Black Widow: Dark House

19. "Already Gone"- Sleeping At Last

Bold Italics- Russian

Italics- any language besides English

**- thoughts/ memories

** Natalia hung on her dates arm at the Gala, her hair down, wearing a red dress that hugged everything in all the right ways. Her date beamed with pride. The wall to ceiling windows provided Ana ample viewing from her spot-on top of another building across the street, hunkered down with her sniper rifle to provide Natalia with cover should she need to.

Her date kissed her cheek, promising to return after his meeting and leaving her with a friend to look after her. After a few minutes she feigned that she needed to use the restroom and slipped away.

"Natalia he's heading down to the lower floor. Catch up quick" Ana said in her earpiece.

Natalia found the service stairway and began to make her way down, "copy that" she replied.

Finding a library, she just caught a glimpse of her date slipping into a small speakeasy.

Slipping out of her dress, Natalia now was in a form fitting black jump suit, not unlike was the female waiters wore at the event. Slipping behind the speakeasy she make her way down a brick covered hallway that opened to a large show room. Cigar smoke drifted in the air, the smell of whiskey and sweat mixing together to form a sickening aroma.

Expertly Natalia drifted into the background, no one taking notice of her. A crowd sat before a stage, mostly men, some women as they waited for the event to start. Natalia made her way to a side door, knowing that there would be a boiler room. There was a gas line that wrapped around the entirety of this room.

"I'm at the gas line. Placing explosives now" Natalia said.

Sticking each circular disk to the line and securing them, she looked at her handy work, satisfied. Arming each of them, she made sure they were connected to the watch Ana wore. She needed to make sure she was far enough away before setting them off.

"Devices set, are they connecting to you?" She said into her earpiece.

After a moment of silence Ana answered her, "Affirmative. Get out of there quick. Tell me as soon as you are in the clear."

"Understood."

Natalia left the room, closing the door silently behind her. She stopped suddenly; her eyes transfixed on the stage.

A line of children, boys and girls were on display. They all worse form fitting clothes, especially the girls. They were all different ages, the youngest one looked to be about four years old as she held the hand of the boy next to her.

"We have a lovely first round of stock for you this evening ladies and gentlemen" the announcer on the stage said before giving a description of each child.

'First round?' Natalia thought. There must have been thirty children on the stage, how many rounds were there? Memories flashed through her mind, especially of little Yelena, making her chest feel heavy.

Dreykov had sent them to take their target out, along with a smuggling ring. He had never specified what the target smuggled.

Natalia knew that blowing the gas line in this room would obliterate everyone in it. That didn't matter to her before. As she watched a small girl carrying was looked like a prayer doll, she realized with a shaky breath, that it did now.

"Natalia, you need to get out of there before the auction starts" Ana's voice rang uselessly in her head as she starred at the stage, unable to pull her gaze away.