Page 2 of Dark Possession
The room I step into is as different from the unassuming exterior as it can be—rich mahogany walls, deep-pile carpeting, and dim, intimate lighting. A mahogany bar runs the length of one wall, a bartender behind it busy polishing glasses already shined to a high gloss.
A few men sit and drink at tables scattered throughout the room, their gazes raking over me in bland but annoyed interest as the door closes behind me.
My nerves rise up once again as I survey my surroundings. Nothing indicates my next move. Where am I supposed to go? Koka just said to enter, and everything would be taken care of. He didn’t say the room would be full of men who looked like they’d just as soon shoot me as speak to me—
“May I help you, Miss?”
The bartender’s voice is low but audible, and I turn toward him gratefully. “Koka sent me. He said arrangements would be made—”
“Ah.” He raises a hand with a glass, stopping the flow of words. “This way.”
Setting the glass down, he leads me around the back of the bar and through a half-hidden door, made of mahogany panels like the rest of the wall. It opens to a dim hallway lit by a single dangling lightbulb.
“Through there, last door on the right.”
It’s late to be seized with doubt, but it rears itself nonetheless. “There is…someone…waiting there?”
He frowns. “You are here for the auction, no? Someone will be along to prepare you.”
“I…okay.”
Marina. It’s Marina or you.I force a smile and begin to walk.
“Move along.” A hand in the center of my back shoves me forward, sending me almost to my knees. Almost.
I catch myself, palms slapping against the rough concrete of the narrow corridor’s floor, and push myself back up. I flash the brute behind me a glare and smooth the satiny slip they dressed me in over my hips as I continue to walk.
This is not what I signed up for. Not what I expected.
When Koka told me that I could sign up for an auction and be “sold” to pay off the fifty thousand, I expected something along the lines of Miss Moscow—eye candy for an agreed-upon length of time, a top shelf companion who doesn’t argue and doesn’t talk back—with sex and sexual favors, of course. I’m not so naïve to think I’d get away with only providing a pretty face and agreeable conversation.
No one is going to pay fifty thousand for the pleasure of a woman’s company and not get laid.
This, though…this is definitely not some high-priced escort auction. Most of these girls are young, in their early teens if I had to guess. They’re fearful and nervous, many with tear tracks lining their faces.
The men are rough and carry guns, but it’s more as if they’re here to keep us from leaving, rather than protect us from any external threat.
One of the girls holds herself very carefully, and even in the dimness of the space we’re in, bruising is visible through the sheer material of the negligee she wears.
I’m struck again by the certainty that Marina would not have fared well here.
The man—Igor?—mutters something, and I hear one of the girls further back in line squeak as he turns his attention to her.
Part of me wants to do something—help her, help all of these girls being herded down this dim, cold hall like so much cattle—but the other, more practical part knows there’s nothing I can do. I can’t fight the bratva.
Whatever brought these other girls here is obviously very different from what brought me here. I just hope I haven’t inadvertently gotten myself into something I can’t get out of.
Fear grips me suddenly. What if Koka doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain and ensure that I’m released after whatever length of time is agreed upon with my buyer? What is he even going to negotiate on my behalf?
Nausea curdles my stomach, and I press a fist against it. It didn’t even occur to me to press him for details like that. I just assumed… Holy Mary, I’m an idiot! Koka could do anything! What if he sells me to some South American cartel, and I never see my family again? What if—
The line stumbles to a halt as we draw close to a set of stairs, and my heart gives a hard thump. At the bottom of the stairs, another man corrals the girls into a small foyer. I look around, but there’s nothing much to see. Something about it, though, some sense of oppression—makes me think we’re underground.
We line up along the wall single file as several men, including Igor, stride back and forth, inspecting us. They lift a chin here, twitch a neckline down there…tuck a strand of hair behind an ear. Their gaze is critical.
Even if I hadn’t known from Marina’s tearful confession yesterday, there would be no mistaking them.
Bratva have a certain look. It’s not necessarily size or a gun or the tattoos, although those things tend to follow. It’s a certain hardness about the features and a deadness behind the eyes. It’s the calculation in their gaze and the way they miss nothing around them.
