Blindly, his hand reaches behind him, searching desperately for the door handle as I approach him.
As quick as a whip, my hands grip him by his throat, cutting off his shout. I lift him to my height level while he kicks and claws for me to release him, and I stare into his dilated eyes.
All I see is my own monstrous reflection.
I had told him those girls were human beings, but I never said that I was.
Pulling my top lip over my teeth, I snarl at him. “How many women have you thrown onto that stage, just to be carted off to a life of misery and suffering? How many have you taken for yourself and did unspeakable things to them?”
His face turns purple and his mouth flops like a fish, but no sound escapes from his constricted throat. I only squeeze tighter, relishing in the way his veins pop from his forehead. I wonder if I can make them burst open.
“Come on, Lee, I know you have a wife and children. How do you face them every night, knowing that you’ve condemned people just like them to a sickening fate?”
Just before he goes unconscious, I release him. He sucks in a huge breath while I force him into the chair that I’ve been occupying for the last two hours. Purchasing women that he proudly presented to me and fourteen other men.
I deliver one punch to his face, nearly knocking him out cold. It provides me enough time to grab the black bag I had brought in with me, full of rope and tape. Of course, the two bouncers, Beavis and Butt-Head, checked my bag before allowing me to enter the building, but they had only smiled—assuming the items were for the girls I planned to buy.
I had smiled back because they’re idiots, and because they were going to die.
Quickly, I dig out the roll of duct tape and bind his hands and feet. He pleads with me relentlessly, and when that fails, he flops around like a worm on a hook, but I can’t imagine what he thinks that’ll accomplish.
Next, I fish out my can of lighter fluid and squirt some all over his body. His eyes widen, and he struggles harder, attempting to break through the tape like he’s the Incredible Hulk.
“Jay? Send them in,” I order.
“On it.”
Leaving Lee to struggle for a bit, I step out to find several of my men pouring into the building, engaging in a shoot-out, and taking down security in a matter of minutes. No one is making it out of this auction alive.
While they take care of the employees and guards, I meticulously make my way into each cubicle. Jay unlocks each door for me one at a time, and I walk in, incapacitate the grimy rapist inside, then tie them up just like Lee.
By the time I make my way through all fifteen cubicles, a sheen of sweat is coating my skin. Most of them were old, but there were a few younger ones who put up a fight. A very pathetic fight—but one all the same.
Rolling my neck, I release some of the tension in my shoulders.
“All the girls safely in the limo?”
“Yep, and everyone else is dead,” Jay reports.
“Have Michael set up the camera on the stage,” I command, while sliding out a cigarette and lighting it.
I’m still in the fifteenth cubicle, which is, of course, on the other side of Lee. The man bound in the leather chair is squirming, begging for me to release him. Makes me wonder how many children or women have asked the same of him.
Michael saunters on the stage with a tripod and camera in his hand. While he sets it up, I ask Jay, “Did you figure out how to turn the glass transparent?”
“Obviously,” he sasses.
“Let’s see it then, genius.”
Seconds later, the glass walls gradually lighten until all fifteen cubicles are transparent, and I’m surrounded by men strapped in leather chairs, fighting like hell to get free and failing.
Jay whistles. “Damn, dude.”
It seems all at once, the fifteen men freeze, confused, and petrified as they take in the sight of fourteen others in the same situation as them. Even Michael pauses on the stage, taking in the scene around him with a grin on his face. Eventually, I watch all their heads turn toward me.
“You see this?” I ask the man next to me. “How exciting. You get to show them their fate.”
“Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.”