Auctioned
In addition to a full face of makeup that made her look like a porcelain doll, the women put hair extensions on Terri that went almost to her waist. After putting her in a puffy royal blue dress and tucking a tiara into the crown of her hair, one of them knocked on the door.
Terri edged a little closer to the door, her breath lingering in her throat. Could this be her chance?
Wherever this building was, if she could only get out of it, she could escape. She knew it.
But the man with the gun stood outside of the door. Soon as she caught sight of him, he gestured for her to follow him.
She shot one last glance at the two women, but both of them had gone back to busying themselves with clothes and hair pins. To them, she no longer existed.
The man’s eyebrows pinched together. “Now.”
After taking a step and tripping over her skirt, she had to lift it up to walk safely. The women had put her in strappy heels a size too small. Not that they should have bothered—no one could see her feet under the dress, anyway.
Speaking of seeing… If her suspicions were right, she’d been dressed up like this in order to be handed over to someone else. Like a bought horse.
Nausea rose from her belly. Only hours ago, she’d been a normal thirtyyear-old single American living it up by traveling to all her dream spots. After years of grinding through school and then paralegal work, she’d finally realized she didn’t actually know what she wanted, other than to be free.
This trip around the world was supposed to be exactly that: her breaking free.
How ironic that she was now in captivity.
The man took her down a hallway, toward a set of double doors. Sweat slicked her palms, and her heart raced. How many hours before her brother or parents became suspicious about her not checking in with them? Twelve? Twenty-four?
Even if Charlie called the authorities in Ho Chi Minh city, would it matter? The hostel manager hadn’t stepped in when Terri was taken. For all she knew, the manager had been in on this. Maybe even gotten a cut.
The man pushed one of the doors open, and Terri suddenly forgot how to breathe. Whatever came next, it wouldn’t be good. Another car? Another man? One ready to cart her off to who-knew-where to do God-knew-what to her?
Her hands curled into fists. She would fight to the death before she let anyone use her.
What she found, however, were green curtains, like the kind on a stage. A man’s voice boomed from the other side of them, his words fast and strange.
The guy with the gun urged Terri down along the green curtains. Rounding the end of them, she discovered a stage. The man, who was dressed in a suit and wasn’t one of the two that had kidnapped her, stopped talking and extended his hand.
“Go.” The bully next to Terri poked her in the back with his gun.
A handful of steps led up to the stage. As she touched her high heel to the first one, she looked across the space and realized she was in a small warehouse.
A dozen folding chairs had been set out, and they were all occupied by men. Men in suits. Men smoking cigars and cigarettes. Men eyeing her like she was a cut of meat.
Only one man stood. Back in the shadows behind everyone else, his face was obscured.
The man onstage grabbed Terri’s elbow and pulled her to center stage. His voice rose in excitement, and he waved his hand at her figure while talking to the audience in Vietnamese.
She was being pitched to the group.
Advertised? Drummed up?
It didn’t matter how you worded it. One thing was sure: she still wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Terri clutched her dress’ full skirt and surveyed the group in front of her. Whoever ended up buying her would be an unlucky man. Even if he killed her in the end, she’d make sure to get a few good bites in first.
An old Asian man wearing a red tie raised his hand and said a few short words that rang a bell from the Learn Vietnamese book she had studied for a short afternoon last week. Numbers. He’d named a price.
The man onstage nodded eagerly, and the old man started to stand. Before he made it all the way up, however, the figure in the back emerged from the shadows and revealed himself to be a tall, blond man.
Under other circumstances, Terri’s jaw would have dropped at his clean, sharp features and strong physique. Right then, though, she was in survival mode—ready to claw out somebody’s eyes, no matter if they were the most beautiful pair of peepers ever.
The blond man said something in Vietnamese, and the warehouse stilled. Hands in his pockets, he walked up to the stage. Bright blue eyes inspected her.
There was something about his gaze. It felt like a physical touch, but not in the gross, demanding way the other men’s gazes did. This man’s look was more like a gentle shoulder squeeze. He didn’t rake his eyes up and down her body. Instead, he remained focused on her face.
His eyes flicked to the auctioneer, and he named a price. The Asian man in the red tie threw up his hands in exasperation.
Next thing Terri knew, she was being ushered off the stage and through another door.
“Where am I going?” she demanded of the man with the gun. Predictably, he stayed quiet.
A short, dark hallway that she hadn’t been down yet led to another door. A small piece of glass in it revealed a gray sky.
Terri bit her bottom lip. This could be her chance. All she needed was somewhere to run to. The second she was outside, she would bolt like a jackrabbit.
Stepping through the door, she drew a deep breath and glanced in every direction.
The last few minutes before sunrise revealed a street lined with warehouses in both directions. The road seemed to go on and on, with the city’s towering skyscrapers in the distance. In front of her, a black SUV waited, engine purring.
She faltered.
If she chose to run, she wouldn’t get far. Even if she darted between two warehouses, what next? In her ridiculous heels, she’d be caught in a matter of seconds. That, or gunned down.
One of the SUV’s back doors opened, and the blond man stepped out. Terri’s mouth went dry.
Closing the distance between her, he extended his hand.
“Well,” he said, in an American accent. “Shall we?”