Entangled with the Mafia Don novel Chapter 68

Davina’s POV

The stage felt like an altar, and I was the sacrifice.

The air in the freighter’s hold was thick and suffocating, a nauseating cocktail of cloying expensive colognes, the acrid bite of high-end tobacco, and the underlying, metallic rot of the sea. Above me, the harsh, white spotlight was a physical weight—a blinding, hot pillar of light that turned the men in the audience into faceless, jagged silhouettes. They were a sea of black tuxedos and predatory eyes, lurking in the shadows just beyond the reach of the glare.

Every inch of my skin crawled with a primal, skin-shivering revulsion. The midnight-blue silk of the gown they had forced me into felt like a layer of cold oil. It was expertly tailored to be a mockery of modesty; the fabric was so sheer it felt like a second skin, clinging to every curve and revealing the frantic heaving of my chest. They had painted my face with heavy, theatrical cosmetics and curled my hair into perfect, doll-like waves. I felt like a corpse prepared for a viewing—a beautiful, hollow shell.

"Look at the poise," the auctioneer’s voice boomed, amplified by the speakers until it vibrated in my teeth. His hand hovered inches from my bare shoulder, a silent threat of contact that made my stomach churn. I flinched, a small, involuntary jerk of my body that drew a ripple of dark, appreciative laughter from the front row. "A rare spirit. well raised, resilient, and broken in just the right places for a discerning master."

I wanted to scream, to howl that I wasn't a spirit or a "lot"—I was a person, I was Lexi’s sister, I was a woman who was drowning in terror. But the sedative they had injected into me to make me "docile" for the stage had turned my limbs to lead and my tongue to a useless weight in my mouth. I was a prisoner in my own skin.

The bidding began, and the numbers being shouted were so astronomical they ceased to have any meaning. Five million. Ten. Fifteen. To these men, I was a line item, a luxury car, a piece of offshore real estate. I scanned the dark room, my eyes burning with unshed tears, searching for a ghost.

Ezra.

The thought of him was a jagged blade in my heart. I had pushed him away because I feared his world, and now that world was devouring me. I prayed into the void, begging for the man I had rejected to be the monster I needed now. I needed the man who killed without blinking to find me in this den of devils.

"Fifteen million from the gentleman in the front!" the auctioneer shouted, his voice reaching a fever pitch.

I saw the man—a bloated, middle-aged trafficker with wet, hungry eyes that roved over my body like insects. He looked at me with a sickening possessiveness that made the world tilt. I closed my eyes, a single, heavy tear finally breaking through the mascara and carving a hot, black path down my cheek.

Goodbye, Lexi. Please be safe.

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