“Lindsay. Stop! Stop this! Just go cool off,” Anton said, pulling the doctor back.
Lindsay wrenched out of his grasp and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him. Mina flinched when Anton helped her up.
“I should have told him no when he asked about you. When you came to Dome, I was going to do more, but I couldn’t. You had so much fear coming off you. Even with the excitement, it was too much fear. I thought he would kill you, so I said yes. He knows he’s made a big mistake and that you don’t deserve to die for it. Let me talk to him. I’ll try to calm him down.”
When Anton left, Mina curled up in the bed in the middle of the room. She hoped the sheets were clean, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to disappear. She cringed and clenched the blankets over her head as the shouting in the hallway grew louder. The walls were thick, so she couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she could imagine.
After a while the shouting became loud talking, and then a murmur of normal speech. And then silence. The door opened again. Lindsay walked back in, composed, Anton behind him. Anton stood in the corner while Lindsay pulled a chair up to sit beside the bed.
“Here is how it will be,” the doctor said. “I have to have photos of something. No one will buy you sight unseen. So we are going to do photos that aren’t nude. Just normal everyday pictures. I will speak to my contacts and explain the new development in this situation to see if I can find anyone who will be patient with you long term, who can accept that you might be far too broken to ever be anything more than their maid. Can you clean? Can you cook?”
Mina couldn’t meet his eyes. “Y-yes, Sir.”
“Good. Because it’s probably about all you’re good for.”
“W-why can’t I just stay here?”
“We are not going to feed and house you as a permanent guest. You have no use in this house. And you think Brian is going to resist the temptation to fuck you up beyond repair? You think Jason was bad? Jason is an amateur next to Brian. Brian is a full-on sociopath. If he wasn’t doing this, he’d probably be a serial killer. Can you tell me you want to stay in a house with a man like that and risk your paths crossing?”
“N-no, Sir.”
“I didn’t think so. I’ll do what I can. Just pray I can make a deal. If I can’t…”
If he couldn’t he’d have her killed.
***
Brian got back to the house well after dark. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Mina. In an unsettling turn of events, he’d come to see himself as her protector. The idea of protecting Mina from Lindsay was so absurd, he almost laughed out loud in the entryway.
He was about to go downstairs when he heard voices coming from the conference room next to the shrink’s office. That was… odd. There wasn’t a meeting scheduled. Were they having meetings without him now? Things had been tense with the partners ever since Vivian. It was as if her presence—and his threat—had finally set them against each other in a more permanent way.
They were all on one team; Brian was alone on the other. Which was ridiculous. They couldn’t do this shit without him. And they knew it.
“What in the hell is going on?” he demanded when he crossed the threshold.
The partners were seated around the table with Lindsay at the head, clearly running this meeting, which was weird because usually Anton ran the meetings. Attached to empty seats around the table were computer monitors where several men had joined the video conference. Brian recognized them all as previous buyers.
Several modest photographs of Mina fully clothed were scattered across the large table. If Lindsay was running it like a normal sale, the potential buyers had been emailed their own copies as well. But it wasn’t a normal sale because the photos they normally shared were pornographic. Even their medical photos were sexualized and would be at home under the bed of any fetishist who got off on the darker implications of gynecology.
Not innocent like this.
What the hell was going on?
“Gentlemen, I apologize for the interruption,” Lindsay said. He turned to Brian. “We’re holding the auction now.”
“For Mina?” he asked unnecessarily. It was too soon for this. It didn’t feel right, and those photos… Something was very wrong. In the pictures, it looked like she’d been crying.
“Yes.”
Brian’s stomach dropped, but he masked it with anger. “She hasn’t even gone through the training protocols. Are you that worried about what I’ll do to her?”
“Our guests are aware of her state of training and the nature of the contract. We’re all agreed that many of our training protocols would be useless in this unique circumstance and that it’s better to go ahead and sell her to a trusted buyer who can work with her from the ground up and protect her in ways we might not be able to. And yes, her safety from you is of paramount importance to me. I’m sure you won’t guarantee her safety, will you?”
It was looking more and more as if Mina were the singular person in all the world who Brian might be able to successfully guarantee safety to. The idea of her being ripped away so soon—before he could sort through his feelings—enraged him. He pulled out a chair and sat at the table uninvited.
“Shall we start the bidding, then?” Lindsay said, ignoring him. “Given the special circumstances involved and that you are all valued clients, we’ll start at the reasonable bargain of one hundred thousand dollars.”
“One hundred thousand,” said a Japanese man on one of the screens.
Lindsay seemed quite pleased. “Thank you Mr. Matsumoto. Mina would do well to end up with you.”
He nodded.
“Two-fifty,” another said.
“Five hundred,” Matsumoto said.
“Seven hundred,” still another said.
Brian looked down to find himself white knuckling the edge of the table, his jaw clenched.
“One million,” Matsumoto said.
Why did this guy want her so much? She was untrained. She had too many boundaries for the contract. And she had the scars. A hundred thousand was reasonable given the circumstances, and Matsumoto had just gone up to a million? Sure, Mina was beautiful, but something was wrong about this sale. Lindsay had rushed it. Was he sure about these guys?
Maybe Brian was paranoid. Why did he even care? The bidding somehow climbed to one and a half million with Matsumoto still in control.
“Two,” Brian said, his mouth disconnecting from his brain entirely.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lindsay hissed.
Brian covered his own shock at the words that had just tumbled forth. He could still take it back, but instead he said, “Bidding. I’ve got the money.” At the house all his needs were taken care of, and he got an equal cut with the other partners of all sales after house expenses and paying those in their employ. His money had been sitting around collecting interest.
“Is this some kind of shakedown?”
“No, I assure you, Mr. Matsumoto, that is not the case here. Brian, stay out of the bidding. I wouldn’t sell Mina to you if you were the last man alive. Scrap Brian’s bid, and we’re back down to one and a half million to Mr. Matsumoto. Are there any other bids?”
The others shook their heads and bowed out. Matsumoto smiled broadly. The man who’d just won Mina might have followed the house rules up to this point, but Brian knew a predator and a sadist when he saw one. He could smell his own. There was something about the Mina situation that was bringing out a darker side to the man, one that Brian refused to allow to materialize.
“Five million,” Brian said, “And you can keep my cut of it, personally, Lindsay.”
Lindsay just blinked. Matsumoto looked livid. If the man had been there in person, a physical fight would have broken out. As it was, Matsumoto could only sit fuming behind the monitor. After all, it wouldn’t do him any favors to unleash his rage for all of them to witness. It might bring into question his ability to hold his temper and control himself—things absolutel
y vital to Mina’s safety.
If Brian knew Lindsay like he thought he did, this kind of offer was way too much money for him to leave on the table in favor of one less than a third as good.
“Gentlemen, I’m going to have to have a private meeting with my associates. Mr. Matsumoto, I will call back as soon as this is sorted. Again, I apologize for this unprofessional display.”
“I told you I’m not selling her to you,” Lindsay said after the conference call disconnected. “I don’t know what sick games you want to play with her, but I made a promise.”
“I won’t hurt her. I’ll follow the contract.”
“If you believe him, you’re crazy,” Gabe said. “He was making threats toward her just this morning.”
Anton observed quietly. He ran the meetings and arranged the sales, but Mina was Lindsay’s pet project, and the doctor was determined to manage everything himself.
“I didn’t want her locked in the cage,” Brian said.
Lindsay raised a brow. “Why not?”
“I don’t know! But I want her. Matsumoto will hurt her. Something’s not right about his bid.”
“Something’s not right about your bid! In fact, your bid is far more shady than his. He’s had Elsa in his care for six years without a single blip on our radar, and she seems fine. Meanwhile, I’ve never seen a woman leave your dungeon without an ugly mark to show for it!” Lindsay was shouting now, all attempts at restraint abandoned. “You expect me to believe you’d pay five million for this girl you just met who as you pointed out is untrained and that she’d be perfectly safe with you when you’ve shown me nothing but signs of sociopathy the entire time I’ve known you?”
“Where is she safest? Think about it. Off with Matsumoto half a world away, or right here under your own nose where you can keep an eye on her and me? What if I’m right about him?”
“Then we can find another buyer.”
“It’ll be too late. If you’re wrong, she won’t recover from it. She might not even survive it. You’re not God, Lindsay. You can’t peer into the hearts and minds of men and know who is safe and who isn’t, no matter how much you’ve convinced yourself you have that power.”
“Why would you pay this kind of money?”
“It means nothing to me. I have everything I need. I want her more than I want the money. What the fuck am I going to do with money when I never get a goddamned day off?”
Gabe and Anton just stared at him.
“Please,” Brian said quietly.
“Did you just beg me to sell you Mina for five million dollars?”
“You might not trust my ability to keep my promises, but trust my ability to sense evil in someone else. I at least am good for that. Aren’t I in this house because I bring things to the table that others don’t? This is a part of what I bring.”
“What do you guys think?”
Gabe and Anton shrugged.
“Why are you asking them?” Brian said. “They don’t give a shit about her. You and I are the only ones invested.”
“Just tell me why you want her.”
Brian looked at the others then back to Lindsay. “Not in front of them.”
“We’ll go to my office.”
Brian followed the doctor to his office and slumped into the chair across from his desk. Lindsay shut the door and joined him.
“Okay. Convince me.”
In the privacy of the office everything felt too stark. Too honest. He looked up, unable to stop tears that were gathering. Fucking tears. He’d only cried in front of the shrink once during a particularly painful session. And he’d sworn he’d flat out murder the man if he ever breathed a word about seeing that weakness. Lindsay, to his credit, had believed the threat.
“I can’t convince you. Just please let me have her. I won’t hurt her. She’s different.” He couldn’t bring himself to lay out why she was different, how from the moment he’d seen the scars on her back, she’d been under the stairs with him, how he was afraid violence alone wouldn’t let him sleep anymore. The requirements for sleep had just escalated. Now he needed her, too. If Lindsay sent her to Japan, Brian might never sleep again.
“I’m going to need more than that,” the doctor said.
“If I can protect her… I can erase it.”
Lindsay’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you care to erase what’s been done to her?”
“No… me.”
The light suddenly came on as the doctor grasped what he was saying. “She’s a proxy for you. Interesting.”
Brian wanted to kill him. Lindsay never stopped head shrinking and putting together his pet theories of why people were the way they were. As if knowing why changed anything or could make it different.
“Never mind. Forget it. I’m not going to sit here and beg you for her. She is mine. Either you take my money and we stay here, or I just take her and run.”
The doctor stared hard at him as if looking for the bluff. He wouldn’t find one. And he knew when he’d been beaten. “When do you want her?”
“Give me a week. I want to have a collar made, and I want the normal ceremony the other buyers get.”
“You want it because you don’t want her to see who’s buying her and make a scene.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I don’t want that.”
Chapter Five
Mina huddled in bed, watching as the clock moved ominously toward eleven—the time she’d be sold off to a man she didn’t know. She would have attempted escape if she’d thought such an action were possible, but the security was too tight.
After the scene with Lindsay in the medical room, she’d tried to avoid him and everyone else. He’d apologized for his behavior when he came to tell her she’d been sold. Sold. This nightmare would never end.
On top of everything else, she’d struggled for four days with tobacco withdrawal. It had been bad. It was hard to know if her current state of despair was because of her situation or the withdrawal. Probably both. No wonder people couldn’t ever seem to quit. Now she just wanted one. Kind of like she wanted oxygen and sleep, but intellectually she knew she’d gotten through the worst of the withdrawal already.
Lindsay had given her a CD collection of Chopin during the worst of it. The music had calmed her somewhat. Was he still apologizing? If he was doing that… why wasn’t he keeping her? Obviously he cared in a way that went beyond doctor/patient.
But she’d seen his temper now. Did she want to stay with him anymore? No. The gift was part of the abuse cycle she’d suffered through too many times already. And the next man would be just the same.
Though she stayed mainly in her room, Lindsay insisted she at least needed exercise while she waited for the big day. He’d told her to swim in the pool after the others went to bed, assuring her that Brian never ventured upstairs that late. But how would he know? She still couldn’t believe the doctor had threatened to send her to the dungeon.
Brian had been part of her motivation for staying in the tower and keeping the door locked. She couldn’t let herself have another moment alone with him. She was too afraid of what he might do to her, given the chance.
But what of her master? What if he scared her just as badly as Brian did? As much as Lindsay had? There would be nowhere else to go from there.
A knock startled her out of her thoughts.
“Who is it?” She always asked before unlocking the door, still convinced Brian might be on the other side. But then, he seemed to have lost interest in her. He’d likely just been fucking with her head to scare her because it was easy. People like that saw a weakness and preyed on it. There was no begging them because they liked it.
“It’s Annette, Anton’s slave. I don’t think we’ve formally met.”
Mina opened the door and in swept a woman who looked shockingly like the receptionist at Dome—except that she wore a black leather collar with a silver ring attached to it.
“Do you work with Anton in the city?”
“Oh, no. That??
?s my twin.”
Annette held a black velvet box. She was flushed and excited.
“What’s that?”
“It’s your collar! Your master had it custom-designed. It’s very nice—one of the nicest I’ve ever seen. You’re going to love it.”
Mina very much doubted she’d love her collar. There was nothing about this situation she loved. With every fiber of her being, she wished she had a time machine, that she could go back and refuse Lindsay’s offer before it was too late and hope he didn’t change his mind and decide she was a security threat.
Or better yet, she could take the time machine further and not visit the abusive doctor in the first place. And hell, if she were doing impossible magic time things, why not just go back to the very beginning and decide her fantasies were nice to masturbate to but there was no need to bring it into the real world and put herself at the mercy and hands of men who wouldn’t protect her when it counted.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
Mina grimaced but opened the box. She didn’t expect to be thrilled or impressed. The symbol of the stupidest decision of her life wasn’t something she wanted to jump up and down about, but the piece of jewelry inside the box was the most perfect thing she’d ever seen.
It was a white metal: platinum, silver, white gold—she wasn’t sure—with an intricate filigree design that went all the way around the band, and small, shimmering black stones. It was exactly like her grandmother’s ring.
Mina looked from the collar to her ring and back again. “How?”
“Were you wearing the ring the day they did the pictures for the auction?”
“Yes.” She’d never taken it off, and thankfully nobody asked her to.
“He must have noticed and requested one of the photos be enlarged.”
She wanted to believe it was a sign. If the ring was a symbol of protection—even if it didn’t work in the magical way it was supposed to—maybe the collar meant she’d be safe.