The Pawn and the Knight Read online

  There’s a smattering of laughter, and I flush with shame. That’s not what Mrs. Stephenson wrote in my recommendation letter to college.

  “Here’s another one, this one from the faculty advisor for the National Honor Society.” Another pause, lengthier this time. Expectation fills the air, thickening it. “Her thirst for learning is surpassed only by her desire to help others. I’ve never had a student with such a large…heart. And the absolute sweetest…temperament.”

  More laughter. I’m not sure what’s more humiliating—the sexual innuendo in the fake letters? Or the fact that he’s mentioning the real faculty members at my high school academy who wrote recommendation letters for me.

  Damon isn’t reading the actual contents, but he must have read them himself to know who they’re from. My teachers were so supportive, so encouraging. And for what? So that I could stand in the center of rich men and be sold like cattle.

  Of course I know who’s next.

  Mr. Santos was the world history teacher and the sponsor for the chess club. Chess is a game of status and power. Of war. It’s a game of human nature, Ms. James.

  I joined the chess club, not because I cared about human nature at the time, but because Daddy played with me every week. It had been the only way to win his approval, the only way to reach him.

  It didn’t hurt that Mr. Santos had warm brown eyes. Under his gentle tutoring I developed a major crush on him. He was nothing but proper with me, but I had the kind of teenage dreams that would have been humiliating to admit.

  “And last, but certainly not least, we have the sponsor for the chess club, who says in his letter: ‘Her presence at the weekly meetings was inspiring for all the other members. I’m sure the memory of her will continue to motivate the other students, who always admired her for her prodigious and impressive…talent.’”

  The men respond with applause and hoots, shouting their praise for my talents. My stomach turns over, and I clutch my hands at my middle. I haven’t eaten anything all day, which is the only reason I don’t throw up all over the dark marble floors.

  Daddy taught me chess.

  And these men are laughing, laughing at it. Laughing at me.

  Don’t they realize that the letters are fake? Don’t they care? There are toasts to my many large attributes, to the sweet taste of my ambition. And I realize that it doesn’t matter to them, whether the letters are true or not. It’s all a big joke. My entire life, a joke.

  Damon speaks over the crowd, quieting them. “Due to the rare nature of the object of this auction, I had to keep her identity a secret. Once you see her, I’m sure you’ll understand why. And I think I’ve kept you waiting long enough. What do you say?”

  The roar that follows makes me shrink back, away from the velvet curtain. I bump into the man with pale eyes, who stands with his arms folded, his gaze merciless. I swallow hard, almost lightheaded with panic. The small part of me that’s still sane knows that Damon is whipping them into a frenzy on purpose, but that doesn’t make it any less real. I’ll be in the center of that thinly veiled violence.

  “Come on out, darling,” Damon says, his booming voice grasping hold of my throat.

  I’m paralyzed. Heart, legs, eyes. Can’t move a thing. Not even my lungs can draw breath. Black spots dance in front of my eyes. Am I going to pass out?

  Then hands push me firmly, inexorably, from behind. I stumble forward. The velvet curtain parts in front of me, and then I’m through the breach, standing on some kind of raised platform, looking out at a sea of faces. My mind catalogs them with chilling indifference—men in suits, ties loosened or missing, some sleeves rolled up. They sit on leather chairs strewn throughout the room, reclined, their comfort a stark contrast to my own terror.

  My chest rises and falls with frantic breaths. Some of the men in the room I recognize, having met them at parties with my father, with Justin. They gave me genial smiles, seeming almost grandfatherly. They asked me about school, about my plans for the future. Now their eyes widen with shock—and something else. Vicious pleasure.

  Other faces I don’t recognize. They blur together.

  Through the darkness I find a pair of steady golden eyes, and only then can I take a deep breath. Cool air fills my lungs, almost painful after panting in fear for so long. Gabriel leans against the back wall, all casual elegance and effortless power. I don’t know whether he means to give me strength, but I take it anyway, drawing myself up straighter.

  I can get through this. I don’t have a choice.

  My vision clears from the frantic blur it had been, allowing me to pick out specific faces. The sweet smell from cigars. The sharp note of whiskey. Undertones of male sweat and excitement.

  Then I look at the side of the room, and everything freezes.

  The whisper is torn from me, despairing. “Uncle Landon.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Uncle Landon looks furious, his face contorted by accusation. He’s already rising from his leather armchair, and I can’t help but take a small step back. I feel like I’ve been caught in the act, like a parent has found me making out in the basement. But he isn’t my parent at all. He tried to marry me!

  He walks straight onto the platform, his features twisted into a snarl. His hand on my arm isn’t anything like the man with pale eyes. I flinch at the pain, pulling away, failing.

  “This was your loan? Your big plan? To become a prostitute?”

  “Let go of me,” I whisper because I’m not innocent in this mess—but neither is he. He would buy some virgin to use without me ever knowing. How many times would he have broken our wedding vows? They wouldn’t have been born of love, but if I said I do, I would honor it.

  “I’m getting you out of here,” he says, his voice grim. “Your father would have a heart attack if he saw you like this.”

  The whole room seems to cant forward, delighted with the display of fresh drama. I feel myself shrinking, as if I’m getting smaller in the middle of the room. Maybe I’ll disappear into a tiny speck. And pop like a bubble. Surviving the auction seemed difficult, nearly impossible, but facing Uncle Landon like this breaks me completely. He’s the closest person to my father, and even though I’m angry at him, I’m ashamed too.

  Damon strolls closer, barely perturbed by the show of force. “You don’t want to do that, Moore.”

  “Why not?” he demands. “She’s mine. She’s my fucking goddaughter.”

  One eyebrow lifts, mildly amused. “Then you’ll want to stay and watch over her, won’t you? If you continue to disrupt the auction, I’ll be forced to remove you before the bidding even begins.”

  Uncle Landon’s hands tighten on my arms, and I whimper.

  Damon sighs, sounding disappointed. He doesn’t seem surprised, but then he wouldn’t be. Even if he didn’t know that Uncle Landon was my godfather, Damon Scott knew about his close friendship with my father. “And you definitely won’t get a refund on your entrance fee.”

  I’m trembling, caught between my future and my past. I don’t really belong in either of them—I’m not cut out for this world of anger and sex, but I can never go back to my blissful naïveté either.

  Gabriel appears on the platform with his large and intimidating presence. He seems to tower over all of us—Uncle Landon, me. Even Damon Scott looks smaller next to his fury.

  “Release her,” Gabriel says in low tones. “Unless you want your arm broken. Security here is…formidable.”

  Except I don’t see anyone else. No bouncers or guards. Even the pale-eyed man stayed behind the velvet curtain as if he’s some otherworldly creature who lurks in the dark.

  There’s only Gabriel, looking fierce like an avenging angel.

  For a breathless moment Landon looks as if he might defy him—though I can’t see how, when he would be crushed. There’s more at stake than my virginity, though. Male pride. A show of strength. An example, like the one Gabriel made of my father.

  This is what Candy was teaching me about. It’s w
hat Mr. Santos taught me, too.

  About war. About opposition. About standing tall in a rain of bullets.

  “The show really must go on,” Damon murmurs, slicing through the tension.

  Uncle Landon releases me with a rough sound. “I’m glad I didn’t marry you, you little slut.”

  My face flames with humiliation. The men circling the room couldn’t hear him, but Gabriel clearly did, judging by his raised eyebrow. He doesn’t wait for an explanation, though. As soon as Landon steps off the platform, Gabriel melts back into the shadows.

  In minutes Damon recaptures control of the crowd’s attention.

  “As you can see, she’s a woman of some notoriety, due to no fault of her own. An innocent woman, torn by circumstance, ruined by fate, et cetera, et cetera.”

  There’s a smattering of laughter, and just like that, the drama is forgotten.

  “We’re not here to talk about what brought her to this point, though. We’re here to talk about what you’ll be bidding on in just a matter of minutes.”

  All the men stare at me, some dark gazes, some light. One molten. All of them filled with lust, with dangerous intent. They want to fuck me. Do they want to hurt me? And if they do, is it because they’re bored with vanilla, as Damon seems to think? Or because they want revenge against my father?

  There are a few women in the audience. Would the women bid on me, or are they just arm candy?

  On the opposite side of Landon, I see Ivan Tabakov in a large wingback chair. Candy is perched on his lap, her heels tipped over at his feet, her toes curled up on his leg. She looks like a child with large blue eyes and fairy-tale hair.

  Another woman looks even younger than me, her dress revealing more than it hides. She hangs on the arm of a gray-haired man like I imagine she would at some high-rollers casino, both glamorous and mercenary.

  The other woman appears older, beautiful but hard. Almost cruel. She sits at one of the only small leather love seats with another man. Their sides touch intimately—husband and wife? Both of their gazes examine my body with mean promise.

  It wouldn’t only be the husband who hurt me; that much I know.

  “One full month,” Damon says, circling behind me. “That’s how long you would have to train this lovely specimen in the erotic arts. Such thirsty…intellect, they said. What would you do with her?”

  “Play chess,” Gabriel says from the back of the room, his voice droll.

  The men in the room laugh, and I feel my stomach turn over.

  Apparently this is the cue Damon needs to stop pretending it’s my intellect they’re interested in. He begins describing my physical characteristics with a bluntness that steals my breath.

  “Her skin is pale milky perfection, her hair’s a mix of gold and copper. She also has very large…eyes, as you can see. And she narrows most delectably…on the bridge of her nose. Then flares again…on her wide mouth.”

  He isn’t talking about my face. He’s talking about my body. My hands are clenched at my sides, my entire body strumming with the urge to flee. I can’t forget the rouge on my nipples. Everyone will see them before this auction ends.

  “Take it off,” one of the men yells, his voice slurred.

  “Do you want to see more?” Damon asks, his tone solicitous, as if this is a polite affair. Instead it feels like a bullfight. I’m the animal, made to run and run while my body bleeds.

  “Yes,” they shout, stomping their feet. It feels like a riot. “Take it off!”

  Damon doesn’t look worried, though, merely pleased. He touches the small hidden clasp on my shoulder and the top of the dress falls away, revealing the downy slopes of my breasts, the white lace of the bra.

  “Almost there,” he murmurs.

  Another flick of his fingers at my back, and the bra slides forward. He nudges gently, moving the straps down my arms, tickling my skin with lace, making me prick with shame. My arms cling to the material until it hangs nearly at my wrists.

  Painfully, almost against my will, I unclench my fists. The bra falls to the floor.

  My pink nipples tighten in the exposed air, and the crowd roars their approval.

  “They would fill a man’s hands, don’t you think?” he calls over the crowd.

  There’s more shouting, more salacious speculation about the rest of me. What color would my pussy lips be? How tight is my cunt? I stand very still, unable to glance at Uncle Landon—to see the condemnation in his eyes. Or worse, the lust. I can’t even look for Gabriel. Is he shouting with the rest of the men? Is his voice demanding that I be passed around for inspection? I can’t bear to know, so I stare straight ahead, the yellow glow of the lamps blurring as my eyes sheen with tears. A deep breath. I won’t cry in front of them. They paid for my body, not for my despair.

  “Let’s start the bidding at twenty thousand,” Damon says, and almost every placard rises in the air. The sea of red paddles, each with a black engraved number, makes my stomach churn.

  Damon turns into a master auctioneer, speaking faster and faster.

  “Can I get twenty-five, twenty-five? I have twenty-five. Thirty! What about thirty-five? You’ll have this girl for thirty days and thirty nights, yours to do as you please, surely that’s worth—thirty-five! Do I have forty-five?”

  My gaze darts around the room, trying to keep up with the bids. The number goes higher and higher, and as if we’re climbing a mountain, the atmosphere seems to thin. I have to breathe twice as fast to get enough oxygen.

  Fifty thousand dollars. What will they expect me to do for that much money? What will I have to endure? I almost wish it had stopped lower.

  I look at Candy, who has her hands curled up like a child, her head tucked under Ivan Tabakov’s chin. He looks hard and foreboding above her, like he’s carved out of stone—but I know from her contentedness that she’s completely safe in his arms. I’m longing for that security, standing on a pedestal, my pride ripped to shreds.

  “Fifty,” Damon says sadly. “That’s all for this ripe peach?”

  He grasps the fabric at my hips and pulls, leaving my legs bare. I’m only wearing the plain white panties in a roomful of people. I can’t help it—I cover myself, my hands cupping between my legs. This seems to delight Damon, who laughs. The rest of the room stomps their approval, raising their glasses and toasting one another.

  Beautiful find, one of them says, like I’m an archeological dig.

  Perfect rack. Look at those hips. I’m too busy looking at her mouth. I’d keep those lips busy, that’s for fucking sure. More laughter.

  My gaze snaps to Gabriel Miller. He leans against the back of the wall, arms crossed. He isn’t even holding a placard, but that doesn’t surprise me. He’s here to see me humiliated, not because he wants me. No, the surprising part is the faint whisper of disappointment. I should know better than that, because if anyone would take my father’s debt out of my skin, it would be him.

  “Imagine tasting her,” Damon says. “Imagine pressing her sweet flesh between your fingertips.”

  There are a few men in the audience who haven’t raised their placards yet.

  Maybe they don’t like what they see—my body or my family name. Or maybe they only paid the entrance fee to watch the spectacle. But now they lean forward and begin bidding. I realize that they were waiting for the preliminary bids to get out of the way.

  These are the serious bidders.

  They mean to win.

  “Do I have seventy-five, seventy-five, seventy-five?”

  Uncle Landon raises his placard, his eyes coldly trained on me.

  A gasp escapes me. “No,” I whisper. Not when I turned down his marriage proposal and the security that would have come with it. Not when he reminds me of my father.

  Not when he really wants my mother.

  Part of me hopes that he’s bidding to save me. Maybe he’ll send me home without making me fulfill my end of the bargain. But his gaze rakes my body, leaving no doubt about his plans. And part of me burns in
anger because my father considered him a friend—and when my father most needed help, Uncle Landon turned his back.

  Oh, he helped me spend the last of the money. He explained the limitations of my trust. But if he could spend seventy-five thousand dollars on my virginity, he could have saved our house himself.

  The man with the beautiful blonde on his arm outbids him. If I were to guess, I’d say he purchased her as well. Probably the terms were more subtle than an auction. Gifts. An allowance. The principle is the same. Why does he need another woman? How many does he own?

  Uncle Landon outbids him, leaning forward in his seat.

  Eighty thousand. Ninety.

  One hundred twenty.

  One hundred twenty-five.

  My stomach clenches and unclenches in rapid succession, and I’m afraid I’m going to hurl even without having eaten. Maybe I’ll just make horrible, unsexy sounds as I heave, causing everyone to give up on the auction and go home.

  Damon drives the bidding higher. The gray-haired man and Uncle Landon continue to fight each other, pushing the number up, locked in a stalemate like bucks fighting with their horns.

  One hundred eighty-five. One hundred ninety.

  Two hundred thousand dollars. Uncle Landon’s placard stares back at me, unmoved by my horror. I want to pretend that I misunderstood the bidding, but Landon’s expression of gruesome triumph proves he won. I’m going home with him to spread my legs, to pretend to be my mother.

  Everyone in the room turns to look at the gray-haired man. Even the beautiful woman on his arm seems tense with anticipation, waiting to see if he’ll continue to bid.

  “Do I have two hundred thousand and ten?” Damon says almost casually.

  The gray-haired man studies my body with a clinical expression. He narrows on the space between my legs, the patch of white fabric. “Let’s see her.”

  Immediately the crowd erupts into expressions of agreement, demands to remove my panties.

  Damon seems to consider this request. “You have to pay to play, my friend.”