Page 20 of Peyton's Price

It was true the agents had broken the rules for his friends before, but this was different. The FBI couldn’t infiltrate a ring of human traffickers without reams of paperwork and months, maybe years, of surveillance.

Liam had known people in danger…women he cared for, the wives of his friends and his brother. Even his brother and sister had come under a sniper’s crosshairs, though they hadn’t been the actual target.

This was a different corner of hell entirely. There wasn’t a single fixated psycho behind this, or a family as had been the case with Tahlia, his brother’s wife. A group that would take a woman had to be sure they could keep her hidden, make her disappear. Most preyed on the defenseless, girls and women who had no one to help them and wouldn’t be missed.

Peyton didn’t fall in that category. Even if Dylan hadn’t told his drug supplier about her connections in Boston, he would have shared the fact she had a job at a prominent Silicon Valley company. They had to know someone would search for her.

And they took her anyway…

His chest compressed as he racked his brain, trying to recall everything he knew about human trafficking. Thanks to a series of whiskey-fueled conversations, it was a bit more than the average man.

The people who took Peyton were either complete amateurs or an established-enough outfit that didn’t care if the disappearance came under police scrutiny. Liam started to pray it was the latter because he knew what to do then—the one thing he swore he’d never do again.

He had to call Matthias.

Chapter 12

Someone was going to buy her today.

There were no voices here. The man who’d escorted her to this bare but well-lit room had dragged her by the arm with a grip so tight he left fingerprint marks. Peyton briefly considered trying to kick off one of her heels to use as a weapon, but she’d been dissuaded by the second and third man trailing behind them carrying machine guns. All were long gone now. She was alone…waiting yet again.

Peyton hadn’t expected to see her again, but roughly a week after the heinous woman with the clipboard visiting her the first time, she’d come back to inform Peyton auction day had arrived.

Peyton had been scrubbed clean, then given a pristine gown the color of driven snow. Again, she was warned to be subservient, not to speak—at all. Not that they would ask her to.

“Your only job is to stand there and look pretty,” Mega-Bitch told her.

Peyton was tempted to claw her own face open, anything to stop this atrocity, but she was too afraid. The machine guns had smelled of spent gunpowder, an odor she had learned to recognize after her best friend had married an FBI agent. She’d noted the distinctive tang on both Jason and Ethan, usually after they went to the range to practice with their service weapons.

The scent of these guns had been so much stronger…as if they had just been used. Peyton didn’t want to imagine on who. Instead, she did as she was told and went into the room to wait.

Will they bring the other girls in soon?Or would they be dragged onto the stage individually?

Peyton hadn’t seen many other prisoners in the complex where she was being held, but her instincts told her there were quite a few. The amount of infrastructure and security told her this was a big operation. Big, but secretive. She’d only caught a glimpse of one of her fellow prisoners during mealtime. A guard had unlocked her door to leave a tray. A young girl, no more than seventeen, was being escorted down the hallway.

For one brief moment, they locked eyes. The pale blonde beauty had been terrified. Peyton didn’t blame her. The girl hesitated, but the guard had given her a shove, moving her along. The next second, she’d been gone.

Peyton had spent the rest of the day brainstorming how to rescue that girl when she succeeded in breaking out.

She knew that was a foolish fantasy now. There hadn’t been any missed opportunities where she could have snuck away. The only time she was ever alone was in her cell or in this waiting room.

Her eyes watered under the bright overhead lights. She wobbled in the sky-high stiletto heels she’d been forced to wear with the long white dress that denoted her status—virgin.

Peyton’s neck was so stiff she thought it might snap, but she couldn’t will her muscles to relax, even for a moment. But she waited and waited, trying in vain to calm her racing heart.

And still, nothing happened.

When were they going to transfer her to the auction room? She kept picturing a stage with a small and select crowd of men hidden in the shadows. They wouldn’t want her to see their faces. Even the man who bought her might have her blindfolded so she couldn’t identify him. Unless…They wouldn’t pluck out my eyes, would they?

Stop that.Peyton was letting her imagination run away with her. She would probably be beaten in addition to being sexually assaulted, but she would survive that. She had to…

I just have to wait for my chance.Sooner or later, there would be an opportunity to escape. She had to be ready for it.

It was the faint whirl that alerted her to the camera. Squinting, she looked up, directly into the bright lights against the wall, quickly turning away when her vision swamped out.

I’m an idiot, she realized. She wasn’t going to be carted off and forced on a stage before an audience. She was already on the auction block.

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