I knew what it was of course. Those women were going to be sold—sold to rich weapons dealers and drug kingpins for their beds. They were sex slaves. Young women, twenty, nineteen. God, one had looked fifteen. I shook my head. I wanted to leave then and there, just walk out the door. I would have if I hadn’t stopped and thought about what Mr. Black would do if I did. If I walked out on a job, there was a chance my legs would be broken. And broken legs was the best-case scenario. I could also wake up at the bottom of a river, cement blocks strapped to my legs.
I didn’t say anything to Vlad. I didn’t know what to say. I moved to the edge of the stage and sat for a moment. My adrenalin was pumping, my heart beating a thousand miles a minute. I had been calmer in gun fights. Something about those cages, those women, it really got me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat.
Half an hour passed and men started streaming in. Not grunts like me, but rich guys. Mobsters, crime lords, all in expensive suits. Old guys, fat guys, one guy with a giant scar running from eye to chin that made Vlad’s look like a scrape a kid got falling off his tricycle. These guys were big time, though I noticed none of them were good looking. They were the kind of guys who had to throw their money around to get chicks. And what was an easier way than just buying a woman outright? I tried not to think about what was about to happen around me as I stood off to the side of the stage. Vlad was at the other end, and a few guys from different crews were dotted around the room. I didn’t expect trouble. In all it would be an easy job, if not for the fact that I was about to see women sold into sexual slavery.
Mr. Black wasn’t there, and I was thankful for that. Though if I was there, I knew he had his fat fingers in the pie somewhere and was profiting off the night. I tried to push it from my mind as the first woman was brought out.
I was expecting them to pull the cages out, but they didn’t. A man walked a woman out, bound at the wrists with thick rope. She was beautiful, wearing a short dress with a plunging neckline. I guessed she was thirty or a bit older, and then the bidding started.
Men in the audience, standing in front of the stage, held up small paddles. An auctioneer was onstage, standing next to the woman. It was over in a matter of minutes. An old man with a lazy eye I didn’t recognize bought the thirty-year-old for thirty thousand dollars. It was a lot of money to me, but somehow it didn’t seem as though it was enough for someone’s life.
The night wore on; women were paraded out, one after the other. All of them were pretty, and none were older than that first woman. I tried not to look at them, and I didn’t for the most part, but as they were led through the door at the back of the stage, I would steal a glance. I couldn’t help it. I had to see them, if only for a moment.
Then she walked through. I didn’t know her, of course, but something about her struck me. She was gorgeous. She seemed a few years younger than me. She had dark olive skin and dark hair. Her eyes were the brown of coffee with too much milk in it. She wasn’t American; I could tell that just by looking at her. She was Mediterranean. She had to be from Greece or someplace similar.
The young woman was wearing a short dress, much like the first one had been. She was curvy, with well-defined hips and large breasts that pushed at the top of her dress. Her nipples were hard—natural in the chilly warehouse. She looked terrified. Her lips were plump and sensual, and they were pulled into a tight frown. I saw her, and I felt as though I had known her for years.
The bidding was fast and furious for her. It got up to fifty thousand, and the next thing I knew it was at seventy thousand. I thought quickly. I had a couple hundred thousand in the bank. Not bad for a grunt like me; I knew how to save. The bidding was up to one hundred and fifteen thousand when it started to slow. I stepped forward just before the auctioneer could award the olive-skinned woman to a fat guy with a bad comb-over.
“One hundred twenty thousand,” I said.
Silence. Every face turned toward me. I ignored them and I looked to the fat man with the bad hair to see if he would bid more. He didn’t.
“Sir,” the auctioneer started, “that’s quite a sum.”
“I’m good for it,” I growled. Vlad made his way over to me from the other side of the stage.
“What are you doing, kid?” he asked.
“What I can,” I said. I was saving that beautiful woman, saving her from that horrid fat man, from a horrible life. I had to do something. I had to do something for her. I pulled my checkbook out of my pocket. I wrote a check and handed it to the auctioneer, and then I took the woman by the hand and undid the rope at her wrists. When she was free, I took her by the hand and pulled her off the stage.
“Kid,” Vlad said to my back. He didn’t say anything else, but there was a lot of unspoken meaning. I knew what he was saying, and I didn’t care. I led the woman outside and then across to my car. I helped her in and then climbed behind the wheel. I looked over at her. She was terrified.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, wishing she wasn’t afraid of me. She didn’t say anything, just stared at me with wide eyes. I turned the key in the ignition, my car roaring to life, and sped off toward my downtown apartment.
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