Soren knelt beside Linnea, dressing her in a gown whose delicate lace clung painfully to her wounds.
“Soren…” she rasped. “Will you only let me go when I’m dead?”
“Dead?” He gripped her chin. “You don’t deserve it.”
Lifting her into his arms, he whispered, “You’ll enjoy tonight’s auction.”
Down the spiral staircase they went, her body trembling in his hold.
The announcer’s voice boomed: “The auction of Mr. Carrington and his wife’s belongings begins now!”
Linnea’s hands shook uncontrollably.
She shut her eyes against the pain, but the auctioneer’s voice kept cutting through her skull—over and over—reminding her that everything she’d once called her own was now on the block, parceled out by Soren for strangers to take.
“It’s painful, losing someone you love, isn’t it?”
His voice was a dull, serrated blade, carving her heart without mercy.
“When my sister died, Linnea, I felt a hundred times more than this. So keep your eyes open. Don’t you dare look away.”
Her lashes lifted, and tears blurred her vision.
The first lot: her mother’s treasured piano. The same one her mother had cradled her beside, guiding her small hands across the keys to play songs written just for her.
The second: her parents’ engagement ring.
The third: the diamond crown her father had commissioned for her eighteenth birthday.
Bids rose sharply. “One million!” “Two million!”
Her chest constricted. “Soren,” she choked, tasting blood, “you can do whatever you want to me—but not to them. Please… give me back my parents’ things. I beg you.”
She pounded his arm with shaking fists. “I was wrong, I admit it. Please, I’m begging you…”
For an instant, his eyes flickered with something almost human. He almost reached to wipe her tears—almost whispered, Linnea, don’t be afraid. I’m here.
Then the moment died. Hatred smothered it.
“It’s easy to get them back,” he murmured. “Several of my partners are here tonight. Appease them, and your parents’ belongings are yours.”
Her grip on his sleeve loosened. “You… want me to sleep with them?”
Could this be the same man who had once beaten an investor bloody for brushing his hand against her leg?
He didn’t answer—only pressed room cards into her palm. “You owe me this, Linnea.”
Nausea rolled through her, her fever from the leukemia stoking her skin hot and cold. Still, she forced herself upright and walked toward the first investor’s room. She had no choice.
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