Not sure how I feel about this thing. Here we are, sitting in a dark, main room of a former meatpacking warehouse, on mismatched wobbly chairs, facing a makeshift wooden stage, which is already brightly lit like actors are gonna come out and start entertaining us at any moment. But this isn’t that kinda show. It’s only fun for the audience, but must be a downright nightmare for the actresses. And I’m only calling them that ‘cause it fits the metaphor in my head. I’m sure they’d rather be performing any other job than this one.

The testosterone in the room is so thick it’s seeping in through my pores, making my hands ball into fists without my conscious control. If this tension builds for much longer, I’ll have no choice but to beat some one up. It’ll be out of my conscious control. And I know exactly who I’d pick too. He’s sitting just two chairs to the right of me. My half-brother Tony, who really doesn’t like me being here. He’s done everything short of saying so, since we arrived.

And by here, I mean sitting to the left of Marco Calabrese, the Sicilian immigrant who started from nothing, and became the most powerful and richest mafia boss in NYC. He came to this country when he was ten years old, an orphan since both his parents died on the voyage. And even though he was not associated with Cosa Nostra back home in Sicily, he sure adopted it quick in NYC. And today he’s finally giving me, Vincent Del Vecchio, his bastard son by his mistress, the former family cook and maid, the chance to make a name for myself in the family.

It’s been a long time coming—five years to be exact—but he’s finally relented. It was mostly my mother’s fault that it took so long. She was afraid Tony would kill me out of jealousy if I rose too high. But I can take Tony any day of the week. So I’m grabbing this opportunity my father’s now giving me, even if it means buying a few sex slaves first like they’re nothing but prime pieces of meat of the kind that used to get packaged in this place. The fact that it pisses Tony off so much is just a bonus.

The smell of old meat and blood that still permeates this room is making me nauseous. Or maybe that’s from thinking too hard about what I’m doing here. I should stop thinking about it. For the first time since my father brought me into his organization, I’m sitting next to him, just like his real son, instead of standing behind his shoulder like some hired bodyguard, which was my place up until today.

He’s giving me an important job. If I do well running this new whorehouse he’s opening, I’ll get other, even more important jobs down the line. Buying these sex slaves is just a stepping stone to that. Besides, the world’s not all sunshine and fairytales, and it needs whores. I’ll treat the ones we buy today well. And that will be enough.

Our host, a wiry, sleazy man everyone only knows as Slick—a nickname he must’ve gotten on account of his greasy hair—comes out on stage and raises his arms, giving me a great view of his nasty pit stains, since I’m seated in the center of the first row. Another reminder of the importance my father’s name carries. If I play my cards right, I can one day have all of that.

“We’re about to start!” Slick yells. “You know the rules. We’ll be bringing the girls out now. We have 15 for you today. They are all unspoiled and young. Grade A meat, if I may be so bold,” he says and chuckles like he just said the funniest thing. “And untraceable. So let’s get this auction started, shall we?”

A lot of the men sitting behind me grumble in impatient agreement, but my father stays completely silent, and so do I.

The door to the side of the stage opens, and a group of stumbling young women are escorted into the room by three gorilla-sized thugs. The girls are wearing sexy, skimpy underwear and high heels, and most of them are trying to cover their nakedness. Some are shaking. Normally, one woman in nice underwear and high heels would give me a raging hard-on, let alone 15 of them. But these don’t. They just make me slightly sad.

It’s not exactly cool in the room, but it’s not warm either, so I get that they’re cold. Although, that’s probably not why they’re shaking. They’re frightened. I get that too. And I’m liking this set up less and less. It’s one thing to chase down people who owe us money or scheme behind our backs and rough them up. I’m good at that, feel absolutely no remorse for doing it. But buying human beings like fucking cattle? That’ll take some getting used to.

Yet they are hotties. All of them are smokin’. And I could get used to that.

One of them trips on her way up the wooden stairs to the stage, her knees hitting the wood with a thud. One of the gorillas hoists her up by her arm roughly and barks something at her. She’s shaking worse than before once she joins the others in a line at the front of the stage.

“These Balkan beauties come straight from their mama’s house,” Slick is saying. “Unspoiled, and well-rested from their boat journey here. Come on, girls, show off your assets. Turn around a little.”

They all do it, some more skillfully than others. And now I’m conflicted over enjoying all these womanly curves twirling before me knowing that they’re here against their will. The former wins out, as I lock eyes with the girl in the center of the line. She’s easily the most beautiful one, makes all the others fade now that I’ve spotted her. She has long wavy brown hair that seems to gleam gold in the sparse light, and her eyes are blue like the ocean stretching from here to forever. The brown and gold underwear set she’s wearing fits her perfectly, makes her look like she’s in some Victoria’s Secret shoot and not getting sold in a smelly warehouse. She’s all flowing curves, with full perky breasts, a cinched waist, and wide hips that flare out before tapering off into the tastiest pair of thighs I’ve seen in awhile. She’s the only one worth buying, all the others just blend with the background like they’re not even here. That fact becomes even more evident as her eyes lock on mine and hold. Like a vice. I swear she even smiles a little, and I’m pretty sure I’m smiling back. There’s fear in her gaze, sure, but there’s also wildness, defiance that even being afraid can’t quench completely.

Slick is saying something, but the words make no sense to me.

“Come on, let’s go, Vinny,” my father says, tapping me on the arm with the back of his hand and only slightly breaking the spell she has on me. She’s still looking directly into my eyes. It’s enough to make my brain fuzzy. Though that’s more likely the result of all my blood rushing to my cock.

“Go where?” I ask dumbly.

“Up there to take our pick. It’s why we’re here,” Dad says impatiently. Tony is frowning at me from behind his back like he has some choice insults ready to throw at me.

I get up and follow them up to the stage, hang back with my father, while Tony gets real close to each of the girls, even checks their teeth.

The three of us are the only ones on the stage, since father always gets first dibs at Slick’s flesh auctions. The rest get his leftovers. He’s barely even looking at the girls, and if I had to guess, I’d say he’s not happy to be here. But nothing shows on his stone-like, expressionless face so I can’t be sure.

When Tony reaches the beauty I wish was still looking at me, but isn’t, something inside my chest clenches. When he squeezes her cheeks together to check the state of her teeth, I’m ready to throw more than just choice insults at him. She’s only got eyes for him, which are full on frightened now, and all that bothers me too.

He chuckles and releases her, looks her up and down lewdly before moving to the next one.

“You should look at them too, Vinny,” Dad says to me. “You’ll be handling them, after all.”

I shrug and give them all a once over, my eyes again hooking on beauty. “They’re all gorgeous. And instead of forcing their mouths open, Tony could just ask them to smile. It would tell us more than what he’s doing.”

Dad actually chuckles. “Go on, pick five of them, and then we can get out of here.”

Well, I know which one I’ll pick first. I wish I could just ask her who her four best friends are in this group, so they could leave here together today. I’d like to do that for her. Buy her some friends to spend her days in captivity with. It’s a weird and soft sort of thought, but this is what it is.

Tony comes back, grinning. “I know which ones we should get, Papa.”

Dad stops him with a flick of his hand. “I’ll let Vinny handle this one, it’s his charge.”

Tony’s perpetually tanned face grows about five shades darker in a split second, but he’d never argue with his father in public. Yet that’s pure black hate in his dark eyes as he stares at me.

Dad is looking at me too, so I get to it, pointing at beauty first and trying to see if that makes any of the other ones perk up, or if she shares a look with any of them. She does with the one next to her, so I pick her to. But that’s all the clues I get. They all look even more frightened now, probably because getting bought was just an idea a minute ago, but it’s now becoming reality. I pick the girl who tripped third and then two more at random, choosing the ones who seem the most scared, like I’m not the monster buying them. Like I can make any of this easier on them.

“Very well,” Dad says. “Take the van and bring them to the house in Queens. And have them put on some clothes before they get in the car. We’re done here.”

Dad strides off the stage without looking at the girls again, Tony following close behind.

The girls I picked are looking at me questioningly now, even beauty, but I’m saved the trouble of telling them where to go by one of the gorillas who ushers them off the stage.

“We’ll bring them to your car,” he tells me as he passes me.

I get off the stage too and leave the warehouse via the back, then join Rocco, the guy who’s helping me run the whorehouse these girls are destined for. In a couple of minutes I’ll be in the back of a mini van with five beautiful women who for all intents and purposes belong to me now. But I’m not exactly overjoyed at the prospect.

* * *

KAT

Katarina the Stupid. That’s what I could be known as, if I were a queen like Katarina the Great. But I won’t be known at all. I’m already forgotten. Already lost.

I’m trying not to cry. Have been, since that guy headhunted me in my hometown of Sarajevo, saying I could be the next Cindy Crawford and inviting me to London for an audition. Promising me all sorts of high-profile modeling work, before unceremoniously drugging me and packing me onto a ship to be sold to the highest bidder.

“Come on, hurry it up! We ain’t got all day,” the big guy who’s been watching over us growls beside me. I can feel his leering gaze on my ass, as I struggle to pull on the pair of sweats without taking off my insanely high-heeled shoes first.

The guy who bought me couldn’t take my eyes off me either. Maybe I still have some hope left. But how can he help me? And why would he? He owns me now. He doesn’t have to do me any favors. I’ll probably be doing favors for him, if his hungry look is anything to go by. The sexual kind. This is so far from the life I wanted, I don’t even know how to cry over it.

I could never pick guys to save my life. My parents and all of my friends warned me about going with that guy to London. But did I listen? Hell, no. I wouldn’t even entertain the idea that he wasn’t simply mesmerized by my beauty. I’ve always been vain like that. Katarina the Vain. They could call me that too. But I doubt many will even call me by my name now.

“Let’s go,” the guy barks, holding open the door for us. I’m the last to exit into the blinding sunshine of the parking lot. It’s early spring, and the glaring sunlight is deceptive, since the air is still very cold. All I’m wearing is a thin long-sleeved shirt and the sweats. In my real life, I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing sweatpants and high heels. That’s so peasant. But here I am, hitting a new low.

I chuckle at that, because laughing is better than crying.

“What’s so funny?” the guy who bought me asks, making me shiver worse than I already was. But he sounds like he actually wants to know.

He’s even better looking in full daylight than inside that dark room, with his chiseled jaw covered by just a hint of a five o’clock shadow and lips made for kissing, among other things. He towers over me despite the fact that I’m wearing heels, and I have to look up to see his face. He has those grey-green eyes only Italian guys have, the kind that make me think I’m looking over rolling, grass covered plains all the way to eternity. A lock of his light brown hair falls lazily across his forehead just perfectly, though I’m sure he’s not the kind of guy who spends time doing his hair. On the whole, he looks very put together in his dark suit, which does little to hide his well formed, muscled arms. If I need to endure leers and get forced to have sex against my will, I could do worse than this guy. Much worse.

“I…I’d never wear these shoes with these pants…normally,” I tell him, since he asked.

He gives me a once over, his gaze lingering on my breasts and softening.

“I think you look good,” he says with a sly grin when his eyes meet mine again. From another guy, I’d consider that look presumptuous and unwelcome. Not so, coming from him. I’m an old-fashioned girl who likes to get courted by romantic dinners, flowers and gifts. I doubt I’ll get much of that from now on. But his look promises passion and fun, and that’s something too.

“Get in,” he says and points to the back of the van. The other girls are already sitting inside, and I do as I’m told, squeezing up to Ana, the girl in the window seat, once I realize the guy who bought us is getting in next to me.

He slams the door shut and sits back, his whole side pressed into mine. I guess he has no choice, since he’s so wide and muscular, but I don’t think he has to be pressing his leg against mine quite so tightly. I kind of wish he’d put his arm around me too, but I’m sure that’s just some kind of primal, subconscious reaction, since he’s a friendly man, and men keep women safe, and I’m in desperate need to be kept safe right now.

He turns in his seat, his thigh pressing into mine even harder, and gives all of us a once over. “It’s a short ride, but let’s not make any problems. Buckle up and stay still, is that clear?”

Most of the girls nod and do exactly that. Iron discipline was non-negotiable on the ship that brought us here, else you’d spend the night alone in the pitch darkness of one of the utility rooms down below, and not get fed for days. I for one remember that terror all too well, and I’m sure some of the others here experienced it too.

“Your English is very good,” the guy says to me. “Do you all speak it?”

I see some of the girls nod, but he’s still looking at me for an answer, so I nod too. “I think so. We learn it in school in my home country.”

I also took some additional classes before travelling to London to begin my modeling career, but I don’t tell him that. I probably couldn’t without bursting into tears, and I’d much rather just concentrate on the feel of his hard body, and its warmth, pressed to my side. For some reason, talking to this guy feels natural, even though he just bought me, and I should be scared of him. But I’m not, and that’s probably due to my general stupidity. The fact that I haven’t actually slept for the last two nights could have something to do with that too. Though a hot guy showing interest in me always did send what little reasoning power I was blessed with out the window.

“Good,” he says, smiling at me, which makes him a thousand times more handsome. “It’ll make my job easier.”

That remark plunges me right back into the reality of my situation, and I look down at my hands, which I’m clutching together in my lap so hard, they’re sticky.

I’m not the local beauty anymore. I’m a nobody, flesh to be peddled to anyone willing to pay. For how long? I’m only 22. It could be a long time before I lose my looks. Unless someone takes them from me.

I don’t look at him again, and I’m already getting nauseas. I always get car sick, ever since I was a little girl, but back then I could always open the window. Now I can’t ask for anything anymore.

Thankfully the ride really is short. We pull up to a very normal looking house on a very normal looking street. Exactly the kind I remember from all those American movies I used to watch on TV back home.

A short woman with very wide hips is standing by the open door, frowning at us as we approach. She looks like someone’s mom. Not mine, but just thinking it makes me miss my own mom so hard tears actually erupt in my eyes for the first time, since I was abducted.

No one notices and they don’t spill, so I don’t bother wiping them away.

“Clara here will show you to your rooms,” the guy says. “Just follow her.”

She gives him an annoyed glance and mutters something under her breath before giving us all a very welcoming smile, which just makes me want to cry harder.

I’m the last through the door, again. Must be a subconscious wish not to enter at all, or something.

“Wait,” the guy says, grabbing my arm, but gently, not obtrusively at all. “What’s your name?”

The question takes me by complete surprise.

“Katarina,” I stutter.

“Well, that’s a mouthful,” he says, grinning at me. “I’ll just call you Kat.”

“I’m Vincent,” he adds. “You can call me Vin.”

“OK,” I manage, and I want to smile but this scene is so surreal. I feel like he’s picking me up, and not about to make me a whore, or whatever he has planned for me.

“Go in now,” he says, since I’m just standing there getting lost in his endless green eyes.

I turn and follow the sound of footsteps up the stairs. He asked for my name. Even gave me a nickname. Maybe this won’t be so bad.

But even despite the fuzziness that idea brings, I know it will probably be worse than anything I could ever have imagined.

* * *

VIN

Kat. That nickname I gave her is more fitting than I think she realizes. The shape of her eyes is right anyway, if not the color. Though there are blue-eyed cats out there. They’re a rarity. Kinda like her. I’ve seen a lot of gorgeous women in my time, fucked quite a few of them too, but all their beauty pales in comparison to hers. I’ve yet to really notice any of the other girls who came here with her.

“You shouldn’t get friendly with the ladies,” Rocco says, as he lights a cigarette on the porch, since my mother doesn’t allow any smoking in the houses she cooks and cleans at. “Didn’t your father tell you that?”

I want to smack that smug grin right off his face. He’s here to take orders from me, not lecture me on rules. “Don’t you worry about my father.”

A large part of why I’m so annoyed at Rocco’s warning comes from the fact that he’s completely right. My father wouldn’t like me messing around with Kat. She’s an investment, a business asset, and not here for my personal enjoyment. The whores are off-limits, he told me as much when he entrusted me with the job of running this particular operation, which is a huge step up for me, and one I’m not about to blow.

Besides, I don’t know if the no screwing the whores is really a hard and fast rule. I know for a fact Tony fucks them a lot. But he’s that kinda guy. He prefers women who can’t say no to him.

“Use an ashtray, Rocco,” my mother chides, as she comes out onto the porch. Then she rounds on me. “And since when do you call me Carla, huh?”

My mother may be just a little over five feet tall, but she’s got enough personality to tame a room full of made men. I might be a grown man, but her tone makes me feel about ten years old, and Rocco’s already turning this way and that, looking for an ashtray. I’m not sure what kind of answer will make her happy.

“I can’t exactly call you Mama here, now can I, Ma?” I say and smile at her widely, since that always works with her. “I’m supposed to be the boss of this place. How would that look?”

“It would look like the right and proper thing that it is,” she says sternly, but her eyes are smiling. “And you should give the girls some time to settle down before you start bossing them around. One of them burst out crying when she saw the cameras in her room, and she wouldn’t stop. I can still hear her crying now.”

I can’t, and I’m glad for it. I hope it wasn’t Kat. But I don’t think it was. She seems too strong to have a meltdown like that.

“Come on, I made spaghetti for dinner,” Mom says and turns. “You two can have some now, while it’s fresh.”

“I would love some, Ms. Carla,” Rocco says, stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray he finally located on the windowsill. “I love your cooking.”

She gives him a very warm smile before preceding us into the house, since she always was a sucker for compliments. But Rocco’s not even exaggerating. My mother’s cooking is divine.