Chapter 4 The Devil Who Bid a Trillion

The announcer recovered from his astonishment faster than the rest of the room, although the forced brightness in his laugh made it obvious that even he had not expected such a monstrous figure to be named so casually.

"That is truly an extraordinary offer from one of the underworld's most distinguished patrons," he announced into the microphone.

His praise drifted past me unheard.

My entire focus remained on the man standing at the far end of the hall.

Pain pulsed mercilessly from my wrists where the chains had rubbed my skin raw, yet I continued to twist my hands in a desperate attempt to loosen the steel cuffs. It was useless. Every movement only deepened the sting, and the lingering weakness inside my body made each effort feel smaller and more pathetic. Whatever had been forced into my system had not fully worn off, leaving my muscles heavy and my senses frustratingly dull when I needed them the most.

The man slowly rotated the wine glass between his fingers before speaking again.

"For a display this rare, Cain, that amount sounds embarrassingly small."

His voice was calm, polished, and terrifyingly at ease, as if he were negotiating over luxury property instead of discussing the price of a human being.

I clenched my jaw and looked away for a second, swallowing the humiliation rising like acid in my throat. Every word spoken in this room reduced me further into something less than a person, and the worst part was that I could do nothing but stand there half-naked and chained while strangers discussed my worth in numbers I could not even comprehend.

Cain laughed nervously and adjusted the microphone in his trembling hand. It had become painfully obvious that this man was not merely familiar to the people here. The room bent around him. Even the announcer, who had spent the entire night speaking with theatrical confidence, now sounded like a servant trying not to offend a king.

My eyes returned to the masked bidder.

His black tuxedo fit him with sharp perfection, every line of it severe and expensive. One hand remained tucked inside his trouser pocket while the other held the wine glass with lazy elegance. Unlike the others who had stared at me with shameless lust, he did not look impatient or crudely entertained. There was something colder in the way he watched me, something unsettlingly composed, as though all of this had already ended in his mind and he was simply waiting for reality to catch up.

That thought made my pulse skip.

As if he felt the weight of my stare, he lifted his chin and looked directly at me.

The distance between us suddenly seemed meaningless.

His gaze did not roam over my body like the others. It stayed fixed on my face with a steadiness that was far more disturbing than any vulgar inspection could have been. I felt pinned in place all over again, not by the chains this time, but by the certainty in his eyes. A faint movement touched the corner of his lips, an expression too subtle to call a smile, yet enough to make my stomach tighten.

He set the wine glass aside and began walking toward the stage.

He did not hurry, but every step seemed to command space around him. Men shifted from his path before he even reached them. Conversations died without being told to. I watched all of it while continuing to struggle against my restraints, although by now my wrists felt swollen and numb from the constant friction.

I did not know who he was, but I knew enough to recognize that this was not a man anyone here dared challenge.

By the time he reached the stage, my breathing had grown uneven.

He stopped directly in front of me.

From this close, his height and breadth were impossible to ignore. His shadow cut through the harsh stage lights, and the scent of expensive cologne mixed with red wine wrapped around me in a strangely suffocating way. The silver mask concealed much of his face, but his eyes were clear enough, dark, unreadable, and carrying a weight that made it difficult to hold his stare.

I turned my face away.

I could not explain why his nearness unsettled me more than the hundreds of eyes in the audience, but I felt as though if I kept looking at him, I would see something I was not ready to understand.

The movement brought the side of my neck closer to him, and a second later I felt his warm breath brush lightly against my skin.

A tremor raced down my spine.

I tightened my fingers around the chains while a low chuckle left him, as if my involuntary reaction had amused him.

Humiliation heated my cheeks.

I remained rigid, refusing to look at him again, but the hall had gone so silent that I could hear my own heartbeat pounding inside my ears. It was clear that every person in the room was watching us now, waiting to see what this feared man intended to do with the woman he had just bought for a fortune.

Then he stepped back.

I glanced toward him in confusion and saw that his eyes had lowered to my wrists.

The bruises left by the steel cuffs were darkening by the second.

His jaw tightened.

The lazy amusement that had marked his earlier expression disappeared entirely, replaced by a stillness so cold that it made my stomach clench. He stared at the chains as though they had personally offended him, drew in one measured breath, and then turned away from me without warning.

He walked straight toward Cain.

The announcer instinctively recoiled. "Sir, if there is any-"

The rest of his sentence never came.

The man's hand shot out and closed around Cain's throat with brutal precision.

A horrified gasp escaped me.

Cain's microphone slipped from his fingers and hit the polished floor with a screech of feedback while both of his hands clawed helplessly at the gloved hand crushing his neck. His feet nearly left the ground. Several bidders stood up in alarm, yet none of them moved to interfere. They simply watched with pale faces and rigid shoulders, as though the sight of violence was less terrifying than the possibility of opposing the one delivering it.

I stared at them in disbelief.

No one was going to help him.

No one was going to stop this man.

"S-stop..." I forced out weakly, though my voice was barely more than breath.

Whether he heard me or simply decided he had made his point, I could not tell, but after a few suffocating seconds, he released Cain.

The announcer dropped to his knees, coughing violently and clutching his bruised throat while dragging in desperate mouthfuls of air.

The man did not spare him another glance.

Instead, he turned back toward me, and this time the look in his eyes carried something I could not decipher. The same authority remained there, but beneath it flickered anger and something dangerously close to remorse.

Before I could make sense of it, he pulled a phone from his pocket and placed it against his ear.

"Maze," he said, his tone clipped and final, "bring the cash and the men. We are leaving, and I want her out of these chains immediately."

Even through the haze clouding my thoughts, understanding slowly forced itself into place. Maze worked for him. The tattooed men worked for him. The entire room, with all its masked bidders and its trembling announcer, moved according to his presence. He was not simply another participant in this nightmare. He was the center of it, the man whose arrival could silence everyone and whose displeasure could nearly end a life in seconds.

My vision blurred harder at the edges.

I felt hands at my wrists, loosening the cuffs one after another, but my body had grown too weak to support itself. The moment the final chain unlocked, my knees gave out beneath me.

Before I could collapse onto the floor, strong arms caught me.

One arm slid beneath my knees while the other braced my back, lifting me effortlessly against a broad chest. Heat wrapped around me at once, solid and inescapable, carrying that same scent of cologne and wine. My head lolled weakly against him as I forced my eyes open one last time.

He had removed his mask.

My vision swam, but I saw enough.

Sharp cheekbones, dark eyes, a mouth carved with dangerous perfection. He was far too handsome for a man who looked as though he belonged in every nightmare I had ever feared.

A faint breath escaped me.

"What a gorgeous devil..."

Then darkness claimed me again.