Trey - Shandi Boyes Page 0,82

in when I was nothing but a homeless-looking rat with a wish to die. He’s already proved how far he’ll go for the men in his crew. It’s why he’s so well respected, and the very reason I have no intention to leave his crew any time within the next decade.

Not needing to clarify my shock, Nikolai stands to his feet. “Give me the night with my woman, then we’ll head out by dawn.” He shifts on his feet to face Roman. “Find out where they’re holding the sale. I want to go in heavy but quiet.”

Sale?

What fucking sale?

Before I can voice my concern, Nikolai returns his eyes to me. “We will get K out, but if she’s responsible for hurting my Ahren…” His words trail off. He doesn’t need to say more. His eyes are very telling. K will be dead.

I’d be worried for her if I could feel anything over the thud of my pulse in my ears.

Twenty-Three

Sales Docket Number 12574

Achim Novak killed me. He strangled me until my lungs stop screaming for air, and my body went limp.

Then he revived me.

Now, I’m to be sold to the highest bidder.

Passed on.

Handed down.

Dismissed like a worthless, broken toy.

He’s made me pretty for my new owners. He polished my exterior so well none of my cracks can be seen. My hair was washed and blow-dried out until every curl represents a golden wave of perfection. I’m wearing lipstick for the first time. I even have on a pretty dress.

If you didn’t know what I’ve been through, you could think I was worth a few pennies.

Perhaps even a dime.

I know I’m not worth that much.

I’m broken.

Abused.

Incapable of escaping the dark.

That’s why I’m clutching the tiny shard of glass from the mirror in the back of the brush Achim left in my room. It’s my mother’s brush, a family heirloom that has been passed down from generation to generation. Its sentimental value meant nothing to Achim when he used it to ensure I’d fetch top dollar at his auction later today. He taunted me with it. Reminded me that I’m an orphan who got everything she deserved for whoring myself out to an unknown, now-dead man.

He snickered when he said his last comment, loving the faintest flicker of despair that darted through my eyes before I could shut it down. Then he gave credit to his remark I would have never believed without proof. Twenty-one teeny tiny lines of an obituary hurt me more than anything I’ve experienced the past six years. It siphoned the blood from my heart as effectively as my parents’ death, and saw me shattering the mirror on the back of my family heirloom against a set of drawers in my room.

It’s time to end things. To take back who I once was.

I’ll never be free until I free myself, and not even the dark can save me this time.

With my head tilted high, and my mind shut down, I stab the end of the glass into the vein in my neck that hasn’t quit thudding out its own tune the past thirty seconds before I thrust down.

Death usually means the end of a life, but that only counts for those who have truly lived.

Twenty-Four

Trey

Ten minutes earlier…

This place reeks of death and discretion, a stark contradiction to the elaborate compound scoured into the foothills of a sleepy hamlet west of Prague. Champagne is flowing, bids have been placed, and caviar is being served to pompous pricks in priceless tuxedos and over-beaded ballgowns.

None of the festivities have reached this far down, though.

The women here are glammed to the nines, but no amount of polish can clear the skank smell of desperation. If Achim’s guests were to come down here, the bids of men and women seeking their own live-in sex slave would be significantly reduced.

All the money in the world would never have you forgetting the smell. I scrubbed my skin raw in a shower five times a day for months when I was released from captivity. When soap failed to free me from the putrid scent, I took to my skin with a knife. Little nicks and a handful of well-hidden cuts stopped my stomach rebelling every time the slightest breeze rustled by, but within weeks, it was no longer enough.

Confident the undeniable scent of determination would overtake the smell of desperation, I commenced working out. I lifted weights, ran for miles, and swam in a lake not too far from Clarks even in the middle of winter.