Page 50 of Loving Lex

“It means your father is a douchebag, princess,” she said, her eyelids fluttering under a quick frown. A tiny moment of pity. “He’s letting the wolves have you.” Something almost pleading crossed her gaze. “Open.”

As I sucked in a shocked breath at her words, she shoved two pills into my mouth while I was off guard. I rolled them under my tongue in defiance, but she just looked back into my eyes. “Show me.”

Tears streaking down my cheeks, I opened wide, and Nicki met my eyes with an almost imperceptible nod. “If you behave, I won’t have to get rough like that,” she said. “Work with me, and I work with you.”

She moved to the next girl. And the next. And the next.

She knew what I’d done, I was sure of it.

One by one, I watched in stunned shock as each one took the pills, going even more lax after the man came back, until she’d covered the room. Only after they left and we were alone, did anyone stir.

And then, one at a time, each girl rose and quietly spit their pills into their hands, quickly depositing them into a drain hole in the concrete floor and scurrying back to their beds.

I was the last to rise and do the same, and my legs wobbled under me. I noticed I was the only one to do that. None of them were actually drugged.

“No one thinks to look?” I chanced to whisper again to my closest neighbor when I was back on my bed, sitting cross-legged.

Her eyes darted nervously, and she sighed. “That’s Nicki’s job,” she said, as if that explained it.

I blinked. “Okay.”

The girl looked at me again and raised an eyebrow, and my hazy brain function began to connect the dots a little better. “Oh,” I said softly.

Work with me, and I work with you.

“She’s on our side after all,” I said under my breath.

“As much as she can be,” the girl said finally. “She does what she has to to stay alive and keep us alive, but they’d kill her if they found out.”

“Who’s the asshole?”

She scoffed. “That’s Viktor. He’s—” She shivered. “Just stay quiet and don’t attract his attention. He’s the worst kind of hell.”

And this—this was my life now. And my dad let it happen? Who the fuck does that?

“Oh, my God,” I said, burying my head in my hands.

“It’s not always a blessing though,” she said in a whisper. When I looked up to meet her eyes, what I saw was haunting. “Not being out of it? Sometimes I wish I didn’t know what was coming.”

“What’s coming?” I asked wearily, swiping at my face. “What is auction?”

The girl’s eyes drifted toward the empty mattress where the blond girl named Tessa had been. “It’s where we’re bathed and primped and dressed up and put out under a spotlight like a prized pig,” she said. “While a bunch of rich psychopaths drink brandy and whack off in private rooms and place bids on who they want to buy.”

My mouth went dry, and my skin went clammy, this time having nothing to do with the drugs in my system and everything to do with how my life had changed just since morning. Assuming it was even the same day.

Oh, my God, Lex. He’d been sleeping when I left. Fucking sleeping. He had to have woken up and found my note. Noticed his truck was still there and come over.

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, baby, please be looking for me.

“You—you’ve done this before?” I breathed, my voice hitching with new emotion that felt frighteningly like hope. “And you’re still here?”

She nodded, looking away. “Sometimes it’s in a group, sometimes just one or two, but if you don’t sell, your price goes down.” Her voice cracked. “And each time, the clientele goes down to match your price point. The next time I go up, if I don’t sell—” She shook her head. “I’ll disappear. Either they’ll give me to Viktor...” Big tears filled her light eyes, and she squeezed them shut. “Or they’ll give me to some fetish crack house needing street whores where there’s no Nicki to protect anyone.”

Because they wouldn’t keep feeding and housing the animals they couldn’t sell.

I felt numb.

“What’s the deal with your dad?” she asked.

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