Page 3 of His Public Claim
Oh god, nobody is going to bid. I’ll have failed. If there are no bids, that will mean no money for my father’s debts, and we all know what happens to mafia bosses who can’t pay?—
“Thank you, sir,” the auctioneer says.
I didn’t hear anything, and I search through the crowd desperately, trying to gather who bid. There are grumbles of “not sporting to start so high”, “she’s worth that and more”, and “too costly for me to even try”.
“Do I see one hundred and fifty anywhere?”
And this time I glimpse the casually lifted finger of the man bidding. The falcon. He’s plump, and wearing a double-breasted suit with bright gold buttons and a red silk handkerchief in the breast pocket.
I struggle to restrain a shudder of disgust.
Please. Please no.
My gaze flickers to the wolf, just as I hear the auctioneer say, “Two hundred.”
And this time I see the first man who bid. The cobra. His mask gleams, seeming to grin grotesquely.
My blood runs cold.
What did I say about no one bidding being worse? I was wrong, so wrong. There’s nothing that could be worse than losing my innocence to the cobra man, with his thin limbs and spindly hands.
I think of the tiny trinket I found in the park a few months ago, when I was taking a photo from my favourite spot at the top of a hill that looks across London. It was a little silver mouse charm, shiny and pristine, sitting on the wall as though waiting for me. The next day it was stillthere, and the next, until eventually I picked it up, and added it to my charm bracelet.
A cobra would eat a mouse. Inject it with venom and swallow it whole.
This is the worst day of my life.
2
LEV
I clench my jaw, impotent rage burning me from the inside out.
Nicole, my sweet, brave, innocent girl, is on stage beingsold.
I can’t take my eyes off her.
She’s wearing a skimpy white silk dress unlike anything I’ve ever seen her in. It’s cut low over her breasts, and has a slit that reaches right to the top of her thigh. Her long blonde hair falls in loose curls over her shoulders. I can’t hear the competition between those two Essex cartel arseholes over the buzzing in my ears.
She looks ripe and sweet and I’m not allowing anyone to take her tonight.
Until one of them bows out, it’s better to watch, and wait, and swear that I’ll keep her safe.
I’m a stranger here, even if I’m in disguise and so is everyone else. No one knows I’m a London kingpin working against the Essex cartel. They like their anonymity in Essex, which is understandable given the depraved things they get up to.
“Five hundred thousand!” the auctioneer crows. “Sir, will you bid again on this fresh flower, ready to be plucked?”
A growl rises in my throat.
“Six.” That’s the cobra.
The falcon counters with seven. Then the bidding is over a million pounds.
It’s not as though I don’t have the money. I do.
The problem is much more difficult than just finances. It’s getting out of here—the exclusive, luxury country house club of the Essex cartel—with my best friend’s baby sister safe and untouched.
She looks across the crowd from the round platform she’s displayed on. My myshka, my little mouse.
