Page 73 of Boardroom Sins

PAY TO THE ORDER OF: Youth Mentorship Initiative

Five Million and 00/100---------DOLLARS

MEMO: For the girl in red

The men in black don’t touch me. They don’t have to, though. Even if they do have orders to keep their hands to themselves, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.

Because the spotlight itself is a cage. The crowd is a wall. Every exit is blocked by phones and faces and that relentless, blazing light.

I walk toward the stage because there’s nowhere else to go. The sound of my nervous breathing is drowned out by applause. People are clapping. They think this is entertainment. They think I’m in on the joke.

They are very wrong.

I climb the steps to the stage. The emcee is grinning at me like I’m a prize pig at a county fair.

“Ladies and gentlemen, isn’t she stunning?”

More applause rings out, along with a wolf whistle from somewhere in the back.

I scan the room, looking for Kir, or an exit, or anyone who might help.

I find Lukas instead.

He’s taken up a station near the back of the ballroom with his arms crossed and his face unreadable. He doesn’t clap or smile. He onlywatches.

The emcee, an older man with a sweaty mustache and a badly knotted bow tie, touches my elbow. I flinch. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart. Come stand right here.” He guides me to a spot at center stage where everyone can see me. “There we go.”

I’m shaking. I can feel it in my hands, my jaw, my pitiful wobbly ankles. The red dress feels like a target painted on my body.

“Now then!” The emcee turns to the crowd. “Who would like to open the bidding for an evening with the lovely Miss Everett?”

An evening.He said“an evening.”What does that even mean? Dinner? Dancing? Something worse?

This is a mistake. I never agreed to this. I want off this ride, thank you very much.

A hand goes up near the bar. “Five thousand!”

A bray of laughter ripples through the crowd. The emcee shakes his head in mock disappointment. “Come on now, gentlemen. Look at her! She’s gorgeous! We can do better than that.”

Another voice pipes up, somewhere to my left. “Ten thousand!”

That opens the floodgates.

“Fifteen!”

“Twenty!”

The numbers climb and the ranks swell with more and more men calling out from the faceless, shadowy depths of the crowd. My stomach drops another notch with each one. I’m beingsold. Right here, right now, in front of God and Lukas and Manhattan high society, I’m being auctioned off like an antique dresser at an estate sale.

I look at Lukas again. Despite the piercing light in my eyes and the gloom it casts over the assembled crowd, I can still seem him, all the way at the back, towering over everyone from his perch.

He hasn’t moved. His face remains stony and unyielding.

Isthiswhat he wanted? Isthiswhy he brought me here? To humiliate me in front of everyone?

“Fifty thousand!” Surprisingly, it’s a woman’s voice this time. I don’t see who, but I do feel a pang of gender betrayal.

The emcee whistles. “Fifty thousand dollars! Do I hear sixty?”