“What the hell just happened?” she whispered, staring at them.
Warner held her gaze with a firm one.
“You just got claimed, baby. It’s official.”
Chapter 5
“Have you found anything out at all?” Jeff asked Randall. Randall was one of the major players in the field and had done a lot of the online communications with buyers.
“One of the guys who intervened is a local deputy in Chance, where your little precious item lives. The other guy doesn’t have shit on him, at least I wasn’t able to find anything. He has like no record, just the fact that he is alive and lives in Chance, too,” Randall said.
“Wonderful. Who the fuck would have expected cops to be hanging out there,” Jeff said.
“You pushed her too soon. It would have been worth the effort to make another date or plans for a get-together,” Damien said.
“You know as damn well as I do that time is of the essence. She wasn’t attracted to either of us. She was so shy, reluctant to open up, and that just made her more appealing. I’m telling you, she’s special. We don’t have a lot of time to find these women, put them up for sale, and then grab them,” Jeff countered.
“But still, she was sweet, shy, n
ot experienced with men. It was obvious and you should have moved slower, seduced her better.”
“Says you, Damien, who barely said a word to her. You could have helped.”
“It doesn’t matter how you screwed up, what matters is fixing it and getting our hands on her,” Randall said to them.
“How the hell can we do that when our faces are plastered all over the news reports and every cop out there is looking for us?” Jeff asked.
“You have no choice. We need her,” Randall replied.
“No, we don’t. There were plenty of other women around there. Send in Carlos, Mickey D., or even Largo. They’ll find some more product and we’ll be good to go.”
“Have you seen the numbers on the website? Have you even checked the live trending numbers on this woman?” Randall asked them.
“No,” Damien said.
Randall walked over to the desk, typed some keys, and then turned the screen so they could see it.
Jeff was shocked. There were pictures of Mercedes. Ones they had taken and ones that were altered placing her in a string bikini. She was listed as a little southern virgin along with a description of her measurements, age, and height. But what caught his attention besides the curves of her body that were pretty damn accurate except her breast size. They were bigger in person. He stared at the screen. Could see the questions being asked, the bids being placed, and the scale that showed the final number and sale price for Mercedes was moving up on the screen.
“Six hundred thousand dollars?” Damien asked, sounding shocked.
Randall smiled.
“And rising as we speak.”
“What are we going to do? They’ll be cops all over her now, and we’re screwed as is. We can’t go anywhere,” Damien said to Randall.
“We need to come up with some kind of plan to get this woman into our possession, or a lot of men are going to be pissed off, including the boss. He knows the deal. He knows that the two of you can’t actually do the job this time. You both need to come up with a way to grab her. This one is taking a lot of attention away from the others we have listed. The boss believes that this bidding war will go over a million dollars. So think of something,” Randall told them and Jeff stared at the screen.
How the hell was he going to get his hands on Mercedes? Who could he send in, and how could they get away with it?
* * * *
Mercedes wondered when they would leave. It was getting late. She was tired and had aches and pains and she wanted rest so that she could go back to work tomorrow. She needed the money.
She looked at Warner as he worked on the laptop communicating with whomever he knew that was working the case. Kurt was on his I-pad and texting things every so often, and Luke sat right next to her, flipping through the channels on the television set.
Her eyelids were getting heavy as she tried staying awake and wondering what it would be like to have the three of them with her like this all the time. She would never be alone. If she needed a hug, a conversation, anything at all, one of them would be there. Was that the way this worked?