Page 5 of Bought By the Masked BRATVA
At thirty-eight million, the other bidder drops out.
"Sold," Sergei says, nodding to me as the hammer drops.
I feel the satisfaction settle in my chest, cold and clean. Those routes are mine now. Six months of preparation, and it paid off exactly as planned.
The paperwork will take a few days to finalize, but the deal is done. I could leave now, go back to my room, start planning how to integrate the new routes into my existing network.
I should feel satisfied. I should be thinking about logistics, transport, contracts. But the moment I turn, my focus fractures.
She’s gone.
The woman with the simple mask and sharp mind, the one who’d managed to make me forget where I was for a whole five minutes, isn’t beside me anymore. The empty space feels too deliberate, like she’d been pulled from it. I scan the crowd, irritation pricking at the base of my neck. The ballroom is a tide of shine and suits, faces I know, masks I recognize. And then—
There.
She’s on the steps to the stage, walking with that same quiet grace, every spotlight catching on her pale hair. For a second, my brain refuses to connect the image with reality. Then she steps into the center of the light, and the sound in the room dies.
Recognition prickles in the back of my mind.
“The terms of sale,” she says, her voice clear and steady, “is that I get protection for life, from everything, in exchange for everything I know.”
The name clicks into place just before she says it out loud. Grace Casey.
I’ve seen her face on every news feed for the last three days. The disgraced consultant, the political scapegoat, the woman who supposedly sold state secrets for sex and cash. I’d skimmed the reports between meetings, filing her away as another casualty of power games I don’t lose sleep over. Pretty, clever, ruined. The kind that gets eaten alive because she still believed in rules.
But the woman on that stage doesn’t look ruined. She looks like she’s shedding her skin.
The crowd stirs. I can feel the calculation ripple through them. What she knows, what it’s worth, how dangerous it could be. To them, she’s information wrapped in scandal.
To me, she’s the woman who stood beside me and made the room go quiet.
The auctioneer hesitates only a heartbeat before recovering his composure. “Bidding starts at one hundred thousand.”
I’m still staring at her when the first hand goes up.
“One-twenty.”
The number barely registers before my hand rises. “Two hundred.”
The auctioneer nods. Another bidder across the room, some financier I’ve seen sniffing around Kozlov, calls, “Two-fifty.”
“Three.” My voice is low, even.
The numbers climb. Four hundred. Five. A senator I could destroy with a single phone call grins behind his mask and raises his card. My pulse doesn’t spike, but my jaw tightens.
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away. Just stands there like a queen surveying her subjects, letting us compete for the privilege of protecting her.
“Seven hundred thousand,” I say.
A hush rolls through the room. They’re not bidding for her anymore, they’re bidding against me.
Grace sways slightly under the lights. Her mask hides most of her face, but I can see the tremor in her hand where she grips the microphone. It hits something primitive in me. Protect, claim, shield.
Someone offers eight.
“Nine,” I answer before the word finishes leaving his mouth.
The auctioneer’s gaze flicks between us, sensing blood. “Do I have—”
