Page 3 of Bought By the Masked BRATVA
I move through the crowd toward the auction hall, catching fragments of conversation. Deals being whispered behind masks and champagne flutes. This is where real power operates, in these spaces between legal and criminal, where a handshake means more than a contract and everyone's secrets are currency.
I've been attending these events since I was twenty-three, learning the landscape, building relationships, establishing myself as someone reliable. Someone who delivers. Someone you don't cross.
The stage has been moved to the middle of the ballroom for the second night, round and deliberate and ready for all kinds of debauchery.
It’s still empty. Velvet curtains drawn, gold light waiting to spill. Somewhere behind them, men and women are preparing to sell their secrets. Or themselves. I’m here to buy access, not company.
People move around, settle into a space. I feel her arrive beside me. A brush of perfume, subtle, expensive, and something in me tightens. She’s watching the stage too, head tilted, mask matte, even beneath the chandeliers. Her hair swept up to reveal the delicate line of her throat. Her dress is simple but indecently effective, clinging in all the right places, catching the light like poured ink.
“You’ve been to one of these before?” I ask, because I need to hear her voice.
She glances up at me. Her eyes are pale behind the mask, impossible to read. “No.” A small smile. “Is it that obvious?”
I shake my head. “Not obvious. Just… you don’t look like someone who enjoys watching people sell themselves.”
Her mouth curves, soft but knowing. “And you do?”
“I enjoy watching people reveal what they really want,” I say. “Money makes most of them honest.”
She hums, a low sound that slides under my skin. “That’s one way to put it.”
“What’s your way?”
Her gaze drifts back to the stage. “Desperation makes people honest. Money decides the price.”
It’s a sharp answer, not flippant. The kind that makes me want to know where she learned that truth.
“Then what are you here for?” I ask.
“To measure the worth of the people we’re taught not to trust.” She glances at me again, eyes steady. “And you?”
“To win exactly what I want.”
That earns a quiet laugh, breathy, almost private, and I find myself leaning a fraction closer just to catch it.
“Good luck with that,” she murmurs.
She looks away first, and I tell myself I imagined the spark. But I know I didn’t. It’s there, alive between us, dragging at my attention every time she shifts, every time her fingers toy with the stem of her glass. I’m half tempted to ask her name, half certain it would ruin whatever this is.
The lights dim. Conversation dies.
"Welcome," Sergei says, his voice carrying easily through the space. "Tonight, we offer opportunities. Routes, contracts, access. As always, bidding is final and binding. Terms are non-negotiable by either party once accepted."
The auction has begun.
Grace
The first lot is announced, and the air in the ballroom shifts. Power, desperation and greed, all humming at the same low frequency. People turn toward the stage, eyes gleaming behind masks. I stay where I am, on the edge of the crowd, glass of champagne balanced between my fingers like a prop.
It’s easier to hide when you’re still.
The woman onstage smiles too brightly as the bidding begins. Men’s voices rise, clipped and casual, as if they’re discussing the price of a painting instead of a person. I take another sip, let the bubbles bite at the back of my throat. The mask helps; it turns me into someone else. Someone who can stand here and pretend she isn’t thinking about what happens next.
The mask means no one sees the truth. That my life outside this ballroom is crumbling. That the world has already decided I’m guilty. That I’ve been stripped of my reputation, my job, my name.
My hand trembles slightly as I drain what’s left of the glass. The taste is too sweet, almost cloying. Like a lie I’ve told one too many times.
I can still feel the man from earlier, the one who asked if I’d been to one of these before. The sound of his voice still loops in my head, smooth and cool and far too observant. He lookedat me like he could see straight through the disguise, and for a heartbeat I almost told him everything.
