POV: Mia
Cold.
That is the first thing Mia feels.
Cold floor. Cold air. Cold fear spreading through her chest like ice water.
She opens her eyes and sees nothing but white light blasting down at her face. She tries to sit up and her arms won't move right. She looks down. Her wrists are tied together with a plastic zip tie, already cutting into her skin.
Okay. Don't panic. Think.
Her head is pounding. Her mouth tastes like blood. The last thing she remembers is standing at her father's grave, watching them lower the casket into the ground while rain soaked through her black dress. She remembers the cold dirt smell. She remembers not crying, even though every part of her wanted to fall apart. She stayed strong because that's what her dad always said. You're the strongest person in the room, Mia. Even when you don't feel like it.
She does not feel like it right now.
She sits up slowly and looks around. The spotlight above her is so bright she can barely see past it. But as her eyes adjust, she starts to make out shapes. Rows of men sitting in the dark. Like an audience waiting for a show to start.
And then she hears it.
"Lot seventeen." A man's voice, smooth and practiced. "Starting bid. Fifty thousand."
Mia's blood goes cold.
No.
"Sixty thousand," says a voice from the dark.
"Seventy-five," says another.
She looks down at her wrists. She looks at the spotlight. She looks at the rows of men she cannot fully see. And then the truth crashes into her like a wall of concrete.
They are buying her.
She is the lot.
Her stomach drops so hard she almost gags. She scrambles to her feet even though her legs feel like water. A guard appears from nowhere and grabs her shoulder, pushing her back down. He does not say a word. He does not have to.
"One hundred thousand," calls a voice near the front.
"One-fifty."
"Two hundred."
Mia pulls at the zip tie with everything she has. The plastic digs deeper. She can feel warm blood starting to run down her palm but she does not stop. She looks around wildly for anything — a door, an exit sign, another person being held. There is nothing. Just her, the spotlight, and a room full of men deciding what she is worth.
Dad. The word rises in her chest like a scream she can't let out. Dad, what did you get us into?
Because she knows — she has known since the night two men in suits showed up at their apartment three months ago and her father went pale as paper — that his job was not as simple as he always said. Numbers and spreadsheets, that's what he told her. Just accounting work. Just keeping books for a private firm. But private firms don't send men with cold eyes to your door at midnight. Private firms don't make your father stop sleeping. Private firms don't end up getting your father killed in a car accident that didn't look like any accident Mia had ever seen.
"Three hundred thousand."
"Three-fifty."
The bids are climbing faster now. She can hear excitement in some of the voices. Like this is fun for them. Like she is a car at an auction and not a person with a heartbeat and a dead father and a half-finished cup of coffee still sitting on her kitchen counter at home.
She gets the zip tie to one side of her wrist, just slightly. It is not enough to break free but it is something. She keeps working it quietly, keeping her face blank, trying to look scared and small. She is scared. But she is not small.
Count the exits. Count the guards. Count everything.
One door behind her — the one she came through. One door at the far left of the room. Two guards she can see, probably more she can not. The men in the seats are not guards. They are customers. They would not stop her if she ran, they would just watch.
"Six hundred thousand."
Okay. Too many guards. Running is not the plan right now. The plan right now is to find out who buys you and then figure out how to destroy them.
Her father's voice again in her head. Information is the most powerful weapon in any room, Mia. Always know more than the other person thinks you do.
She keeps her eyes moving. Memorizing faces where she can see them. Memorizing the layout. Memorizing everything.
"Eight hundred thousand."
A pause. Fewer voices now. The smaller bidders dropping out.
Then a new voice cuts in from the far back of the room. Older man, somewhere near the door on the left. "One point two million. And I'll take her tonight."
Low laughter from some of the others.
Mia's skin crawls.
She cannot see the man clearly. But she can hear the ownership in his voice. The way he says tonight like it is already decided. Like she is already his.
Her hands are shaking. She presses them flat against her thighs so no one can see.
You are not going home with that man. You are not going home with any man in this room. Figure it out.
"One point five," says someone to the right.
"One point eight," says the older man. More confident now.
And then.
Silence.
Not a pause. Not a breath between bids. Pure, total silence.
And then one voice. From the very back of the room, where the dark is so thick she cannot see anyone at all.
Calm. Quiet. Like a door being closed.
"Ten million."
The whole room goes still.
Even the auctioneer stops.
Ten million dollars said like it is nothing. Said like he is bored. Said like every other number in this room just became irrelevant.
No one bids again.
Mia stares into the dark at the back of the room. She cannot see a face. She cannot see anything. Just darkness where a voice came from. A voice that just paid ten million dollars for her like it was the cost of a coffee.
Who are you?
Before she can think another word, the guard grabs her arm and pulls her up. He turns her toward the black door at the back of the room — not the one she came from. A different one.
She digs her heels in for one second, just one, and looks back into that dark corner.
Still nothing. Just shadows.
The door opens.
And Mia Cole, daughter of a dead man, bought by a ghost, is pushed through it.
She still does not know his name. She does not know that she has already heard it — written in red ink in her father's notebook, circled twice, with one word beside it that she never understood until right now.
Dangerous.