Chapter 139: Item

Cecilia

The forest eventually gave way to open moorland, and in the distance I could see lights—not the garish neon of the district we'd left behind, but the softer, more elegant glow of old money trying to pretend it wasn't hosting an auction where human suffering was the entertainment.

Grey Manor rose from the landscape like something out of a gothic nightmare, all Victorian architecture and imposing stone walls, with manicured gardens that probably looked beautiful in daylight but now just looked like places where bodies could be hidden.

"Masks," Harold said, pulling up behind a silver Aston Martin and putting the car in park. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out two white porcelain masks, delicate things painted with gold filigree that would cover our faces from forehead to upper lip.

I took one of the masks, the porcelain cool and smooth against my fingers, and tied it carefully over my face. Beside me, Sophia did the same, and when I looked at her I saw how the mask transformed her—made her look mysterious and untouchable rather than scared and vulnerable.

"Ready?" Harold asked, but it wasn't really a question because ready or not, we were doing this.

"Ready," I said, and meant it with every fiber of my being.

We stepped out of the car into cool evening air that smelled like expensive perfume and something darker underneath—anticipation, maybe, or the particular scent that came from people who'd convinced themselves that money made them exempt from basic human decency.

A valet appeared immediately to take the keys, his eyes sliding over us with the kind of assessment that suggested he was used to beautiful women arriving for these events.

I gestured for Harold to take out the invitation letters. After the guards at the gate finished their routine yet strict inspection, they let us in.

"Welcome to Grey Manor," the guard said in accented English, his smile professionally warm. "The feast will begin shortly. Please, make your way inside."

I forced myself to walk with Emmaline's measured grace, my head high and my expression coldly neutral behind the mask, while Sophia stayed close beside me playing Marie's warmer counterpart.

Harold fell into step behind us, perfectly positioned as a bodyguard—close enough to intervene if needed, far enough back to seem like hired help rather than someone we actually knew.

A server appeared with a tray of champagne, and I took a glass purely for something to do with my hands, to look like I belonged here rather than like I was seconds away from screaming.

The bubbles fizzed against my lips when I took a sip, the taste expensive and completely wasted on me when all I could think about was Daniel somewhere in this house, waiting to be dragged out and tortured for these people's entertainment.

"The auction room is this way," another server said, gesturing toward a set of double doors at the far end of the hall. "Please, make yourselves comfortable. The proceedings will begin in ten minutes."

Sophia's hand found mine, her fingers ice-cold even through the silk of our gloves, and I squeezed back—a silent promise that we were in this together, that whatever happened we'd face it side by side.

The auction room had been set up like a small theater, with rows of plush seats arranged in a semicircle around a raised platform at the center.

Lighting rigs hung from the ceiling, currently dark but obviously designed to spotlight whatever—whoever—would be displayed on that platform. And in the front row, in seats that were clearly reserved for VIPs, I saw them.

The Grey family.

Or at least, I assumed they were the Greys based on the way everyone else in the room seemed to orbit around them, the way conversations would pause when they spoke, the way even masked people couldn't quite hide their deference.

There were three of them—two men and a woman, all dressed impeccably, all wearing masks that somehow managed to look more expensive than everyone else's.

The older man sat in the center, silver hair visible above his mask, his posture radiating the kind of authority that came from generations of power. To his left sat a younger man, maybe mid-thirties, with the same sharp jawline and the kind of lean build that suggested he knew how to handle himself in a fight.

And to the right sat a woman whose designer gown and diamond necklace screamed old money, her head tilted slightly as she listened to something the older man was saying.

"Lord Rhys Grey," Harold murmured in my ear, so quietly I almost didn't hear him over the murmur of conversation filling the room. "Head of the family. The younger man is his son, Lord Ronan. The woman is Lady Helena, a newly-wedded wife of Rhys Grey"

Lord Rhys Grey, the man my mother remarried.

He got himself a new wife so soon after my mother fled away.

I felt rage burn hot in my chest, cutting through the fear and replacing it with something colder, sharper, more focused.

This was the man responsible for my mother's desperation.

This was the man who'd turned her into someone so broken, so afraid, that she'd agreed to destroy her own daughter's life for money.

Sophia and I were guided to seats in the second row, close enough to see everything that would happen on that platform, far enough back that we wouldn't be expected to participate in the bidding.

The lights dimmed, and conversation died down to expectant whispers. On the platform, a single spotlight flared to life, illuminating a man in a tailored suit who stepped forward with the practiced ease of someone who'd done this before—the auctioneer, I realized, here to facilitate the sale of human suffering like it was fine art.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice carrying easily through the room with that particular British accent that suggested expensive education and moral bankruptcy. "Welcome to this evening's special collection viewing. We have several remarkable items for your consideration tonight, each one carefully selected for its unique qualities."

My stomach turned at the clinical language, the way he talked about people like they were objects, commodities to be bought and sold.

"Our first item," the auctioneer continued, gesturing grandly as the platform began to rise from some hidden mechanism below, "is quite rare indeed. A genuine albino, female, approximately twelve years of age."

The platform came into view, and I felt my breath catch in my throat, my hand flying to my mouth to stifle the sound that wanted to escape.