Page 18 of Spiders in the Grove

Cesara nods. Then she looks over at me. “What do you think, Lydia?”

I think Frances Julietta Lockhart is a fraud—like me. Unlike me, I think she’s never done anything like this before. I think she’s in over her head. And I think whoever sent her here is an idiot, because she’s gonna get herself killed.

“I think you’re right,” I answer Cesara. “But it’ll be interesting to watch.”

All of us are right by the second hour, and ‘Frances’ is out of money. Cesara and the woman sitting at the table next to us marvel in the anticipated “look on her face” when Frances realizes she can’t afford the next girl whose starting bid is half a million dollars—a huge difference from the ten, twenty, and fifty thousand dollars she’s used to. Everybody else in the room sees a “tantrum” when Frances sits quietly in her chair, close-lipped, tense, a knot moving down the center of her throat every two-point-four-seconds. I see someone finally realizing she’s in over her head, someone who is as frightened as she is angry, and someone who thinks whoever sent her here is an idiot, because she just might not make it out of here alive.

Joaquin has a habit of looking right at Frances every time a new girl is brought on stage and it’s time to bid, expecting her to raise her paddle before anyone else. But after the fifth and sixth girl, who sell for one million each—to Robert Randolph, smugly, of course—nobody looks toward Frances Julietta Lockhart anymore except the two beefy bodyguards who sit with her at their lonely little table.

The first night of a three-night auction ends with Frances going back to her hotel, presumably—because she did not book a room in the mansion like many guests—with thirteen new slave girls, all totaling one million, one hundred fifty thousand—one girl, the last one she bought, she paid the most for, and it undoubtedly took all she had. It was a bidding war with Robert Randolph, but he was too smart and experienced for Frances. He knew when to keep raising his paddle; he could see the anxiousness and frustration in Frances’ face, just like I could, and he used it to his advantage: he bid against her until he knew she was out of money, and then he let her have it, forcing her to spend all that she had, and putting her out of the game. For a girl that wasn’t even worth half as much as Randolph forced Frances to pay.

And although she was a “spoiled little bitch” and she was here to buy girls, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about her I liked so much.

But Frances is the least of my concerns, and not what I came here for. So, putting my interest in her away, and focusing on the task at hand—and finding Naeva—is all I have room for to care about.

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to figure out how not to have to fuck Joaquin Ruiz, because he just walked into my and Cesara’s room, and I already know where this is heading.

Izabel

Cesara greets Joaquin, takes his suit jacket for him and hangs it over the back of a chair near the door. He unbuttons the top two buttons of his dress shirt as he walks farther into the spacious suite; a sexy, confident air about him that’s surprisingly not off-putting. His face looks like it was sculpted by a Renaissance artist who gave him perfectly contoured cheekbones and shapely lips and piercing eyes that somehow look vacant, yet are full of intensity and expectation. He is an attractive man, I admit; the younger, livelier version of his infamous brother; but he’s still not Javier no matter how much I believe he wants to be.

Cesara sashays in and out of the room, returning with a bottle of wine and three empty glasses clutched in one hand.

“We did well tonight,” she says. “Sold all ten girls for more than expected. Tomorrow night is looking even more lucrative.” She sets the bottle and glasses down on a table and pours the drinks.

Joaquin nods. “Sure,” he says, “but many of them were sold to the same woman—a character, that one.” He takes a seat on a lavish antique sofa, resting his left arm upon the length of the sofa arm, his long, manly fingers dangling over the edge.

“I think her father is trying to break her into the business,” Cesara says, “by throwing her in head-first.”

“Costly way of doing it,” Joaquin puts in.

“Sure,” Cesara agrees, “but learning from one’s mistakes through head-first experience is the quickest and most effective way.” She pauses, and then adds, “I don’t suppose she’ll be joining us tomorrow night though.”

Joaquin smiles. “I’d be surprised if she did; a shame, really—an inexperienced buyer is always good for us.” He shrugs. “No matter; we’ve got more big buyers coming tomorrow night, that, I’m confident, will make up for Miss Lockhart’s absence.”

His comment gets my attention. More big buyers? Maybe all is not lost yet.

“Is that why you make it a three-night event?” I ask.

“Yes,” Joaquin answers, places his lips on his glass and sips as he eyes me. “Not everyone can show up on the same day; we like to give our buyers options.”

“Well, if I was a buyer,” I say, “I’d worry about all the best girls being sold off on the first night.” I remain standing, and I refrain from eye contact with him as much as I can.

Cesara hands me a glass of wine, and, with a look in her eye, and the subtle backward tilt of her head, she insists that I join her and Joaquin on the loveseat.

Fuck…

Reluctantly, I do. And I see she notices it straightaway, the reluctance.

Think fast, Izabel…you gotta get yourself out of this.

“Tell me about the buyers,” I say as I sit down—right next to Joaquin, because that’s where Cesara wants me, between them—and try to keep conversation the number one activity for as long as I can. “Are there any who I should be…aware of, for any reason?” I’m fishing for clues on Vonnegut; I just hope it comes off as an innocent inquiry.

“In time you’ll learn these things,” Cesara says, combing her fingers gingerly through my hair.

“Yes, but since we are in the middle of my first auction event, it’d be nice to have some pointers.”

“Head-first is the best way to learn, remember?” Cesara says with a grin, and then her eyes dance over the rim of her glass as she drinks from it slowly.

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