Page 28 of Auctioned Innocence
With each button, each clasp, I remind myself:This is temporary. This is strategy. This is survival.
Let them think I’m cooperative. Let them think I’m scared.
Iamscared.
The fear runs like ice water through my veins, threatening to paralyze me if I let it.
I’m scared of what happens in two days if no one comes.
Scared of who might “own” me if the auction proceeds.
Scared of never seeing my family again.
Never seeing Dante again.
But under the fear is something harder. Something colder.
Something that has faced down threats since I was old enough to understand my family name made me a target.
I brush my hair with the soft-bristled brush provided, arranging it the way my mother taught me for formal occasions.
I apply minimal makeup from the high-end cosmetics on the vanity.
I transform myself into what they want to see: a valuable, compliant asset.
Inside, I become something else.
Something with steel for bones and ice for blood.
I am scared.
But I’m also Sofia Renaldi.
I’m the girl who helped bring down Anthony Calabrese.
I’m the girl who’s been breaking into secure systems since I was fourteen.
The girl who’s always been underestimated, overlooked, protected—and who’s always found a way to prove herself anyway.
I can take down this operation too.
I just need to stay alive long enough to do it.
The camera tracks me as I move to the window, looking out through the ornate grate at manicured gardens below.
I see nothing that indicates our location—no landmarks, no distinctive features.
Just wealth and isolation.
The electronic lock disengages, and I turn to face whoever enters with a neutral expression carefully crafted to show appropriate fear without defiance.
The game begins now.
And I intend to win.
6
DANTE
