man tonight has looked at me like he wants to hurt me. This man looks slightly bored and not at all horny. That could be a mask, I think. But I’m not certain.

  I turn to him, smiling my best coquette’s smile. “What shall we talk about?” I ask, my voice sweet. I can’t think about the next step and the one after that. Get this man to buy me, and then . . . I shut my mind on the thought. And then will have to wait.

  He blinks, taken aback by my tone of voice. “Anything,” he says. “I need to be seen with you.”

  “You’re very determined about that,” I say.

  “I’m a very determined man,” he says, and I believe him. “The auction, it’s done with photographs, isn’t it?”

  I nod. “From what I’ve heard, they take us all to private rooms and then show the bidders photographs. Then the winner comes through and . . . Anyway, I guess they’re worried one of us might shout or cry or something and that would ruin the atmosphere.” Despite my plan, I’m unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Like dogs, I think. That’s what we are to them. Dogs to be auctioned off.

  The man laughs grimly. “And people say romance is dead.”

  He flinches, as if he’s said too much. I study his face. Hard, dark, impossible to read.

  “What does that mean?” I ask. “If you’re here, you must agree with it all.”

  �
�Of course I do,” he says. “I was just shooting the shit.”

  “Didn’t sound like just shooting the shit.”

  “Well, it was,” he grunts. “Tell me, Fiona . . .”

  There’s another tell that this man is different, I think. No other man has used my name—my fake name, anyway. It’s always pretty or sexy or gorgeous or whore or slut or once, even, hole. But never my name.

  “. . . what do you like to do?”

  “What do I . . . like to do?” I’m shocked, not only taken aback, but thrown aback, smashed into wherever aback is and sucking in deep desperate breaths. “I have to say, Alexander, that’s a strange question for you to ask me.”

  “Is it?” He shrugs. I think I see something in his face. Uncertainty, maybe. But I can’t be sure. Just focus. Make him bid! Make him buy!

  “Oh, I like many things,” I say, my voice sickly sweet. “My main hobby is pole dancing,” I go on, my voice getting even sweeter. That’s a lie. I’ve never pole-danced once in my life. But if I can get the image of me pole dancing into this man’s head, I might be one step closer to my goal. “I love the feel of the pole between my legs, I love the way my body moves when I’m grinding on it. It makes me really horny—”

  “Stop,” the man says softly. “I don’t want a damned lie. I want the truth.”

  “I’m not lying—”

  “That voice you’re using, it’s not your own.”

  “I have a feeling I could say the same to you.”

  He searches my face, eyes flicking down to my lips, then up to my eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?” A blank wall of a face, except for the ever-so-slight pulsing of his temples.

  “You’re not behaving like any other man here,” I say.

  “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that’s a good thing,” he says, baring his teeth in what could be described as a smile only if you were feeling generous. “Maybe I’m not like any other man here. But why don’t you think about whether I’m better or worse?”

  “I think better.” Without thinking, I lay my hand on his arm, feeling his taut muscles beneath the fabric of his suit.

  “I know what you’re doing,” he says.

  “Do you?” I tilt my head, as sexy and cute and buyable as I’ve ever been in my life.

  “Yes.”

  I make to remove my hand.

  He catches it at the wrist, holding it in place. “We are being watched,” he says. “Don’t you move.”

  “Is that how you talk to every lady you meet?” I dig my fingernails into his arm.

  He winces, but he doesn’t let me go.

  “It’ll take more than that,” he says.

  I dig my fingernails in even harder, letting all the repressed anger I’ve felt these past days—first being kidnapped from my peaceful holiday, and then forced to wear this ridiculous lingerie and serve drinks whilst being slapped and groped—I let it all surge into my hand, and I squeeze. But the man doesn’t respond. It’s like he doesn’t even feel the pain.

  “You’re brave,” he comments, letting go of my wrist. “If I do buy you, I’ll remember that.”

  A thrill of fear and something else, not excitement but not far off, moves through me. “Why did you ask me to sit here?”

  “Two reasons,” the man said. “Firstly, I wanted to see if you were well-behaved. Zherkov and his cronies wouldn’t let you serve anybody one-on-one if you were a troublesome one. Secondly, I wanted to be seen with you.”

  “And why’s that?” I say. I try and force my voice to be sweet again, but something has passed between us, something I don’t understand, can’t pretend to understand. We’re more comfortable around each other than the circumstances should allow for.

  “That’s not for you to know,” he says. A shadow of a smile touches his lips. Or do I imagine it? His face doesn’t change at all.

  “I’ll make you happy if you buy me,” I say, hating the words. But if I have to choose between a man who will let me dig my nails into his arm and one who would beat me purple for even trying such a thing, I’ll choose the former.

  “Will you?” He arches an eyebrow. “And how would you do that?”

  “Use your imagination.”

  I won’t say fuck you or anything like that, because I have absolutely no intention of letting any man here do that. That’s what the knife is for. If anyone tries it, their lecherous leer will get a hell of a lot wider, right up to their ears. I tell myself for the hundredth time: No man will force himself on me.

  “Maybe I don’t have a very good imagination,” he says.

  He doesn’t speak with the sickening tone most of the other men use. His voice is without inflection, almost mechanical. That could mean one of two things, I think. Either he has zero interest in any of this or he has ulterior motives. I try once again to search his face for a meaning, but it’s like trying to find meaning in a calm pool of water. There’s nothing, no reflection, no shimmer. Just cool calm.

  I’m about to respond when Zherkov claps his hands together. “Right, time for the bidding to commence. Ladies, please allow my lovely friends to escort you to your booths. And please, no funny business!”

  The man meets my eyes. “I’ll see you soon,” he says. And then I’m being led away by a burly man who has the look and swagger of a bouncer. He grabs me by the arm and leans down into my ear, whispering with way too much excitement in his sick voice. “If that one wins, he’s going to rape you raw, little girl. He’s the sickest bastard in this place. He’s a real sadist. I heard he likes to make ’em bleed.”

  I swallow and it’s like shards of glass are wedged in my throat.

  Have I just made an awful mistake? Have I just persuaded the sickest man in this place to buy me?

  We’re all led to the end of the ballroom, through a door, and to booths which are like prison cells, only a bed bolted to the wall, nothing else.

  I sit on the end of the bed and finger the blade, wondering if my hope, my unwavering dedication to hope, is misled.

  *

  I can’t hear the auctioning, only muffled sounds through the walls, laughter and cheers and what I think of as merrymaking, a phrase I only ever hear in the fantasy books I sometimes read. Merrymaking, yes, like a happy tavern where everybody is friends and nothing nasty ever happens. Merrymaking, where there is laughter and clapped backs and grinning and cheering and all the rest of it. Merrymaking, when men are led to women like farmers are led to cattle to do with as they please. But even farmers respect their cattle, need them; these men are monsters.

  I try to convince myself that the Alexander Smith is the man I first thought he was—in truth, the man I rashly assumed he was—and not the sadist I’m now convinced he is. Maybe it’s my frayed nerves, the constant fear I’ve been living in . . . my mind is like a pinball, smashing here and there, without any definite through-line. One minute he’s my savior and I have to convince him to buy me, the next I’m certain he’s going to kick the door in and do horrible, sadistic things to me. I can’t decide. I don’t know. I’m lost, literally and metaphorically. Adrift in the sea, upon a stranger’s yacht, a prisoner . . . and adrift in my own judgments, uncertain, just as much a prisoner. Just because he isn’t as openly lecherous, it doesn’t mean he’s a nice man, does it? How many nice men have turned out to be monsters when you scratch away their well-crafted masks? And the bouncer’s words . . .

  I pull down my underwear and take the blade from my hip. There’s a clear outline from where it has dug into my skin and a bead of blood drips down my leg from where it’s pricked me. I kneel down and place the knife under the bed. My hand trembles, but I ignore it. This isn’t a time for trembling hands; this isn’t a time for fear, or cowardice. This is the time to fight, to get angry. If he comes in here thinking I am some girl to be taken, used as he wills, he’ll get a damn rude awakening, that’s for sure.

  After a while, the sounds of the auction die down. Dozens of footsteps sound through the walls, growing louder. The men are being led
to the booths. I think of Fiona, this woman I have become. What sort of woman is she? A woman to lie down and take it, or a woman to cut and spit and fight? I grit my teeth and tell myself: I am strong. I can do this. I can fight. I will not be hurt. I will not be used.

  I don’t let myself think about what will happen once I’ve defended myself, just as stranded, just as alone. I can’t afford to think that far ahead.

  Two paths lay ahead of me. In one, Alexander Smith is the man I briefly glimpsed, the man apart from the evil of this yacht.

  In the other, I am covered in blood and searching for a way out.

  Then the door swings open and I don’t know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or fear.

  It’s Alexander Smith. He has won me.