Page 136 of Savage Roses

His unending love for me made him do it. He’d been hoping it’d set me free.

How can I take the easy way out when Salvatore hasn’t? How can I leave this earth knowing I’m abandoning him, quitting on our fight when I promised I’d stick by his side to the end?

It would break him if I did it; if I went through with this, and he discovered I’d ended my own life. He’d never forgive himself.

The scissors shake in my hand as tears fill my eyes and a gasping breath leaves me. As hopeless as I feel, as traumatic as this will be, I can’t give up. I can’t let them break me.

I have enough sense to hide the scissors the second before my minute is up and the door flies open.

“I didn’t hear no piss,” Cesar growls, almost dragging me beside him. “Let me find out you’re up to something and I will make you suffer in ways you can’t imagine, you little snotty bitch. If you thought that night in the alley was bad, you’ve got no idea what I’ll do to you.”

My eyes close listening to the depraved threat. I don’t notice until I’m shoved forward and locked into a giant cage that I’m being set up for the stage.

The curtain lifts and bright lights blind me.

Rows upon rows rise up so high the top levels are practically out of view. Almost every table and chair is filled with people dressed in their finest black tie garb, luxurious masks covering their faces.

A thousand murmurs breaks out at the revelation. At the sight of me, former Northam ADA Delphine Adams sitting perched in a cage, ready to be sold.

It’s the most humiliating moment of my life.

I bow my head, though it does nothing to stave off the panic quickly spreading. My breaths grow short, then sharp, then nonexistent as I struggle to breathe, and my throat feels like it’s closing up.

I can’t do this. I can’t handle this. I can’t take this.

Please. No.

An announcer speaks over a surround sound type system, asking the many Society members if they have an opening bid.

It spirals from there—before he can even finish asking his question, a man in the front row’s bid five hundred dollars. Another man challenges him by doubling his bid. Others soon join in, barking out their higher bids.

One thousand. Two thousand. Five thousand. Eight thousand.

I blackout. The moment overwhelms me to the point my psyche cannot handle the soul-crushing details of what I’m being forced into. I blink to find myself being collected off the perch in the cage. I’m being led into a hall by one of the Mill’s many guards.

It’s happened.

I’ve been sold.

He takes me upstairs via elevator and deposits me in what they call a playroom. My customer is already waiting. The door’s locked behind me. I don’t move, anyway, staying put by the door.

The man is in a suit and tie like the rest, his hair short and cropped, and his build average. Possibly his early-forties. He carefully reaches up and takes off his mask wearing a wide grin.

My next breath sticks to my airway. I back up further against the door.

“Stephen?!”

“I don’t know what’s happened to you, or how you’ve wound up here, but I couldn’t believe it when they brought you out.”

I gape in horror at a man I’ve met only once before. Years ago at one of Garrett’s work functions. I’d still been determined to be a supportive girlfriend and had taken to being on his arm at his work events. Stephen Talbert was a guy who worked at Garrett’s bank. I can’t even remember his job or anything else about him.

But the way he’s approaching me, his grin widening, tells me he doesn’t give a damn that I’m the ex-fiancée of his coworker.

I’m a product he’s purchased for a very specific purpose.

“Don’t,” I warn. “Don’t come any closer.”

He chuckles. “So you’re as feisty in the bedroom as you are in the courtroom. I like it. Garrett always said you were boring in the sack.”

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