Page 34 of Betrayed Auctioned Mate

“Keira? Come in.”

Silence.

I suppress a sigh, leaning back against the wall as I scan the room again. She’s probably just ignoring me—still pissed off after everything that happened last night. I can’t blame her. Hell, I’m pissed off at myself. But not hearing from her now, when we’re in the middle of something this dangerous, it makes me… uneasy.

Would she really ignore me at a time like this? I feel a tingling in my fingers that feels like panic. Maybe I’ve fucked up irreparably this time. Maybe she’s on a bus back to New York right now.

I push the thought aside, trying to focus on the mission. We’ve done this before. We’ve handled worse. And Keira is more than capable of watching the monitors from the pack center without needing to talk to me, and that’s what she’s doing. She’s always been good at keeping things professional. I, of anyone, would know.

The crowd is growing restless, murmurs of anticipation rippling through the air as they wait for the doors to the auction room to appear. I catch snippets of conversation—talk of “new merchandise” and “high-quality shipments”—the scum are talking shop.

My fingers tighten around the glass in my hand as I hear one man chuckle about the "premium stock" of women arriving tonight. I have to resist the urge to break his nose.

Stay in control,I remind myself.This is bigger than just one lowlife.

“We got it,”Raf says irritably in my mind, and I don’t apologize for the unintentional cross-talk.

Keira doesn’t reach out on the comms. Even as the doors to the auction room open and we all file in, taking our seats around the stage in tiered semi-circular rows, I hear nothingfrom her. I peer up into the cameras on the ceiling. Is she watching me?

Byron’s voice chips in in my in-ear piece. “Lighting is lowest in the back left corner, so we need your eyes out on that side. Hunker down there. Raf is in the front row in the far right.” From here, I can see the top of his head, hidden under a spiky black wig.

I clear my throat softly so as not to draw attention from the crowds funneling in. As I gun for a seat in the corner, I brush past Percy re-entering the room from a side entrance with his tray of drinks. He hip-checks me subtly. We don’t make eye contact.

Three older men speak in rapid French in the back corner, clearly wasted. I don’t understand a word, so I angle my head subtly in their direction and hope my in-ear will pick up enough of their conversation that it can be recorded and translated. It could be useful to have.

The stage lights must be blinding from up there. I scan the crowd. It’s deliberately very dark off the stage and painfully bright on it. I can make out very few faces around me. They’re all phantoms, laughing and clinking their glasses. I hate them all.

Don’t get angry. Focus on the job.

Percy checks in.“Ado,”he says with uncharacteristic seriousness.“You good?”

I affirm that I am. I don’t think I’m lying. I think I can handle this. We just have to gather as much intel as we can, listen in on as many conversations as possible, and note the names and faces of buyers.

The auction begins with an unsettling formality. A slick-haired man in a crisp suit steps onto the stage, his face bathed inwhite light. The audience falls into a hushed silence as he greets them with a smile that’s as cold as the room itself.

“Gentlemen,” he purrs into the microphone, “welcome to tonight’s exclusive auction. We have some extraordinary items for you this evening—the finest weapons, the rarest drugs, and, of course… our premium stock.”

My mouth sours at the euphemism, but I keep my face impassive. The auctioneer gestures to a table being wheeled onto the stage by two assistants. A velvet cloth covers the items, but when they pull it back, the crowd murmurs in approval.

Firearms, sleek and polished, are displayed with an almost sickening reverence.

“First, we have a rare collection of automatic rifles, customized for precision and efficiency. These beauties are top of the line, and they come with full guarantees of… discretion.”

Bidding begins immediately, hands shooting up in quick succession. The prices climb rapidly, and I watch as the men around me nod and whisper to one another, discussing their future purchases like they’re selecting wine for dinner.

I make mental notes of the bidders, their faces partially obscured in the darkness but not enough to escape my attention. A bald man with a heavy beard raises his hand with a grunt, offering an obscene amount of money for a collection of grenades. Another with slicked-back hair and gold rings around every finger counters with a bid for a crate of high-caliber ammunition.

Each item is sold off quickly, efficiently. Byron murmurs in my ear every so often, noting the faces I describe and cross-referencing them with our database. Many of these people are familiar to us, repeat offenders in this twisted underworld. But most are new, and their presence sets me on edge.

The auction shifts from weapons to drugs, and the energy in the room rises palpably. The crowd becomes more animated, more eager. Packages of synthetic drugs, enough to supply entire regions, are auctioned off to the highest bidders. The exchange of money and goods feels too casual or routine for something so destructive.

As I watch the proceedings, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off. I’m not hearing enough from outside. And Rafael and Percy have blocked me out—I don’t hear them at all, though they’re certainly communicating with each other.

I tap my earpiece again, trying to reach Keira.

“Keira,” I whisper, “you there?”

Nothing. Silence.

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