The Highest Bidder

❊ Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ Tʜɪʀᴛʏ﹣Tʜʀᴇᴇ ❊

We sat staring at each other for, what seemed like, an eternity. I wasn't sure what he expected me to say. Hello? Nice to see you again? I thought about you for years? Sometimes I still see you in my dreams? Seeing you makes my heart hurt?

I didn't say a word. Nothing about how seeing him made me want to cry. Nothing about how I wished he would stop looking at me with those distant eyes. Nothing. There was so much going through my head, but none of it I could say. My entire being seemed to completely shut down.

I knew I was looking at him like he was a stranger too. But that's because he was a stranger to me. I didn't really know him. All I knew was the man who was always happy to see me and was excited about our baby. But that wasn't him. He was the man who sneered and told me that he was glad that I had a miscarriage.

"What are you doing here?" I finally spoke up, my voice distant and hoarse. It wasn't my voice at all. It was the voice of someone broken and in pain.

He blinked slowly. "Helping a friend out."

I was about to ask what the hell he meant when my bathroom door opened and Maverick stepped out. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest, a smirk forming on his lips. There was a gun at his hip, easily reachable if he wanted to use it.

My entire body went cold. "What the fuck is this about?"

"You don't know?" Maverick feigned shock. "Vince is the one who led me to you to begin with. He knew where you lived, told me, and I had my people watch after you to try and find a good time to come get you for the auction."

I let out a slow, shaky breath. I wanted to deny it. I wanted to tell him that Vince wouldn't do such a thing to me. But by the look on his face, it was true. Somehow, he grew even more detached.

"Why?" I didn't know how I could push the one word out of my mouth. I felt like I was about to throw up.

"You really have to ask that," Vince mumbled.

"Yes," I yelled, finally finding my voice. "What did I ever do to you?"

His eyes narrowed into slits. "Whose baby did you have in your stomach?"

"What the fuck?" I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. "Yours, you dumb ass. Who else's would she have been?"

He stood to his full height. Even standing ten feet away from him, he still towered. All six feet six of him. His black shirt was tight around his biceps and his chest. His jeans hung low on his hips - the way he always wore his pants.

"You tell me." His voice never changed, but I could see the sudden shift in emotions. He was angry. I guess that's what I got for spending so much time with him. "The doctor said it wasn't mine."

I blinked once. Twice. Three times. Then my eyebrows furrowed and I tried to think back. I had ever only had sex with two men, and they never coincided with each other. There was no one else, so I had no idea what the hell he was even talking about.

"Unless someone fucked me without me knowing it, I have no clue what the hell you're going on about." I wished he would do something other than look at me like that.

"You cheated on me."

"I did not," I yelled. I was starting to get pissed off. All of the therapy I went through and the calm I got from talking to Sophia was slipping. His assumption that I cheated on him caused him to go to Maverick. Caused him to lead them to me. He basically sent me to the auction himself. It was a wonder why he didn't just come and get me himself.

I took two steps forward, my vision zoning in on him. "Even if I did happen to cheat on you - which I didn't - that would have been no reason to send me to him!" I jabbed a finger in Maverick's direction.

I was beyond livid. Beyond furious. I wanted to scream and beat some sense into him. He was never this idiotic. And even if he was, why the hell did he explain to Maverick - a slave trader, for God's sake - where I was and tell him it was okay to come and get me for the auction? He got jealous on occasions back in the day, but never...never was he jealous enough to sentence me to slavery.

The door to my room opened and Maverick spent no time grabbing his gun and aiming it directly at my head. "Make a move to help her and she's dead. Come in and close the door."

I turned, seeing Enzo standing in the doorway. His eyes were wide as he looked at the gun, then at Maverick, then Vince, and finally me. Before he could do as he was told, Sophia showed up with Thomas by her side. I thought that Enzo had signaled somehow, but they looked just as shocked.

Maverick sighed and ran his free hand over his face in exasperation. "Okay, all three of you get in here, sit down, and don't say a word."

When the door was shut, I turned my attention back to Vince, who was looking at Enzo with a small smirk.

What did he know? Did he know Enzo?

"I'll make introductions, I guess." Maverick's gun hand never wavered. "Everyone, this is Vince. Vince is Eva's ex boy-toy."

Vince sputtered a laugh, but it wasn't the laugh that I knew. It was bitter and full of something I couldn't quite put a finger on. I was used to his eyes shining with mirth, somehow making his bright blue eyes even brighter. But this laugh...it was mirthless and hateful.

"Vince," Sophia whispered. I didn't look at her. I couldn't look at her without looking at Enzo too. "Oh, God. Eva, no."

I closed my eyes and counted slowly down from ten. I didn't know whether I wanted to cry, or if I wanted to kill Vince and Maverick where they stood. For years, all I ever wanted was to figure out why it was he turned his back on me. Come to find out, he had thought that I cheated on him the entire time. What did that doctor tell him that made him turn so violently on me? Was the doctor even looking at my charts? Couldn't they have somehow been mixed up in the jumble of the emergency room and mistook my chart for another? Either way, Vince was misinformed.

"Now, Enzo." Maverick's voice made my eyes snap open. "Have you put a tracking device in the little vixen?"

"No." Enzo's voice came out authoritative and strong. I wanted to look at him. I wanted him to have a gun, or something, that would get me out of that room. But that was hoping for too much. I had never been that lucky.

"I still think we should check." Maverick sighed, motioning for Vince to grab me. "Check her. Everywhere."