Maggie

 

“Are you coming around?” a cheerful voice asked as I started to open my eyes. It was a sarcastic, overly enthusiastic cheerfulness I heard in the voice.

 

I lifted my head and blinked a couple of times as the room came into view. My head and neck ached. My body felt like it was suspended in the air over the darkness of the room. I tried to move and realized I wasn’t suspended. I was just tied to a chair. The cheerful asshole who’d been talking was Axel.

 

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said in his forced, jovial tone. “So glad you could join us again.”

 

“Us?” I croaked. I looked around and blinked until the rest of the room came into view. There was my attacker, standing between Axel and myself. I suddenly remembered what had happened prior to finding myself in this chair.

 

After he’d shot everyone in the safehouse, he had come up behind me and put his arm around me, crossing my shoulders at the top of my chest. Then, his other hand had come around with a rag in it. He’d placed it over my mouth and nose.

 

“Take a deep breath,” he’d whispered in my ear, not that I could have fought him off anyway. The fumes were already taking effect before he’d encouraged me to help them along. I supposed he’d carried me downstairs to the car after that.

 

There was a large bald man sitting across from me in what looked like a very expensive suit. He was also tied to a chair. He exuded success and arrogance, even tied up.

 

“Are you Vlad?” I asked him.

 

“Yes, I am,” he said in a thick Russian accent.

 

Of course, he was Vlad. I looked around the rest of the room; we were in the same room where I had woken up before the last auction. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the tables we’d all been strapped to were still there, still positioned upwards.

 

“So this is all your fault, isn’t it?”

 

“How do you think this is my fault?” he asked me.

 

“You put me in here on the auction block, and because of that, I’m back in here. If you’d left me in that alleyway, none of this would be happening. And if it was, it wouldn’t involve me, you sick bastard,” I shouted at him.

 

He looked up at Axel. “What the hell is she talking about? I don’t know this girl.”

 

“Bullshit you don’t. I was right there!” I looked over my shoulder again. “I was on that very table, put on display for all your perverted friends to see. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”

 

“I’m sorry. There must be some misunderstanding.” He looked back at Axel, who was talking to the man in all black at the moment. As the other guy walked off, Axel looked at Vlad with his eyebrows raised. “Why are you doing this to me?” Vlad asked him.

 

“Oh, this?” Axel said, waving his hand over everything. “I’m doing this because you are a pathetic has-been, Vlad. Your days are over. You’re sloppy.”

 

He started pacing between us. Men in dark suits moved into place behind us. One stood behind Vlad, and another stepped behind me, to make sure we didn’t break free and attack their boss.

 

Axel continued his tirade. “See, I put Maggie here, and another girl, on your auction block to prove how easily your organization could be infiltrated by someone like me. And it was pretty easy.”

 

“But why? If you wanted to be a part of this, you should have come to me,” Vlad argued.

 

“I don’t want to be a part of it. Do I look like someone who wants to be part of something, you dumb bastard?” Axel stood over Vlad in his electric blue suit. The Russian dwarfed him even sitting down, but there was something slick about Axel’s look.

 

Vlad wore a gray suit. He was a large man who might have been nothing but solid muscle at one point, but he looked like some of that muscle mass had been lost to fat over the years. Axel, on the other hand, was tall and slim. His suit drew attention to itself. It was flashy. He looked new and energetic compared to the tired old man sitting in the chair, representing the old guard. I hated to admit it, but I felt like I understood Axel’s point in choosing a flashier look as opposed to something more conservative.

 

“I don’t want to have a mere piece of the pie, old man. I want the whole pie. I want to run the show. I want to pick the girls and vet the clientele. See, you’re not using these auctions the right way. You should be blackmailing politicians and powerful billionaires who happen to have exotic desires that would normally land people on the wrong side of the law,” Axel continued.

 

“Are you talking about young girls?” Vlad said, and I could hear the disgust in his voice.

 

“I’m talking about so many things, V. You don’t even know.”

 

“Okay, so why am I here?” I asked, interrupting him.

 

Axel spun around to face me, and I could have sworn he looked like he’d just stepped off the pages of a comic book, like some super villain luring the reader’s favorite super hero into a trap that was designed to be completely foolproof. And his henchmen stood ready to back him up. But, in true comic-book-villain fashion, he was probably going to fail, and his goons were merely going to get in the way instead of actually helping in any way.

 

“You, my dearest ex-lover, are here because I wanted to bring everyone together to witness my rise to power. You see, tonight, I am taking over this town. I am wiping out the motorcycle club who would stop me. I am going to eliminate my competition.” He pointed a gun at Vlad. “I am going to enlist the help of a very powerful ally. Just wait.”

 

He walked around behind me and leaned down so his lips were right next to my ear. I could feel his warm breath on my neck. I could feel his desire in the way he was breathing. The same way he breathed when we had sex.

 

“And I am going to exact my revenge on the slut who humiliated me by walking away and putting herself up for auction.”

 

I didn’t even argue, though it was Axel who had put me up for auction. He’d even admitted it himself, just a few minutes before. It wasn’t worth the argument. It wasn’t about who was right. It was about the insult.

 

“Well, it looks like we’ve got almost everybody here. We’re waiting on our final guest to show up,” he said, standing upright.

 

Then, it occurred to me who the third and final guest was going to be. He was the one who had sent the message to Blade, telling him about the special auction he absolutely had to be at. Blade had thought it was Vlad.

 

My jaw hit the floor as I realized this guy had duped us all. Axel had somehow managed to go from being a small-time drug pusher to a big-time crime boss almost overnight. I wondered how long he’d been working on his plan. I wondered what the hell had changed to give him the ambition.

 

A door slammed back in the darkness. I heard two people talking. I heard their footsteps, but something sounded like it was dragging across the floor.

 

“Here comes our third guest now,” Axel said, beaming with pride. He stepped back from between us as a third large man stepped up, holding a sagging Blade between his large arms. I stared at my protector’s limp body in the arms of the smiling giant standing behind him.

 

“What did you do to him?” I asked Axel.

 

“I didn’t do anything. I’ve been in here with you and V the whole time,” he said. He couldn’t stop moving while he spoke. Normally, that was because of some of the garbage he put into his body, but tonight it seemed to be because he was giddy with success.

 

“I did the same thing to him that I did to you, pretty girl,” my attacker from the safehouse piped up, walking back over to my side of Axel.

 

“Don’t worry, dear. He’ll wake up soon enough and join us for the party. We can’t start without him,” Axel said. Then, he turned to the guy in all black. “Really? You had to chloroform him?”

 

“Talk to Beefcake over there. He couldn’t subdue him on his own,” the other guy defended himself.

 

Axel scoffed and turned to the giant. “Why couldn’t you just grab him? It’s not like he could have fought back.”

 

“He had a gun,” he said with a big dumb grin across his face. I got the feeling he wasn’t worried about a gun. He probably could have crushed that gun with his bare hands.

 

“Whatever. Incompetence. Excuses. I’ll handle you two when this is over.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Beefcake said. He raised his eyebrows and gave Axel a look that said he didn’t really expect any retribution.

 

“So, Maggie, tell me. What is it about this biker that you like so much? He obviously works for this pervert over here.” He nodded at Vlad. “So, I mean, he’s got to support this whole sex slave trade at least a little bit. Is that what turns you on this days?” Axel had been examining Blade’s face, but he turned around and looked at me as he finished. He walked over to me, waiting for an answer. He knelt down beside me to face Blade. He tilted his head, still looking at him like he was examining the unconscious man. “I don’t see it. It must be the slavery bit. Is that what you want now?” he asked again. “Are you turned on by a man who takes charge and tells you what he wants without giving any thought to what you want? If that’s what you want, you didn’t have to sell yourself to find it. How much did he pay for you?”

 

“You were at my auction?” Vlad asked.

 

Axel sighed with exasperation. He turned and pointed his gun at the Russian again. “Yes, she was at your auction. That’s what the discussion was about earlier, you dimwitted fool. I put her there to prove I could get past all of your people. And that dumb fuck right there,” he said, pointing his gun at Blade, “bought her off the guy who put her on the block for me. I know how much he paid to get her out of the auction, because the money came to me.”

 

“You took money from my auction? Who put her on the block? Who took that money?” He worked against his restraints as he questioned our captor.

 

“It doesn’t matter now, old man,” he said calmly. As an aside, he added, “I’ve already killed all your people.”

 

Vlad looked at Axel as if he’d just said he shot the man’s dog. The crushed, confused look on his face was painful to see. I had to look away, concerned I would start crying for him. Axel certainly hadn’t lost any of the brutality he’d picked up dealing drugs on the street.

 

“How long is he going to sleep?” Axel complained to no one in particular about Blade. “Hey, do you have any smelling salts?” he asked his associate in the ski mask.

 

“Yeah, of course,” he said and started digging in his pockets, as if he’d forgotten all about them. How the hell did he forget about something like that?

 

“All right, we’re going to wake sleeping beauty and get this show started. I’ve got somewhere to be once this is over, and we’re cutting into my personal time at this point,” Axel said as he stuck the smelling salts under Blade’s nose.