The life of my imaginary twin sister did not depend on this auction. But my revenge did.
There had been a spate of killings in the human trafficking world. Lucien and I did our share, but our target was always Dylan McAllister and his henchmen. We didn’t take on the entire shady underworld. We just didn’t have the resources.
But people had been dying. Two years ago I had killed Ivan Klimov in Paris. Ivan had been guarding Stanislav Durov, the man who controlled the pipeline transporting women from Azerbaijan and Georgia to Moscow. But the next day, I’d learned that a few hours after I’d killed Ivan, Stanislav Durov himself had been assassinated. Someone took advantage of the confusion I’d created when I’d killed Ivan to go after the bigger fish.
Everyone was afraid. Everyone had doubled and tripled their guards and were on high alert. And sadly for us, Dylan McAllister had moved from Abeokuta, where we might have had a chance at getting him, to a completely impenetrable fortress-like compound on the outskirts of Hanoi.
There was only one way in. Three times a year Dylan McAllister was visited by a man. Alexander Hamilton. Lucien had tried to gather intelligence on Alexander but had come up with absolutely nothing. We didn’t have a photo of him. We had no idea what he did or why he visited Dylan. We’d heard that he was Dylan’s finance guy – the one responsible for keeping him firmly entrenched among the ranks of the world’s billionaires so that Dylan could kidnap women with impunity, and surround himself with bodyguards to safeguard him from his crimes. But it was just speculation. We had no idea.
We had only one lead. Two years in a row, Alexander Hamilton had attended Madam Lorraine’s consensual slave auction. Twice he had bid on women and won. Twice he had failed to bid at all.
So I was in Bangkok. My appearance had been altered to resemble the two girls he had bid on in the hopes that I would better appeal to him. My red hair had been dyed a dark brown. I’d lost weight, a lot of it, so that I’d look more like the emaciated waifs he was drawn to.
Though my heart thudded in my chest like a trapped butterfly seeking desperately to fly free, I found myself agreeing to participate in a slave auction, exposing myself to leering gazes, hoping to be bid on by a man Dylan McAllister trusted.
One day, I will hold up a gun to Dylan McAllister’s face. One day, I will kill him. One day, I will have my revenge for every bit of cruelty and pain.
I would kill Dylan McAllister. But there was an order to things. First, I needed to pass this evaluation with Madam Lorraine. Second, I needed to be so beautiful and alluring that Alexander Hamilton would bid on me at the auction. Third, he needed to be so entranced with me that he took me on the trip that he made three times a year to that otherwise impenetrable fortress-like compound outside of Hanoi. He had never yet taken anyone on that trip.
There I would find my former Master, the man who had enslaved me when I was eighteen.
I would kill my former Master. Then and only then would I be fully free.
Chapter 2
Ellie / Jenny:
My nerves were at a fever pitch when Madame Lorraine escorted me to the dungeon. Though Dylan hadn’t bothered with BDSM equipment very often, he sometimes found it arousing to tie me down for my beatings. Sometimes he would blindfold me so I couldn’t see where the pain was coming from.
What had I been thinking? Everything in this room was a giant trigger for me. I had no good memories of dungeons. All I remembered were waves and waves of blinding pain.
One day, I will hold up a gun to Dylan McAllister’s face. One day I will kill him. One day I will have my revenge for every bit of cruelty and pain. I used those words as a meditative chant, trying to soothe my emotions as best as I could.
“Stay here,” Madame Lorraine told me. She’d evidently noticed nothing amiss. No surprise there - I was adept at hiding my emotions. I had to be. I’d learned to control myself in the harshest way possible.
“Yes, Madame Lorraine,” I replied. I kept my eyes on the floor. My voice was soft and submissive. In this space, the lessons of the past were returning one by one. I existed only to serve my Master. I had no other purpose.
“My trainers will be here presently,” she said. “Please get naked and wait on your knees for them.”
I nodded silently. “Yes, Madame Lorraine,” I repeated. My Master had liked his instructions acknowledged verbally. Several strokes of the cane had punctuated his desire the first time. Another lesson I‘d never forgotten again.
She smiled at me and left the room. I waited for her trainers in silence.