Chapter 77: The Auction Begins
The grand room reeked of perfume and fear, the two scents braiding together so thickly that Emma could taste them on her tongue. The chandeliers threw honeyed light across the velvet-draped walls, catching the gleam of sweat on bare skin and the glint of syringes laid out on silver trays like hors d'oeuvres.
Allison moved through the crowd with a predator's grace, her scarred body poured into a blood-red gown that split to her hip. She had a line of coke dusted along her collarbone and a champagne flute in her hand that she hadn't touched. Emma watched her from across the room, watched the way she sized up each bidder like a butcher weighing cuts of meat.
The five women stood in a loose formation near the far wall, each one collared and leashed, their wrists bound behind their backs with silk cords. Ruby stood at the end, her red hair a shock of defiance in the dim light, her split lip still swollen from the night before. She looked at no one. That was the difference. The other four trembled, their eyes tracking every movement, every twitch of muscle in the room. Ruby just stood there, staring at a point on the far wall like she was waiting for something.
Emma circled to the wet bar and poured herself a whiskey. The ice clinked against the crystal. She felt the heroin still humming in her veins from the injection in the upstairs bathroom twenty minutes ago, the warmth spreading through her like honey.
Marcus Webb appeared at her elbow before she could take the first sip. He was a lean man in his sixties with silver hair slicked back and a mouth that never quite closed, always slightly open, always showing a sliver of teeth. He smelled of expensive cologne and something underneath it, something sour.
"Emma," he said, his voice a low rumble. "The redhead. I want her."
Emma took a sip of her whiskey. The burn was pleasant, familiar. "She's not ready."
"She's ready." Marcus didn't look at Emma. He looked at Ruby, and his gaze traveled down the length of her body with a collector's precision. "I can see it in her posture. She's broken. Clean break. Not like the others."
The others. The four women who had been trained for weeks, their wills eroded with heroin and degradation and the careful application of pain. Ruby had taken three weeks longer than any of them. She had fought every step. That fight was what made her valuable, and it was what made her dangerous.
"She's on the kill auction," Emma said. "She's not up for individual sale."
Marcus's hand settled on her bare forearm. His fingers were dry and cold. "Everything is negotiable. I'm prepared to make it worth your while. You know what I collect, Emma. You know how I pay."
She did. Marcus Webb was known for his generosity with cash, but also with access. He had connections in places that made even Hector pause. He had a private island in the South Pacific where the screams never reached the mainland.
Emma looked across the room to where Allison was forcing a woman to her knees in front of a gray-haired bidder, the woman's mouth opening around his cock with practiced obedience. Her eyes met Allison's across the crowd. Allison gave her the smallest nod.
"She's yours," Emma said, the words leaving her mouth before she had fully decided to say them.
Marcus's grip tightened on her forearm, his thumb pressing against the tender skin of her inner wrist. "Tonight. I want a private viewing. I want to see what's left of her."
Emma felt the dark clench between her legs, the anticipation that came from standing at the edge of something terrible. She had felt it before, the moment before she slid a blade into a man's throat, the moment before she watched someone break.
"Follow me."
Emma moved through the crowd without looking back, her heels clicking a steady rhythm against the marble. Marcus followed close enough that she could feel his breath on her neck, the sour smell of his cologne clinging to the air between them. She led him past the wet bar, past the velvet drapes that partitioned the hall from the corridor beyond, down the long hallway where the party's noise faded to a muffled hum.
The suite door was heavy oak with a brass handle worn smooth from use. Emma pushed it open. The room inside was larger than she remembered, a four-poster bed draped in burgundy silk, a fireplace already crackling against the cold mountain night, a cabinet of liquor glowing amber in the firelight.
"Wait here," she said.
She went back down the corridor to where the five women still stood in their leashes. The other four watched her approach with wide, pleading eyes. Ruby watched her with something else. Shame curdling into a hard resentment.
"Ruby. Come."
Ruby's jaw worked. She didn't move.
Emma walked to her and unhooked the leash from the silk collar. Her fingers brushed the bare skin of Ruby's neck, and she felt the woman's pulse hammering beneath her touch. "You're going to make this harder than it needs to be."
"I thought I was going to die on an auction block with strangers watching."
"You'd be so lucky." Emma gripped her arm just above the elbow and pulled her down the corridor. Ruby stumbled after her, not fighting, but not cooperating either, her bare feet slapping against the cold marble.
Marcus stood in the middle of the suite when they entered. He had poured himself a whiskey and was swirling it in the glass. His eyes traveled up Ruby's body with the slow precision of a man who had all night.
"Lock the door," he said.
Emma turned the bolt. The click echoed in the room.
"She's clean," Emma said. "Sharp. She'll still bite if you're not careful."
"I know. That's the point." Marcus set his glass down and walked to Ruby. He circled her the way Allison had on that first night, but there was no patience in his movements. He was already reaching out, his fingers finding the collar at her throat and sliding beneath it.
Ruby's chin lifted. A muscle twitched in her jaw.
"Take off the collar," Marcus said.
The words were soft, but they had iron in them. Emma watched Ruby's throat work. She reached up and undid the clasp herself, her fingers fumbling. The collar dropped to the floor with a soft thud.
Marcus's hands came up to cup her face. He tilted her head from side to side, studying the lines of her jaw, the hollows beneath her cheekbones. His thumb pressed against her split lip, and Ruby's breath hissed through her teeth but she didn't flinch away.
"Look at me," he said.
Ruby's eyes rose to his. There was no defiance in them anymore. There was something else, something hollowed out and waiting.
Marcus's hands moved down, untying the silk cord at the shift's shoulder. The fabric sagged, exposing one breast, the nipple already stiff in the cool air. He pulled the shift down over her shoulders, her arms, her hips. It pooled at her feet.
She stood there naked, the scar along her back catching the firelight.
"Beautiful," Marcus breathed. His hand slid down her sternum, over her ribs, coming to rest at her hip. "You fought, didn't you? You fought so hard. Edwige wouldn't tell me the details, but I can taste them on you."
"She broke me anyway," Ruby said. The words came out flat, the shame of it coating her tongue.
"Yes. And that's exactly what I wanted." Marcus's grip tightened on her hip. He turned to Emma, his eyes gleaming with that collector's hunger. "Leave us."
Emma held his gaze. "You have the night. She's ready for delivery tomorrow."
"I won't hurt her," Marcus said, his mouth curling into something that was almost a smile. "Not more than she can take. That's the promise I make to all my acquisitions. It's the ones who can't take it that I lose patience with."
Emma looked at Ruby one last time. The woman stood motionless, her eyes fixed on the fire, her body already surrendered to the inevitability of what was coming.
She left. The door locked behind her. And as she walked back down the corridor, the sounds of the party drifting toward her, she heard the first soft sound of movement through the oak, something rustling, something stretching, and then nothing at all.
Emma found Allison at the wet bar. She poured herself a whiskey and drank it down without tasting it. The heroin was wearing off, and the edge of the world was returning, sharp and cold.
"Did you give her to him?" Allison asked.
"Yes."
"Did she fight?"
Emma stared down at the empty glass. "Not this time."
Marcus turned on his heel without another word and crossed the suite to a door Emma hadn't noticed, set flush into the paneled wall. He pulled it open. A narrow stairwell yawned downward, lit by a single bulb far below.
"Come," he said.
Ruby followed him down. Her bare feet found each stair without hesitation, as if her body had already learned to obey something deeper than her will. The air thickened as they descended. Warm. Close. It smelled of beeswax and old leather and something metallic that made her nostrils flare.
The stairwell opened into a room that was not a room at all. It was a chamber, vaulted like a cellar, its stone walls dressed in dark velvet panels. The floor was a thick Persian rug, its pattern worn almost to nothing in the center. Along one wall, a rack of instruments stood under a glass case, and across from it, a low bed draped in black silk. Candles burned on iron stands, throwing wavering shadows up into the gloom.
"What is this place?" Ruby asked.
"Yours," Marcus said. "For as long as I want you."
He walked to the rack and unlatched the glass case. It swung open with a whisper. His fingers moved along the instruments, caressing them with the same precision he had used on her skin. He selected a thin paddle of polished ebony and weighed it in his hand.
"You said you were a cage fighter," he said.
"Once."
"You've had your body beaten. Punched. Broken." He turned to face her. "But you've never been taken apart the way I'm going to take you apart. Not by someone who knows exactly what they're doing."
Ruby stood in the center of the rug. She was acutely aware of her own skin, the air moving across it, the ache in her hips from the weeks of kneeling. She did not cross her arms over her breasts. That was the first thing they had taught her.
"On the bed," Marcus said.
Ruby lay back on the black silk. The candles threw her shadow against the velvet walls, long and still. Marcus set the ebony paddle down on the bed beside her and knelt, his weight settling on the mattress. His hands traveled up her shins. Slow. Patient.
"You'll scream tonight," he said. "Not because of pain. Because of what I'll make you feel before I give you the pain."
He bent and took her nipple between his lips. Ruby's back arched. A sound escaped her, thin and involuntary.
Up in the security room off the main hall, Allison watched the feed on a bank of black monitors. She had the volume up and her legs crossed. A cigarette burned in the ashtray beside her, smoke curling through the blue light of the screens.
Emma came in and let the door hiss shut. "How long has he had her?"
"Ten minutes." Allison didn't look away from the screen. Marcus had Ruby's knees spread now. His tongue moved down her ribs, her flank, the pale skin of her inner thigh. Ruby's head was thrown back, her mouth open, her scarred body glistening under the candlelight. "Look at her. She's already lost."
Emma leaned against the console. "She lasted three weeks before she broke. That put her in the top tier."
"The top tier of the broken." Allison reached for the cigarette and dragged deep. "Watch this. He's going to make her beg."
On the screen, Marcus had risen and was unbuckling his belt. He slid it free in one smooth pull and doubled it over in his fist. Ruby's eyes fixed on it. Her thighs trembled, but she didn't close them.
"Open your mouth," Marcus said.
"Please," Ruby said.
The word crawled out of her like it hurt her throat to speak it. Allison leaned forward, elbows on her knees, eyes hungry. Emma watched the screen in silence. The belt came down on the mattress beside Ruby's head with a crack like a gunshot. Ruby flinched. Her whole body tightened, then relaxed.
"Try again," Marcus said, and his voice had dropped to something soft and close. "Say it like you mean it. Ask me to hurt you."
Ruby's eyes were wet. Her lips moved. "Please. Please hurt me."
"Good girl."
Marcus laid the belt aside and climbed over her, settling his weight onto her thighs. She lifted her hips to meet him. Allison's breath caught. The cigarette trembled at her lips.
"Sit down," Allison said without turning. "You're blocking my view."
Emma pulled a chair over and sat. She watched Marcus guide his cock to Ruby's cunt, watched it push inside her with a single slow stroke that made Ruby's mouth fall open on a sound the microphones only half caught. He bottomed out and held there. Ruby's hands fisted the black silk.
"That's the look," Allison said, stubbing out the cigarette with a twist. "That's the exact look. When they hate it but their body won't stop."
Marcus began to move. Slow, grinding thrusts that made the bed creak in rhythm against the stone floor. Ruby's head rolled side to side. Her legs wrapped around his waist, locking at the ankles, drawing him deeper.
"He's not in a hurry," Emma said.
"The first one's always the education. He teaches them what their body is for. Then the second one teaches them what it's for when he doesn't give a shit." Allison leaned back and unzipped her dress to her waist. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. Her breasts spilled out, and she ran a thumb across one nipple, watching the screen with the same patient hunger she had used on Ruby in that bare room. "God. Watch her hips. She's already chasing it."
Ruby's hips were rolling. Her hands had found the edge of the bed and were gripping it, fingers white, heels digging into Marcus's lower back. She was alive beneath him in a way that made Allison's thighs press together.
"You'd do it too," Allison said, not looking at Emma. "If he had you down there."
"I'd kill him first."
"No, you wouldn't." Allison's voice was flat, almost bored. "You'd spread your legs just like her and thank him for it when he was done." She turned her head, eyes glittering in the monitor light. "That's what we do, isn't it? That's what we trained them for. We break them until they love the hand that hurts them. That's the whole product."
On the screen, Marcus had shifted. He pulled out and flipped Ruby onto her stomach, lifting her hips with his hands. The scar along her back caught the candlelight, red and ridged. He pushed back inside her from behind, and Ruby made a sound that was half sob, half moan. Her face was buried in the silk. Her back arched like it was asking him for more.
Allison's hand slid down her own belly. She watched Ruby's ass bounce against Marcus's hips, watched the way his fingers dug into her flesh hard enough to leave bruises.
"Don't," Emma said.
Allison looked at her, fingers still moving. "Why not? She's learning. I'm learning. Wasted opportunity to do it alone."
She turned back to the screen. Marcus's rhythm was faster now. Ruby's fingers clawed the mattress. Her voice rose, a reedy sound that the microphones turned into a wet, breathless plea.
Allison's mouth fell open as she watched. Her fingers worked faster. On the screen, Marcus drove into Ruby with a grunt, his hips slamming, the whole bed shaking. Ruby's throat gave out a long, shaking cry.
Allison gasped. Her shoulders pulled tight. Her thighs clamped around her own wrist.
And on the screen, Ruby came. Her body went rigid, her head snapped back, her mouth a silent O. Marcus kept pumping through it, and she didn't stop shaking.
Allison let out a breath, slow and satisfied, and pulled her hand away. "That's my work," she said. "That's the finished piece."
Emma pulled the chair closer to the console and sat. The leather creaked under her. On the screen, Marcus had Ruby on her hands and knees now, driving into her from behind with a rhythm that made her breasts sway. The redhead's head hung low, her hair dragging against the black silk.
"You keep watching like that," Emma said, "you're going to have to take a cold shower."
Allison laughed. "I haven't had a cold shower since I got out. Cold water's for people who need to think." She tilted her head. "He's not going to break her tonight. That's not what this is."
"What is it?"
"Marking. Territory. He's making sure she knows whose she is before he takes her somewhere else." Allison lit a fresh cigarette, the flame flaring briefly in the dark of the room. "The kill auction's tomorrow. He wanted first taste. The tasting always makes the main course sweeter."
Emma watched Ruby's face on the screen. The woman's eyes were closed. Her mouth was open. She was feeling something, whatever it was that Marcus's cock was dragging out of her. Emma couldn't tell if it was pleasure or just the shape of her own surrender.
"Does he know which lot she's in?" Emma asked.
"Not yet. I wanted to see how he handled her first." Allison drew on the cigarette and exhaled a stream of smoke. "The Morrows want her. The Millers want her. Webb wants her. Three houses bidding on one woman who was nothing but a mouthful of defiance three weeks ago."
"That's the point."
"Yeah." Allison's eyes cut to her. "That's the point."
On the screen, Marcus slowed. He pulled out of Ruby and rolled her onto her back. His hands moved up her belly, her ribs, settling around her throat without squeezing. Her eyes were wet. She looked up at him the way a dog looks up at the hand that feeds it.
"He's going to make her sleep with him," Allison said. "Then he's going to have her the rest of the night. Tomorrow she goes to the chamber and he gets to watch her die with the others."
"You have a problem with that?"
Allison crushed the cigarette out. "No. I've got an interest. That's the best thing a girl like her can hope for, someone who actually sees her. Half these buyers would take her back to a basement and forget she exists. Webb will remember her. He'll watch every second."
Emma leaned back in the chair. The heroin hum was fading, leaving a clean edge behind. She thought about Jim. About Maggie. About Caron. About the three of them in that California house, laughing, drinking, shooting up, fucking each other's brains out while the ocean crashed outside. They had been happy once. Then the debts had come. The bodies. The blood.
"Get me the list," Emma said.
Allison picked up a tablet from the console and swiped. "The ten bidders, all confirmed. Morrow family, the Millers, Marcus Webb, the Moretti brothers, Senator Hawke, the Zane twins, and two independents." She handed the tablet over. "The independents are new. We vetted them through the usual channels. They're clean."
Emma studied the screen. On the other monitor, Marcus had spread Ruby's thighs and was pushing back inside her. She was making sounds now, soft, keening sounds that the microphones picked up like music.
"You think they'll bid on Ruby?" Emma asked.
"Everyone will." Allison tapped the screen with a lacquered nail. "Look at her. She's a fighter who gave up. That's the most expensive thing we sell."
Emma set the tablet down. She watched Ruby's hips meet Marcus's thrusts. Watched the woman's hands find his shoulders, dig into the muscle there. Watched her mouth form the shape of his name, or something like it.
"After tonight," Emma said, "she's not Ruby anymore."
"No."
Allison reached over and put her hand flat on Emma's knee. Her fingers were warm.
"What do you want to do with the rest of the night, boss?"
Emma looked at the screen. Then she looked at Allison. The hunger in the woman's eyes was familiar. It was the same hunger that had been in Marcus's eyes, the same hunger that had been in Hector's. The same hunger that lived in her own chest every time she watched a woman break.
"Take me to bed," Emma said.
Emma led her down the corridor, past the muffled hum of the party, past the velvet drapes that muffled a moan from one of the back rooms. Her heels clicked against the marble. Allison followed close enough that her breath ghosted across the back of Emma's neck.
She unlocked the door to her chambers with a key she kept on a thin chain around her wrist. The room was dark, lit only by the moon through wide windows and the dying embers of a fire from hours ago. The bed dominated the space, a massive four-poster with black silk sheets, and on the nightstand, a tray with a single loaded syringe and a bottle of vodka.
Emma didn't turn on a light. She walked to the bed and turned.
Allison stood in the doorway, a silhouette against the corridor's dim glow. She reached back and pulled the door shut, and the room fell into darkness save for the firelight.
"You've been thinking about this all night," Allison said.
"Haven't I been thinking about it all month?"
Allison laughed, low and warm. She crossed the room and stopped inches from Emma, close enough that Emma could smell the whiskey on her breath and the smoke in her hair. Allison reached out, hooked a finger through the straps of Emma's black silk dress, and pulled them down her shoulders.
The dress slid to Emma's waist. Allison's hands moved to her breasts, cupping them, thumbing the nipples until they pebbled hard. Emma's breath caught.
"You watched him with Ruby," Allison said. "You watched me watch him. You've been getting wet for him or for me?"
"Both."
"Good answer."
Allison bent and took Emma's nipple in her mouth. Emma gasped, her head falling back, her fingers finding Allison's hair and gripping. Allison worked her mouth over the breast, sucking hard enough to sting, then switched to the other. Her hands hooked the dress at Emma's hips and pushed it down. It pooled at her feet.
Emma was naked. Allison stepped back and looked at her, the firelight catching the curves and hollows of her body.
"Lie down," Allison said.
Emma lay back on the black silk. The sheets were cool against her skin, still carrying a faint scent of perfume and something chemical. She watched Allison undress. Slow. Deliberate. The blood-red gown unzipped down her back and fell away, revealing the scar along her ribs and the hard muscle of her stomach. When she was naked, she stood there a moment, letting Emma look.
"You got a little while we were watching?" Allison asked.
"I've had it since the needle went in."
Allison climbed onto the bed. She didn't come up to kiss her. She crawled straight over Emma's body, settling her weight onto her thighs, spreading Emma's knees with her own. Her cunt was slick against Emma's skin. She looked down at her, eyes glittering in the firelight.
"Who's in charge tonight?" Allison asked.
"You know the answer to that."
"Tell me anyway."
Emma reached up, grabbed a fistful of Allison's hair, and yanked her down. Their mouths crashed together, hard, hungry, all teeth. Allison made a sound against her lips, something between a gasp and a growl, and pushed her pelvis down against Emma's.
Emma's hand slid down Allison's back, over her ass, and dug in hard enough to bruise. Allison moaned into her mouth, then pulled away, breathing hard.
"Spread your legs wider," Emma said.
Allison complied. Emma reached between them and found Allison's cunt, slick and hot. She slid two fingers inside her without preamble, and Allison's head fell back on a long, raw moan.
"That's what you wanted all night," Emma said. "Ever since you watched him push that girl's thighs apart."
"Fuck, yes."
Emma crooked her fingers, driving them deeper. Allison rode them, her hips moving in tight circles, her eyes squeezed shut. Emma watched the sweat bead on her skin, the way her mouth fell open.
"Look at me," Emma said.
Allison's eyes snapped open.
"You want to come?"
"Please."
"Not yet." Emma pulled her fingers out and brought them to her own mouth, tasting Allison's slickness. "You're going to make me come first. On your face."
Allison's breath hitched. She crawled down Emma's body, her mouth trailing over her belly, her hip, her inner thigh. When she reached Emma's cunt, she paused.
"You sure you don't just want me to fuck you?" Allison asked.
"I said on your face."
Allison laughed and ducked her head. Her tongue found Emma's clit, and Emma's back arched off the bed. Allison worked her with a practiced patience, licking slow stripes, then circling, then sucking the bud into her mouth. Emma's hands fisted in the silk, her hips grinding up.
"You're teasing me," Emma breathed.
"You want it fast?"
"Faster. Harder."
Allison flattened her tongue and pressed it against Emma's clit, then flicked. Her fingers slid back inside Emma, curling up, searching. Emma's hips bucked, a low sound tearing from her throat.
"Right there," Emma gasped. "Don't. Fucking. Stop."
Allison didn't. She worked her relentlessly, her mouth and fingers in tandem, her own arousal dripping against the sheets. Emma's breaths came in ragged waves. Her hands moved from the silk to Allison's hair, gripping, forcing her closer.
"I'm coming," Emma panted. "I'm coming on your face, you filthy slut."
Allison's answer was a vibration against her clit, a low hum that sent a jolt through Emma's spine. Emma's whole body seized, her heels digging into Allison's back, her cunt clenching around Allison's fingers as the orgasm crashed through her. She cried out, raw and unbidden, her head thrown back, the firelight spinning above her.
When it passed, she lay there trembling. Allison lapped at her gently, drinking the last of her, then crawled up her body and kissed her. Emma tasted herself on Allison's tongue, then pulled back.
"Your turn," Allison said.
Emma rolled them over. Allison's back hit the silk. Emma grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head, one hand holding both of them together.
"I'm going to fuck you," Emma said. "And you're going to come without touching yourself. If you do, you're not getting me until morning."
Allison's eyes went dark. "Make me beg for it."
Emma did.
She worked her way down Allison's body with her mouth, taking her time, dragging out every moment. She bit at her ribs, her inner thighs, left a row of red marks on her hip. When she finally lowered her mouth to Allison's cunt, Allison's hands fisted in the sheets, a long, shaking breath hissing through her teeth.
"God," Allison breathed. "Fuck, yes."
Emma licked her slow, savoring the taste, the heat. Allison's hips lifted toward her mouth, grinding, chasing. Emma kept her steady, pulling away just when Allison's breathing got too ragged, then going back in, relentless in her restraint.
"Please," Allison finally said.
"Please what?"
"Please make me come. Please."
Emma raised her head. "Not yet. I want you to come on my fingers while I'm in you."
Allison's eyes widened, then darkened. Emma slid two fingers into her cunt and crooked them, finding the spot, pressing into it. Allison's hips bucked, her mouth falling open on a strangled sound. Emma worked her with a steady rhythm, her thumb circling Allison's clit, never letting up.
And when Allison's orgasm hit, it took her whole body. Her back arched, her head ground into the silk, her mouth opened on a long, raw moan. Emma watched her, held her through it, kept working her until Allison slapped her wrist away, breathless and trembling.
Emma crawled up the bed and lay beside her. They were both slick with sweat, breathing hard, the fire popping softly in the grate.
"That was." Allison's voice came out rough. "Exactly what I needed."
Emma reached for the tray on the nightstand. The syringe gleamed in the firelight. She set it down beside her on the silk and looked at Allison.
"One round left in us," Emma said. "After that, I want you to tell me about Ruby. Everything you did to her. Every word she said."
Allison's eyes glittered. "You want to hear it while we're still wet from this?"
"Are you going to make me ask twice?"
"No." Allison smiled, slow and sharp. "I'm going to tell you everything."
Allison swung her leg over Emma's thighs and settled into her lap, her slick cunt pressing against Emma's belly. The firelight painted her scars in amber and shadow. She reached behind her and found the syringe on the tray, held it up to the light.
"You wanted to know about Ruby," she said. "Let me show you instead."
Emma watched her. Allison uncapped the needle with her teeth and spat the cap onto the silk. Her other hand found Emma's wrist and brought it up, turning her arm over to expose the thick vein at the crook of her elbow.
"Boss gets first taste."
Emma didn't argue. She held her arm steady while Allison swabbed the skin with a ball of cotton that smelled sharp and chemical. The needle slid in with a familiar burn. Emma's breath caught, then sighed out as the warmth spread up her arm and reached her chest. Allison withdrew the needle and set it aside.
"Give me a minute," Emma said.
"I'll give you two." Allison leaned back, bracing her hands on Emma's knees. "But you're going to tell me when it hits, because I want to watch your face."
The warmth spread through Emma's chest, her stomach, her thighs. The room's edges softened. The fire popped somewhere far away. She could feel everything, the silk under her thighs, the weight of Allison's ass on her lap, the air moving across her skin.
"It's hitting," Emma said.
Allison reached for the vodka bottle, took a long swallow, and capped it. Then she moved. She shifted forward, sliding her slick cunt down Emma's thigh, leaving a wet trail. The friction was electric. Emma's hands came up to Allison's hips, gripping the bone there.
"Ruby," Emma said. "Tell me about Ruby."
Allison grinned, slow and wolfish. "The first night, she spat on me. Did you see that? Right on my robe. I left the spit there for the whole first hour. Let her watch me wear it. Let her wonder if I was going to punish her for it or thank her for it."
Emma's fingers dug into Allison's hips. The heroin was cresting now, a warm golden wave that made her feel like her bones were melting.
"I didn't punish her," Allison continued. "That's the trick. You let them think they've won something. You let them get comfortable. Then you take it away. The second night she was standing in the corner for an hour while I smoked a cigarette and read a magazine. Didn't say a word to her. Didn't look at her. When the hour was up, I told her to crawl to the bed because I wanted to feel her lips around my smoke. She didn't understand. I held out the cigarette and told her to take it from me with her mouth. She had to crawl across the floor to get it."
Allison shifted on Emma's lap, rolling her hips. A low sound escaped Emma's throat.
"She was shaking," Allison said. "Her hands were shaking so bad she could barely hold the cigarette. But she did it. She took it from me with her lips and she crawled back to the corner and waited."
"Did she cry?"
"Not then. She cried on night four, when I made her thank me." Allison's hips moved against Emma's, grinding down, her wetness slicking Emma's thigh. "I had two fingers in her cunt and a vibrator on her clit and I told her she wasn't allowed to come until she said thank you. She fought it. She fought it for what felt like an hour. Her whole body was shaking. She was so close, and she hated me so much, and I just kept at her, kept riding her edge, and finally this sound came out of her, this tiny little voice, and she said thank you. And I let her come."
Emma's head fell back against the pillows. The heat was unbearable, the weight of Allison in her lap, the roughness of her voice.
"And then what?"
"Night six, she started coming before I asked. Her body learned. It didn't matter that her head was still fighting. She'd arch her back and she'd come and I could see the shame on her face, the way she turned her head away." Allison leaned forward, her mouth brushing Emma's ear. "Night ten, I made her kiss my feet. She did it. Didn't even hesitate."
The fire crackled. Allison ground down on Emma's lap, her thighs tightening.
"Night fifteen, she woke me up with her mouth on my cunt. I didn't ask her to. She just did it. I opened my eyes and she was down there, worshipping me, looking up at me with those wet eyes like this was all she wanted."
"And the last night?"
"Night twenty-one, I told her to sit in my lap and I fucked her with a strap-on until she came screaming my name." Allison's voice had dropped to a husky whisper. "She called me her maker. Her owner. Tears running down her face and she was saying thank you, thank you, please don't stop."
Allison slid a hand down between them, between Emma's thighs, finding her slick.
"Now you're wet for her," Allison said. "You're thinking about that girl on her knees, and you're wet."
"I'm wet for you," Emma said. "For what you did to her. For the way you talk about it."
Allison's fingers found Emma's clit. Emma gasped.
"Then let me hear you come saying my name."
Emma's orgasm hit like a wave, rolling through her body in long, shuddering surges. She cried out, Allison's name tearing from her throat. Allison watched her, moving her fingers through it, pulling every last tremor out until Emma lay trembling beneath her.
When the last ripple passed, Allison withdrew her hand and brought it to her own mouth. She slid off Emma's lap and lay beside her, pulling the silk sheet up over their bodies.
"He's still got her," Allison said after a moment. "Down there in that cellar. He'll keep her until the auction."
"Good."
Emma stared at the ceiling, the firelight lapping at the edges of the dark. The heroin was settling into her bones, warm and heavy.
"After the auction," Emma said, "I want the Millers' daughter. The seventeen-year-old. Have you gotten a look at her?"
Allison's head turned on the pillow. "The daughter? Boss, she's a bidder, not a product."
"She's got that look in her eyes. That hunger." Emma turned to face her, the silk whispering against her skin. "We'll sell her to the Morettis next quarter. That's profit enough. But before she goes, I want her broken."
Allison smiled, slow and sharp, the fire catching the edges of her teeth. "I'll have her in the break room by noon."
Allison slid out of bed an hour before dawn. The fire had died to embers, and Emma lay in a sprawl of black silk, one arm thrown over her face, the slow rhythm of her breathing soft in the dark.
Allison dressed without a sound. Dark jeans, a thin jacket, bare feet so her heels wouldn't click on the stone. She took the key from the hook by the door, the one that opened the cellar stairs from the inside, and slipped out.
The mansion was quiet. The party had ended hours ago, and the corridors smelled of cold ash and spilled wine. She moved through the main hall where the velvet drapes still hung, past the closed doors of the back rooms, to the paneled wall where Marcus Webb had found his private stair.
She unlocked it and eased the door shut behind her.
The stairwell light was a dim bulb far below. She went down slow, one hand on the cool stone, the air thickening as she descended. Beeswax. Old leather. That metallic tang that meant blood had been cleaned but never fully forgotten.
The chamber opened before her.
Candles burned low on their iron stands, gutters of wax pooling at the bases. Ruby lay on the black silk bed, naked, curled on her side with one arm tucked under her head. Her auburn hair was tangled, spread across the pillow like a stain. Marcus was gone. A glass case stood open, some of the instruments returned, others left out on the velvet.
Allison crossed the rug without a sound and stood over the bed.
Ruby's eyes were open.
She lay there watching her, calm and awake, as if she had been waiting. Her mouth curved into a small, knowing smile.
"I thought you'd come," Ruby said.
"You knew I was coming?"
"I counted the nights I had at the compound, the ways you watched me through the glass. You had the same look as him." Ruby sat up slowly, the sheet pooling at her waist. The marks on her ribs were livid in the candlelight, fingerprints already blooming into bruises. "Same hunger. You're just better at hiding it."
"You're sharper than you were three weeks ago."
"You made me sharper." Ruby's eyes slid down Allison's body, the thin jacket, the bare feet. "You came to finish what he started."
Allison reached the bed and put her knee on the silk. "I came to make sure you're ready for tomorrow."
"I'm ready for whatever you give me."
The words came out easy, with a warmth that would have sounded sincere to anyone else. Allison heard what was underneath. Threads of iron, loose but still intact.
"Let me see your mouth," Allison said.
Ruby opened it. No hesitation. The teeth were clean, the tongue still pink from last night's work.
"You spent the night with him and you didn't bite him once."
"I did what he told me."
"You'd have done it before I got here."
Ruby's jaw tightened, then relaxed. "Maybe. Maybe you taught me that."
Allison's hand came up and cupped Ruby's throat, just resting there, feeling the pulse under her thumb. Ruby held still. Not flinching, not leaning in.
"Say my name," Allison said.
"Allison."
"That's right."
Allison slid her hand down, over Ruby's collarbone, between her breasts. The skin was slick with sweat and the residue of Marcus's use. Ruby's breath deepened but her eyes stayed open.
"On your back," Allison said.
Ruby lay back. She didn't close her eyes. She watched Allison the way a chess player watches the board.
Allison knelt between her thighs and spread them with both hands. Ruby's cunt was swollen, slick with another man's come, the lips parted and raw. Allison ran two fingers through the mess and brought them to Ruby's mouth.
"Clean it off."
Ruby took her fingers between her lips and sucked. Her tongue moved slow and deliberate, eyes locked on Allison's.
"That's it," Allison said. "You learn."
"I already learned."
Allison pulled her fingers free and lowered her mouth to Ruby's thigh. She bit down, not hard enough to draw blood but hard enough to leave a ring of teeth marks around the bone. Ruby's stomach jumped. Her hips tilted up.
"You want more?" Allison asked.
"Yes."
"Say please."
"Please."
Allison shifted her mouth up Ruby's body, kissing each rib, dragging her tongue through the hollow of her belly. When she reached Ruby's chest she sucked one nipple into her mouth and bit down on it until Ruby gasped.
"Please," Ruby said again, before she was asked.
Allison took the other nipple the same way. Ruby's hands fisted in the silk, her hips rocking.
"Who are you?" Allison asked.
"Yours."
"What are you?"
"Yours."
"Good girl."
Allison slid her hand between Ruby's thighs and pushed two fingers into her. Ruby's head snapped back, a raw sound tearing out of her throat. She was tight, already worn from the night, but her hips pushed to meet Allison's hand.
"Tell me where he touched you," Allison said.
"Everywhere."
"Where'd he make you come?"
"Three times. On his hand. On his cock. On his face."
"How'd that feel?"
Ruby's eyes went dark. "Like what I am."
Allison crooked her fingers, and Ruby's mouth fell open on a breathless moan. Her hips rolled. Her hands found Allison's wrists but didn't push.
"He's going to kill you tomorrow," Allison said. Ruby's eyes widened, then steadied. "You know that."
"I know."
"And you're going to let him."
Ruby's jaw worked. "What else am I going to do?"
"You could fight." Allison's thumb pressed against her clit, and Ruby's body arched off the bed. "You could tear his throat out with your teeth when he walks into that chamber. You could die wild."
"I thought that's what the training was for. To put the wild down."
Allison increased the pressure, working her steady. Ruby's eyes went glassy. "Some women learn how to die free. That's the hard course. I only take the good ones."
A sound broke from Ruby, half sob, half laugh. "Then why didn't you start it?"
Allison drove her fingers deeper. Ruby's back bowed, her heels digging into the silk.
"Are you asking me to?" Allison said. "Right now, in the dark? Be honest. I'll know if you lie."
Ruby's mouth worked. Her hips pushed against Allison's hand, chaseing the pleasure like a drug. "Yes," she finally said, and her voice cracked. "Yes, I'm asking."
Allison watched her face as she came, the way the light broke in her eyes, the way her throat opened on a sound that was almost a scream. She didn't stop until Ruby's hands closed around her wrist, trembling, finished.
When it was over, Ruby lay panting, her chest heaving. Allison drew her hand out and wiped it on the sheet.
"Tomorrow," Allison said, "in the chamber, he'll give you a choice. He always does. Take the needle or take the knife."
"I know."
"When he offers you the knife, you take it. You hold his gaze. And when he opens the door to the observation room, you smile."
Ruby sat up, her eyes still wet. "What happens then?"
Allison stood. She looked down at the woman on the black silk, at the marks and bruises, at the fire still smoldering in her gaze.
"Then you make him wonder if you're going to use it wrong."
Ruby lay still, her chest rising and falling in the fire's dying light. Allison swung her leg over the woman's hips and settled her weight down, straddling the prone body. Her bare thighs pressed against Ruby's ribs, and she felt the redhead's breath hitch.
"Don't move," Allison said.
Ruby didn't. Her hands lay flat against the silk at her sides, fingers spread, the posture of surrender made physical.
Allison reached down and gathered Ruby's auburn hair in one fist, pulling her head up off the pillow. Ruby's throat arched, a vulnerable white line exposed in the candlelight.
"You're going to die tomorrow," Allison said.
"I know."
"I've watched you every night for three weeks. I've felt you break. Piece by piece. The night you cried, the night you came without being told, the night you said my name in your sleep without waking." She tugged harder, drawing Ruby's chin up until the woman's eyes found hers in the dark. "That work doesn't end when you're dead."
Ruby's jaw worked, but nothing came out.
"When Marcus walks into that chamber, he'll offer you the needle or the knife. You take the knife. You hold his gaze. And when you hear the door to the observation room open, you smile."
"I got that."
"You got that." Allison shifted her weight, grinding down against Ruby's ass, the silk hot between them. "But you need to understand what you're smiling for. Not defiance. Not fear. You're smiling because you're the next but not the last woman he is going to kill and he will know what to do with that."
Ruby's breath came faster. Allison could feel the pulse hammering through the woman's ribs.
"Say it," Allison said.
"I'm the next but not the last woman he is going to kill."
"Again."
"I'm not the last thing he'll ever own."
Allison released her grip. Ruby's head dropped back to the pillow, her hair spilling across the silk. Allison ground down harder, a slow roll of her hips against the prone body beneath her. The friction was heat, sliding through the thin sheet between them.
"You'll die pretty," Allison said. "I'll make sure of that. I'll put the collar on you myself."
"Will you watch?"
"I'll be in the room behind the glass."
Ruby turned her head, cheek pressed to the silk, eye to the candlelight. "Then I'll perform."
Allison laughed, low and dirty. She rocked against Ruby's ass, the orgasm building slow in her belly. She didn't hurry. She worked herself against the woman's body like a cat on a warm stone, drawing it out, savoring the heat.
Ruby's hands curled against the silk. Allison grabbed one and pinned it flat.
"You don't come until I do," Allison said.
"Yes."
Allison rode her, grinding down, the pressure building until her thighs trembled. Ruby held still, her breath ragged, her pulse hammering under Allison's palm. The fire popped. The candles guttered.
Allison came with a long, shuddering sigh, her head thrown back, her hips grinding in slow circles until the last ripple passed. She sat there a moment, panting over the prone woman beneath her.
Then she leaned down and pressed her mouth to the back of Ruby's neck.
"Tomorrow," she said, "when you hold that knife, you remember who put the steel in your hand."
Ruby's voice was muffled against the silk. "Allison."
"That's right and willl die by it to pleas Marcus and me and Emma.”
Allison swung off her and stood. She pulled her jeans on, zipped them, and left the cellar without looking back. The stairwell swallowed her footsteps, and the candles burned low over the woman on the black silk, alone with what she'd been told.
By midnight the next evening, the kill chamber was lit and the bidders were in place. The observation room ran along one wall behind a sheet of reinforced glass, the velvet drapes drawn back. Emma stood at the center with her hands folded, Marcus Webb beside her, his eyes already gleaming. Allison took her place at the far end of the glass, away from the others, close enough to see the grain of the concrete.
Ruby was brought in at 12:08. She wore only the black collar, her hair loose, her body bare and marked. She walked the length of the chamber without hesitation and stopped on the chalk circle painted in the center of the floor. Her chin came up. She looked directly at the glass, directly at Allison, and held her gaze.
John Adams stepped out of the shadows. He was an old man, barrel-chested, with a face like cracked leather and hands that hung heavy at his sides. He circled Ruby once, slow, then stopped in front of her.
"The needle," he said, "or the knife."
Ruby's eyes did not leave the glass. "The knife."
Adams crossed to the steel table and returned with a blade, long and thin, the edge catching the lamplight. He held it out to her, flat in his palm.
Ruby took it.
She weighed it, the way she had weighed the flogger in her first room. Her thumb tested the edge. Her eyes never left the glass. Allison leaned forward, her breath fogging the window.
"She's going to do it," Marcus said from the other end of the room, his voice low and hungry. "Look at her. She's going to take the steel and go soft. That's the finish."
Ruby smiled. She turned the knife in her hand, blade toward herself, and stepped into John Adams's space. The old executioner watched her with flat eyes, waiting for the script he knew.
She raised the blade.
Then she flipped it. The knife spun once in her palm, hilt-first, and she drove it forward through the opening in Adams's guard, deep into the meat of his thigh. He grunted, a wet sound, and staggered back. His hand went to the wound, blood seeping between his fingers.
The glass erupted in a chorus of shouts. Guards surged from the side door. Marcus screamed, a high, furious sound. Emma did not move.
Ruby stood in the chalk circle, breathing hard, the knife still in her fist and blood on her hand. She turned to face the observation glass one last time. Her mouth curved into a wide, bright smile, the smile of a woman who had finally been given permission to be wrong.
"Allison," she said, clear as a bell, "I kept the steel."
She held the knife up, showed it to the glass, to Allison. Then she dropped to her knees, planted both hands on the concrete, and pressed her mouth to the blade. She bit down, holding it in her teeth, and looked up at the glass one last time.
Two guards caught her before she could move again. They tore the knife from her mouth, dragged her to the steel table, and pinned her flat. John Adams limped over, fury burning through the pain in his leg. He took the knife from the guard and pressed it to her throat.
Ruby's eyes found the glass, found Allison, and she held them open.
"She broke the script," Marcus hissed from the observation room. "She broke the goddamn script. I paid for a show, not a riot."
"She gave you one," Emma said, quiet, without looking at him.
John Adams cut her throat. It was fast and clean, a line of red that opened across her neck like a smile. Ruby's eyes stayed on the glass while the light left them, and the final thing she saw was Allison's face, watching her the way she had watched her every night for three weeks.
The chamber went quiet. Blood pooled on the concrete in a dark halo around the steel table. The bidders shifted behind the glass, some murmuring, some already leaving for the refreshment room.
Allison did not move from her place at the far end of the window. She stood there until the cloth was laid over Ruby's body, until the guards carried the table out, until the spot of blood was scrubbed from the chalk circle and the next name was called.
Across the room, Emma met her eyes. She raised her glass in a small toast.
Allison thought of the cellar, of Ruby's hands moving under her own in the dark, of the words she had taught her, steel in the hand, and the way the woman had smiled when the door opened. She touched her own throat, felt the pulse there, and turned away from the glass.
The observation room emptied around her. The bidders filtered out through the velvet curtains, their voices already turning to the refreshment table, the wine, the next name on the list. Marcus lingered at the door, still fuming, but Emma caught his eye and he went quiet, a man who knew better than to push when the boss had that look.
Allison stayed at the glass. She watched the guards scrub the chalk circle clean, watched the blood darken the concrete and then disappear under the mop, and she did not blink.
Emma crossed the room. Her heels clicked on the wood floor, slow, deliberate. She stopped beside Allison, close enough that her shoulder brushed Allison's arm.
"We need to talk," Emma said.
Allison turned. Her face was a mask, calm and unreadable, but her eyes were still burning.
"Talk," she said.
"The cellar. What you told her. The knife." Emma studied her, a slow, appraising look. "You gave her a script, and she followed it. Not the one she was given. Yours."
"She was ready to die anyway. The way she did it, she got to choose."
"John Adams won't forget that. Marcus won't either." A pause. "But they don't decide who survives this house."
Allison waited.
Emma held her gaze. "Hector is dead. I run the operation now. And I need people around me who understand what we're building." She gestured at the glass, at the empty chamber below, the spot of blood already fading. "You do. You understand it better than anyone I've worked with. You don't flinch. You don't hesitate. You know how to break a woman and how to read one."
"I know how to do a lot of things."
Chapter excerpt truncated at the edge.