Buying Her

Chapter 3 - Rhett

Chapter 3 - Rhett

My paid version of calming someone down usually included slapping them around until they came to their senses or knocking them out. Something told me that method wasn’t going to work here.

The redhead in question struggled against the restraints holding her to her board. Her bold red hair danced around her animated face. Her green eyes shot daggers out at everyone in the room. Her lips sneered, showing her perfect teeth. Her breasts shook as her body jerked away from the board and back. She was thin. I could have snapped her like a twig if I had been so inclined.

I stepped in front of her and grabbed her under her chin to force her to stare into my eyes. She huffed and puffed, panting from whatever rage was filling her body. Her chest heaved. She didn’t say anything else. She just stared at me.

“Calm down. Nobody is going to hurt you while I’m here,” I told her, caught between trying to assure her she was going to be all right and trying to let her know I wasn’t going to tolerate any more foolish behavior. While I got the feeling the people working the auction wouldn’t have been too upset if I pulled her down from her restraints and took her outside to give her an attitude adjustment, I didn’t want to handle these girls that way.

What was happening to them was already bad enough. I didn’t want to add to it. I hoped my voice would be enough to sooth her, and it was. Her eyebrows relaxed, and I noticed an immediate change in her breathing. I let go of her chin, and she kept her eyes locked on mine. She was beautiful. She didn’t belong with the other girls. She had come from better stock, for lack of a better expression.

Once I felt like she’d calmed down enough to talk, I flashed a smile. “Now, let’s start with your name,” I said.

I heard paper’s rustling beside me. “She doesn’t have one,” one of the auction officials said.

“It’s Margot,” she said weakly.

I shot the official a look that told him to back off. “All right, Margot, my name is Rhett. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She gave me a weak little smile. I wondered what the hell they’d put these girls through before bringing them in here to be shopped like different cuts of meat. It made more sense to me to present them in their best shape, not tired and agitated. Then, again, I wasn’t the one holding the auction to sell these girls. Surely, they also had to prove to be durable.

“Margot, I’m not going to hurt you okay? I just want to ask you some questions,” I told her.

She sighed.

“Okay?” I insisted.

She closed her eyes and nodded. It was a sad expression. She was breaking my heart.

“Now, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” I asked and waited for her to start talking.

She took a few slow breaths, as if trying to muster up the strength to actually talk to me instead of trying to fight and struggle to get free. “I’m not supposed to be here,” she started.

I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. “I’m pretty sure these guys hear that a lot, Margot. Why don’t you give me a little more to work with, and maybe I can help you, okay?”

She nodded. “The last thing I remember was being on the street and trying to sleep. Some old guy gave me a blanket, and I was finally starting to warm up. Then, I woke up here, tied to this.” She pulled her restraints for emphasis.

“So you’re homeless,” I said.

“Yes, sir.” She nodded. She looked like she was just moments away from breaking down into tears.

I didn’t know if I could believe her story. She definitely didn’t fit in with the other girls. She looked a few years younger than the others, possibly too young to be there. She also had a lot more spirit than the others. I had no idea where the girls came from, but they obviously didn’t come from the same place Margot did.

She sure as hell didn’t look homeless. Tired and distressed, maybe, but not homeless. She was too clean, too innocent. She didn’t look like she’d seen that part of the world before. I wanted to believe her, but I just didn’t know if I could.

“I didn’t consent to this, whatever it is,” she continued. “I was just looking for somewhere to sleep for the night until I could find somewhere warm to stay.”

I searched her green eyes. She didn’t belong among these other girls. There was a fire in her eyes that no master would be able to extinguish, not easily. It would have taken someone truly sadistic to break her, and I didn’t put it past Vlad to have at least one among his guests who would be willing to try.

“Give me one second,” I told her, holding up a finger. “I’m going to see what I can do to help.”

“Don’t you leave me here,” she growled as I started to step away.

I was about to grab our man in charge of inventory and talk to him and the manger about releasing her, but something in her voice stopped me.

“I’ll stay right here,” I assured her, planting myself back in front of her. “Just let me get a couple of people over here to help us.”

“Okay, just don’t leave.”

I motioned to the guy keeping watch over the girls with his clipboard to come over.

“Yes, sir, Rhett,” he said as he approached.

“First, I need you to get all the guests out of this room,” I told him in hushed tones. I didn’t want everyone else to hear what I was saying.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“No, that’s why I need them to leave. We’ve got to fix this situation.” Into my earpiece, I called for the manager. “I need to know what information we have on this redhead,” I told him.

“I’ve been listening in, Rhett. Is everything all right?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet, but I think we may have a problem. What do we have on her?”

“Ask my assistant.”

Mr. Clipboard came back over. “I’ve got nothing. I’ve been trying to say that all night. She’s not on here.” He flipped through his papers again. “I’ve got every other girl in here, but I don’t have her.”

“I’ve checked on my end, too, and I’ve got nothing,” the manager said.

I kept my eyes on Margot the whole time the other two were talking. As young as she looked, I wondered if she had been planted by one of the other gangs trying to take down the auctions. It would have been enough to simply blow the whistle on the operation, but an underage participant would have made things even worse.

“What are you thinking, Rhett?” the manager asked.

The way I saw it, I had two options. I could have called off the auction until we knew who the hell she was and how she’d gotten mixed up in all of it, or I could have just removed her from the auction, eliminating the underage risk. I didn’t want to risk losing the money I was going to make for working the best auction of the year, but there was no way I was going to let her be presented to the guests for bidding.

“We need to get her out of here,” I finally said. I watched as relief washed over her face. Her body relaxed against her restraints, but it wasn’t time to celebrate yet. I had just started the work of setting her free. These men weren’t going to let go of someone as beautiful as Margot so easily.

“Vlad’s not going to be happy about this,” the auction manager said.

“You let me worry about Vlad,” I told him.

“I really don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Rhett. I can’t tell him I just let her go,” he said.

“You’re really going to try to muscle me out of money? You do realize who I am, right?” I asked incredulously.

“Rules are rules, Rhett. Once she’s on the auction block, I have to take money before I can let her go.”

I didn’t have time to look for Vlad and sort everything out myself, so I peeled a few hundreds off the wad of cash in my pocket and handed them to his assistant.

He thumbed through the money.

“That should be enough for you to let her go,” I told him.

I had always dealt directly with Vlad during the auctions. We had never had any problems like we were having with Margot. And for the first time I could remember, I actually regretted not knowing anyone’s name. It would have been nice to know who to go after to get my money back. Thieving bastards.

“Yep, that’ll do it,” the assistant said.

“It better,” I told him. “If not, you could get stuck being set up by this girl. We’ve got to get her out of here, so I hope you appreciate your free money.”

The assistant signaled to the stage hands who hurried over and started to undo the restraints. The cuffs on her wrists and ankles had locks on them, as did the belt around her thin, young waist. The only people who had the keys were the stage hands and Vlad himself.

As they pulled her down slowly from the board where she’d been held, I stepped up to grab her. She sort of fell into my arms. Her body was limp. I could feel her exhaustion as it weighed her down on my shoulder.

“Come on,” I told her, putting a hand on her upper back. “Let’s get you dressed and get you somewhere safe. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Okay,” she murmured. “Whatever you say.”

I carried her over my shoulder to a room off the side of the gallery, where clothes were kept for the girls. We didn’t keep their clothes. We had outfits for them to choose from for the men who purchased them. They ranged from blue jeans and t-shirts to dresses that made them look like little princess dolls. Whatever sick little fetishes these guys wanted to live out with their new toys, they could with the clothes we had.

“Where are you taking me?” Margot groaned.

“We have got to get you dressed first, before we do anything else, okay?”

“Thanks,” she said as I put her down. She turned around and looked at the room, packed to the brim with clothes. “These people really go out of their way to make this as big as they can, don’t they?” she asked.

“You really have no idea, Margot. Just find something to wear. I’ve got to get back to work.” I stood back and watched as the petite redhead walked through the room to find something to put on. Her breasts and the little shaven mound between her legs weren’t the only things that were nice to look at on her body. Her ass was tight and round. I felt dirty for looking at her and enjoying the sight of her delicate body, especially once I considered why she was naked in front of me. She’d just been on the auction block.

In other words, the body I was admiring was supposed to wind up as a treat for one of the sick millionaires who had attended Vlad’s auction. I remembered the things they’d said about her earlier in the evening, before Alexander had called me in to take care of her. Vlad wasn’t going to be pleased at all when he realized I had taken her off his hands.

And on top of that, once she was dressed, I had to get back up front to let the rest of his guests in. The ones who had already seen Margot weren’t going to be pleased either. I sighed. None of that mattered. By getting her out of there, I had done one of two things. Either I had removed a threat to the auction, or I had freed a young girl who didn’t have any business being there at all, not that any of the others did, but I had stopped them from selling one.

I smiled as I realized I had still paid for her.

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