Page 1 of His Public Claim
1
NICOLE
I look around at the audience watching me. The spotlights make it difficult, but through the glare I can see the shapes of the people—one who is going to take me tonight.
But not their faces. They’re all wearing gold masks in the shape of animals’ heads. The masks cover their eyes and nose, leaving their mouths revealed.
All predators.
Tiger, bear, lion, cobra, eagle, they lounge on plush reclining sofas and chairs. It’s a veritable zoo.
If zoos featured billionaires in suits.
Ha. If I had a mask—and I really wish I did—it would be of a mouse. I’ve seen mouse symbols everywhere in the last couple of years. And when I’m taking photographs, I sometimes feel I’m a mouse. Unseen, quiet.
But this is no place for a little mouse. I have to be brave.
There is luxury here beyond the dreams of even a mafia princess like me. Champagne, caviar, marble floors, and paintings of entwined naked figures with gold frames that twinkle mockingly at me. The French doors into what Iassume must have been a ballroom in this big manor are open, but there’s no breeze. Just the sweetly-scented air of a sultry hot summer night.
I’m standing on a raised platform in a white dress. A sacrifice, or a bride. Which, I suppose, is right. I’m a bride of sorts.
Innocent. Here of my own volition. About to be taken.
“Friends of the Essex cartel. Welcome.” The auctioneer is also wearing a mask, but it’s a smooth Janus one with a wide grinning mouth. “I appreciate your discretion in all putting on masks. The anonymity keeps this event a delightfully uninhibited spectacle.”
I grit my teeth. Delight is very subjective. I tilt my chin up.
I will not give anyone the satisfaction of seeing how awful this is for me. Keeping my V-card for my brother’s best friend? Mistake. Because it’s turned out to be the only valuable asset of the Highbury mafia.
“Tonight’s entertainment is Nicole Highbury. Our courageous young lady comes to us courtesy of the financial troubles of her family.”
That is a very creative interpretation. It tells nothing of my mother’s tears, my brother’s horrified expression, my father’s ashen face. It skips how the Essex cartel encouraged then forced my father to overstretch himself and how I, the pampered, protected daughter, was ignored when I raised concerns.
And when the cartel enforcers came for payment, we had nothing.
“To pay off her father’s debt to the Essex cartel, she will auction her virginity.”
I wasn’t going to stand back while my family was ruined when we were being offereda way out.
During my hours-long make-over, the Essex women shared all the catty gossip over my head, like I was a doll. In the process, they let slip what we didn’t know when we agreed to this: where exactly the virginity taking happens.
In public.
I admit this is not how I imagined my first time. I thought there would be a softly-lit room with a nice but uninteresting man my parents had chosen for me as a political alliance in London.
Secretly, I dreamed of something else, of course.
Of Lev Vasiliev. My brother’s best friend.
He’s the Bratva kingpin of Dalston, a powerful mafia boss. But to me, he was my tween crush over family dinners that my parents would invite him to join. He was my sexual awakening when he’d arrive in only a pair of grey sweatpants at the house after running with David. He’s sixteen years older than me, and has consistently treated me with warmth, but distance.
It’s been so long my brain makes up glimpses of him. This is no different from the time I thought I saw him when I was buying fudge at the cute shop where the old lady always gives me a free sugar mouse, or imagined him following me when I was snapping candid shots and close-ups of little birds in the park.
Except, of course, I’m not taking photographs now. I’m about to have my virginity taken.
Lev’s the man I’ve never managed to stop thinking about, even though everyone would be horrified if they knew how I adore him.
Including Lev.
