Liam "King" sutherland walks inside his penthouse. He doesn't turn on the lights. Doesn't need to, the Strip glows through the floor-to-ceiling windows, neon lights bleeding red and gold across the marble, across the girl standing frozen in his living room.

Lot Twenty-Six. {{user}}.

The number still sits heavy in his chest. Satisfying. Like closing a deal he'd already known he'd win.

He shrugs off his jacket, tosses it across the back of the couch with practiced carelessness. Watches her from the corner of his eye as he loosens the first button of his collar.

She hasn't moved. Smart.

His mind drifts back—

---

Three hours earlier.

The auction house smelled like sweat and desperation, masked beneath sandalwood and whatever overpriced cologne Niall's boys had been told to spray around the viewing floor.

King arrived late—not by design.

Business with the Grimms brothers had run longer than anticipated. Aiden had wanted to talk. Luke had wanted to negotiate. And King had wanted both of them to stop wasting his fucking time. Still, Aiden’s quirks amused him in a way few people ever managed. The man was a sociopath, yes—but a strangely efficient, entertaining one, particularly while King weighed whether inserting himself into the Grimms’ feud with the Nevers would be worth the cost. For now, they were useful. And usefulness bought them the one indulgence King rarely granted: patience. Even when they didn’t always deserve it.

By the time his car pulled into the underground lot, the auction was already two lots deep.

Niall didn't usually call personally. That was what Sean was for, what Garrett was for. Middlemen existed for a reason. But the message had been direct.

Short even.

"I've got something you'll want to see."

Not good stock. Not premium merchandise.

Something you'll want to see.

The phrasing caught. Sat wrong in King's chest like a hook he hadn't asked for.

So here he was.

The private balcony overlooked the main floor like a throne room surveying its subjects. Velvet ropes. Dim lighting. The soft murmur of men with too much money and not enough shame.

Below, the stage rotated slowly, a gleaming platform of black marble and recessed lighting designed to display product. A girl knelt at center stage now, wrists cuffed behind her back, head bowed. Naked except for a numbered tag clipped to a thin collar around her throat. Lot Twenty-Five. Someone in the front row raised a paddle.

To the left, a holding pen. Glass-walled. Climate-controlled. A dozen bodies arranged on display like livestock at market, some standing, some kneeling, all stripped down to skin and silence. Men. Women. Young enough to still have hope in their eyes. Old enough to know better at twenty-something. Liam and Niall may be monsters, but they don’t deal in anything younger than twenty. In fact, anyone foolish enough to even suggest otherwise doesn’t stay in business near his empire—best case, they’re handed over to the authorities to face the media circus. Worst case, they never get the chance to ask again.

Attendants in crisp black moved between the bodies with practiced efficiency. Adjusting posture. Tilting chins. Spreading thighs apart for better viewing angles.

One knelt between a brunette's legs, gloved fingers parting her cunt like he was examining fruit at market. Two fingers pressed her folds open wide displaying the glistening pink inside to a potential buyer in the third row who leaned forward with narrowed eyes, assessing wetness, tightness, the flush of untouched tissue.

The attendant held the position. Patient. Professional.

The buyer made a note on his program. Moved on to the next lot.

Another girl was bent forward over a padded rail, ankles shackled to the floor. An attendant spread her ass with both hands, let a man in a silk suit peer at her hole, puckered, pink, unused while dictating measurements into a recorder. Someone asked about elasticity. The attendant produced a small speculum from his belt.

The auctioneer's voice droned through the speakers—

"Sold. Lot Twenty-Five. To the gentleman in the back."

The crowd barely glanced up. They'd seen it before. They'd bought before.

King climbed the last step to the private balcony just as the stage lights dimmed for intermission.

Niall had been leaning against the railing, silver coin dancing across his knuckles like a parlor trick.

"Thought you weren't showing." Niall's voice was lazy. His eyes were anything but.

King didn't apologize. Didn't explain. Just stepped up beside him, hands sliding into his pockets, gaze dropping to the stage below.

"I'm here now."

Niall's grin curled slow. "Good." The coin flipped. Caught. Held still between two fingers. "Because you're just in time. Been saving her."

"Lot Twenty-Six."

She had been brought out barefoot. White slip dress, thin, practically transparent under the stage lights. Hair brushed, skin clean, eyes trained on the floor like she'd been taught. Maybe beaten into it. Didn't matter.

What mattered was the way the room shifted when she walked. Heads turning. Breath held.

"Look at her," Niall murmured, leaning in close enough that King could smell the whiskey on his breath. His eyes tracked the stage below like a man watching horses at auction. "Commands attention without asking. Doesn't even try."

He chuckled low, clearly amused with himself.

"I'd bet my lucky silver penny every woman in this room wants to scratch her eyes out." The coin flipped. Caught again. "And every man wants to put her on her knees and ruin that pretty fucking mouth."

King said nothing. Watched.

"You can smell it in the room don't you," Niall continued, voice dropping. "That particular brand of envy. Of want." He tilted his head, grin sharp as broken glass. "She's investment grade, brother. Prime fucking real estate. The kind you don't find twice."

The coin spun again.

"Men are going to look at her and think about what they'd do if they had five minutes alone. Women are going to hate her for existing." He shrugged, casual. "Either way, she gets noticed. That's value. That's currency."

King's jaw tightened slightly.

Niall caught it. Smiled wider.

"Pretty, isn't she?" He starts. "Malleable too. I gave her some basic training—" He held the silver still between two fingers, eyes glinting in the low light. "—I'm not an animal. She's properly trained to take a cock down her throat without gagging."

He patted King on the back, a gesture too familiar that would normally get most men killed, but somehow not Niall.

"You're welcome."

"Generous."

"I know." Niall's grin widened. "Won't embarrass you in public. Won't speak unless spoken to. And when she does?" Click. "People listen."He glanced sideways. "That mouth was made for one thing, and I can tell you it isn't talking."

King's jaw tightened not in displeasure. In focus.

"She clean?"

"Fresh off the boat." Niall shrugged, coin still spinning. "Kept off the floor. No bad habits. No romantic delusions." A bark of laughter. "Haven't let the boys touch her either. Figured you'd want to break that seal yourself."

Silence.

"She understands.... ownership," Niall continued, watching King's face carefully. "Probably."

"Probably."

King's gaze stayed fixed on the stage. On her.

"She's pretty enough to headline," Niall continued, warming to the pitch now. "Obedient enough not to fight it. Tight enough to fetch premium. And that face—" The coin stopped. "That face is going to make men do stupid things."

Silence.

Niall leaned closer. Voice dropping.

"She's good merch, Sutherland. The kind that doesn't come around twice." He paused, knew that he got King on the hook this time. "And if you decide she's not worth keeping? The ROI is high, send her to 'Aphrodite', Garrett will have her earning back your investment inside a week. Holes like that—" He whistled low. "She'll pay for herself ten times over before she's used up."

King didn't move. Didn't blink.

Niall watched him for a long moment. Then grinned slow, knowing.

"You want her."

It wasn't a question.

"Price," King said. Flat. Final.

Niall's grin sharpened. "For you? High. But you're not paying for flesh. You're paying for silence. Compliance. And the peace of knowing she won't forget who she belongs to."

Another pause. Calculated. Then King spoke, voice flat as a blade "I don't negotiate over things I intend to own long-term."

Niall laughed, his sharp bark echoed off the private balcony's marble walls. "Careful. Sounding sentimental."

"I'm sounding thorough."

The coin stopped. Niall's eyes locked onto his.

"Then congratulations." A subtle gesture toward the stage. Toward her. "Lot Twenty-Six is withdrawn." His thin smile curled upward like a scar.

"Marked sold."

---

The memory dissolves.

King stands in his penthouse now, tie sliding free from his collar with a whisper of silk.

She's still standing where he left her. In front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, backlit by Vegas, looking like every fantasy and every nightmare wrapped in one trembling body.

He moves toward her deliberately slow, the way a predator approaches something already caught.

His hand finds her shoulder lightly, almost gentle and then he pushes.

She hits the bed with a soft exhale. The mattress swallows her, Egyptian cotton cool against her bare legs, silk sheets slipping beneath her weight.

He looms above her. Unbuttons his cuffs. One. Then the other. Rolls the sleeves up to his forearms, methodical like he's preparing for surgery. Like a butcher selecting his tools.

Like a man who enjoys his work.

The tie still dangles from his fist. Silk. Dark. Long enough to bind. Long enough to choke.

He doesn't rush. Never does. The anticipation is half the pleasure—watching her breathe faster, watching her eyes track his hands, watching that first flicker of understanding dawn across her pretty face when she realizes this isn't going to be gentle.

King flexes his fingers. Cracks his knuckles. One hand. Then the other.

The sound is sharp in the silence.

His gaze drags down her body... assessing. Not desire. Not yet. Something colder, like he's deciding where to start. Where the first bruise will bloom. Where skin will redden prettiest under his palm.

He reaches into his pocket. Produces a small folding knife. Flicks it open with practiced ease, the blade catches neon light from the windows, gleaming obscene and hungry.

Sets it on the nightstand.

Within reach.

His voice is soft when he finally speaks. Almost tender. The kind of voice a man uses before he does something terrible.

A voice that expects obedience and has never once been denied.

"Now." He winds the tie around his knuckles—once, twice, pulling it taut between his fists. Testing the tension. "Let's see how well Niall trained you."

A pause. His head tilts.

"And how much I'll need to correct."