Chapter 18 - Ado

The dim lights inside Border Ridge House cast long shadows across the sleek marble floors. Someone has placed tall, expensive metal torches in lines across the walls, and their flames flicker in the breeze through the entry hall. The air is thick with the scent of expensive cigars, perfume, and something deeper. It’s almost the scent of blood.

I know it well after all these years, the smell of corruption.

I stand near the back of the crowded ballroom, pretending to sip a glass of whiskey as I observe the room. Through the crowd, dressed as a waiter, Percy lowers his emptied drinks tray and retreats to the kitchens. He doesn’t look across at me, but I can tell he knows I’ve seen him.

The place is packed with unsavory types—men draped in luxury brands thumbing their expensive cigars, their smiles cold and predatory as they mingle with each other. The kind of people who thrive in the shadows, who have no qualms about buying or selling whatever it takes to maintain their power. Some humans, mostly shifters. Old money. I scan their faces. Keira would tell me if I was close to a person of interest. She’s said nothing yet.

Weapons, drugs, and women, in that order. Soon, the auction will be underway. The thought makes me feel sick, but I keep my expression neutral, playing the part of a wealthy businessman looking to make a deal. It’s a role I’ve played before, too many times to count, but tonight, it’s as if it’s my first undercover op all over again. I feel clumsy, shaky, like I haven’t been doing this for years. Usually, jobs come naturally to me. But something’s off, and I am consumed by the simple task of keeping my breathing even.

I am not the type to panic. What’s wrong with me?

Through the pack’s mental link, I hear Percy’s voice in my mind, clear but hushed, as he and Rafael sneak through the backrooms.

“We’re almost to the basement. No sign of extra security yet, but there’s some heavy equipment down here. They’re definitely anticipating the possibility of invasion.”

“Keep moving, ” I respond mentally, keeping my expression steady. “If anything feels off, pull back. We can’t afford any mistakes.”

Percy sends a brief affirmation, and then the connection quiets again.

I draw a slow breath into my core, trying to relax my shoulders. Rosa once taught me how to breathe in a way that helps ground you. I don’t remember most of what she said, but sometimes I find myself doing it. Blending in means staying calm.

I glance at my watch, waiting for the auction to start. The doors to the main stage will open any minute now, and the real show will begin. But something gnaws at the back of my mind, a nagging sense of unease that I can’t shake.

Thumbing the button in my sleeve that activates my earpiece, I clear my throat, intending to reach out to Keira. Even just hearing her voice right now would steady me.

“Keira, you reading me?” I murmur quietly, my tone casual. No response.

I wait a few seconds, then try again.

“Keira? Come in.”

Silence.

I suppress a sigh, leaning back against the wall as I scan the room again. She’s probably just ignoring me—still pissed off after everything that happened last night. I can’t blame her. Hell, I’m pissed off at myself. But not hearing from her now, when we’re in the middle of something this dangerous, it makes me… uneasy.

Would she really ignore me at a time like this? I feel a tingling in my fingers that feels like panic. Maybe I’ve fucked up irreparably this time. Maybe she’s on a bus back to New York right now.

I push the thought aside, trying to focus on the mission. We’ve done this before. We’ve handled worse. And Keira is more than capable of watching the monitors from the pack center without needing to talk to me, and that’s what she’s doing. She’s always been good at keeping things professional. I, of anyone, would know.

The crowd is growing restless, murmurs of anticipation rippling through the air as they wait for the doors to the auction room to appear. I catch snippets of conversation—talk of “new merchandise” and “high-quality shipments”—the scum are talking shop.

My fingers tighten around the glass in my hand as I hear one man chuckle about the "premium stock" of women arriving tonight. I have to resist the urge to break his nose.

Stay in control, I remind myself. This is bigger than just one lowlife.

“We got it,” Raf says irritably in my mind, and I don’t apologize for the unintentional cross-talk.

Keira doesn’t reach out on the comms. Even as the doors to the auction room open and we all file in, taking our seats around the stage in tiered semi-circular rows, I hear nothing from her. I peer up into the cameras on the ceiling. Is she watching me?

Byron’s voice chips in in my in-ear piece. “Lighting is lowest in the back left corner, so we need your eyes out on that side. Hunker down there. Raf is in the front row in the far right.” From here, I can see the top of his head, hidden under a spiky black wig.

I clear my throat softly so as not to draw attention from the crowds funneling in. As I gun for a seat in the corner, I brush past Percy re-entering the room from a side entrance with his tray of drinks. He hip-checks me subtly. We don’t make eye contact.

Three older men speak in rapid French in the back corner, clearly wasted. I don’t understand a word, so I angle my head subtly in their direction and hope my in-ear will pick up enough of their conversation that it can be recorded and translated. It could be useful to have.

The stage lights must be blinding from up there. I scan the crowd. It’s deliberately very dark off the stage and painfully bright on it. I can make out very few faces around me. They’re all phantoms, laughing and clinking their glasses. I hate them all.

Don’t get angry. Focus on the job.

Percy checks in. “Ado,” he says with uncharacteristic seriousness. “You good?”

I affirm that I am. I don’t think I’m lying. I think I can handle this. We just have to gather as much intel as we can, listen in on as many conversations as possible, and note the names and faces of buyers.

The auction begins with an unsettling formality. A slick-haired man in a crisp suit steps onto the stage, his face bathed in white light. The audience falls into a hushed silence as he greets them with a smile that’s as cold as the room itself.

“Gentlemen,” he purrs into the microphone, “welcome to tonight’s exclusive auction. We have some extraordinary items for you this evening—the finest weapons, the rarest drugs, and, of course… our premium stock.”

My mouth sours at the euphemism, but I keep my face impassive. The auctioneer gestures to a table being wheeled onto the stage by two assistants. A velvet cloth covers the items, but when they pull it back, the crowd murmurs in approval.

Firearms, sleek and polished, are displayed with an almost sickening reverence.

“First, we have a rare collection of automatic rifles, customized for precision and efficiency. These beauties are top of the line, and they come with full guarantees of… discretion.”

Bidding begins immediately, hands shooting up in quick succession. The prices climb rapidly, and I watch as the men around me nod and whisper to one another, discussing their future purchases like they’re selecting wine for dinner.

I make mental notes of the bidders, their faces partially obscured in the darkness but not enough to escape my attention. A bald man with a heavy beard raises his hand with a grunt, offering an obscene amount of money for a collection of grenades. Another with slicked-back hair and gold rings around every finger counters with a bid for a crate of high-caliber ammunition.

Each item is sold off quickly, efficiently. Byron murmurs in my ear every so often, noting the faces I describe and cross-referencing them with our database. Many of these people are familiar to us, repeat offenders in this twisted underworld. But most are new, and their presence sets me on edge.

The auction shifts from weapons to drugs, and the energy in the room rises palpably. The crowd becomes more animated, more eager. Packages of synthetic drugs, enough to supply entire regions, are auctioned off to the highest bidders. The exchange of money and goods feels too casual or routine for something so destructive.

As I watch the proceedings, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off. I’m not hearing enough from outside. And Rafael and Percy have blocked me out—I don’t hear them at all, though they’re certainly communicating with each other.

I tap my earpiece again, trying to reach Keira.

“Keira,” I whisper, “you there?”

Nothing. Silence.

I clench my jaw. I tell myself it’s just bad timing. She’s probably focused on something else, or maybe there’s a technical glitch, or maybe she has simply decided to leave dealing with me to Byron.

But even Byron isn’t speaking on the comms right now.

The auctioneer’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Gentlemen, we will take a brief intermission before we present our most exclusive offerings of the night. Please, enjoy the refreshments, and prepare yourselves for what’s to come.”

The crowd begins to stir. Men shout out, demanding more drinks, and Percy and the other servers dash in and out.

I remain seated, my eyes scanning the room. I spot Rafael as he slips out the side door, likely heading toward the basement again.

“Raf,” I call. “Did something happen? I’ve got radio silence from everyone.”

A brief pause, charged with something I can’t name. “Wait for Byron to call. We’re working out what happened.”

It’s like someone has dropped an ice cube down the back of my shirt. I clench my hands on the armrests of my chair and squeeze hard. My pulse thuds in my head.

Something has happened. And I know for a fact that everyone knows. It’s in Percy’s silence, in Rafael’s quick, purposeful movements away from me. Byron’s quiet distraction.

And Keira’s unending quiet.

Something has happened to Keira.

The second I realize it; the lights begin to dim again. I’m halfway out of my seat when I realize I can’t leave the room without attracting unwanted attention—so I sit back down, but I’m losing my mind, I think. I might just be going crazy.

“I need an explanation. Now,” I shout mentally to whoever’s listening. “Someone tell me what’s going on.”

Byron clears his throat in my ear. “Stay in your seat,” he says. “We don’t know anything’s wrong yet, we’ve just had a call from someone in the pack center and—”

The slick-haired stranger re-emerges onto the stage, waving his hands. The lights wash him out so severely that his features are extremely hard in his face, his eyes like pieces of coal.

“Welcome back, Gentlemen! Our most discerning of customers, this part of the evening is for you. And the last thing any of us wants to do is make you wait, so without further ado, we introduce you to the first bride-to-be of the evening. From downriver, a brand-new addition to our collection—let’s meet our first lovely young lady…”

He gestures behind the curtain, and two other dark-clothed men step onto the stage. They hold between them a squirming woman with a bag over her head. She has long, toned limbs, but she’s clearly been hit over the head or drugged. She keeps staggering, knees refusing to hold her. They have to drag her to the front.

She’s barefoot in a thin tank top and pants with scuffed knees as if she was forced onto them. She has her arms chained behind her back and a bag over her head.

I can see the woman shivering even from here. Something clicks inside me, but I don’t yet know what it is.

The men drag her to the middle of the stage. There is already interest in the crowd. Patrons are leaning in closer, eager to see her face.

The auctioneer steps forward with a slow, deliberate pace, as if he’s savoring the feeling. His hand reaches out to the bag over the woman’s head. He grabs it, and, with a practiced flourish, yanks it off.

A gasp escapes my throat before I can stop it.

This must be a nightmare, I think faintly. I must be dreaming. It can’t be real. Nothing about this can possibly be real.

I pinch myself hard. Pain lances up the inside of my arm.

It’s Keira.

Her face is pale, her eyes wide and disoriented, but it’s her. A bruise blooms along her cheekbone, and a streak of dried blood stains her temple. Her hair is disheveled around her face, her body trembling, her lip shaking—I see the shine of her eyes as she fights tears. But it’s her.

The world stops. The room narrows to just her and me. Everything else—the noise, the lights, the people—fades into the background. All I can see is Keira, standing on that stage, vulnerable and chained like some kind of offering to these monsters.

“Ado,” Rafael says in my mind. “Ado, don’t do anything stupid. I swear to God, don’t blow our cover; we can’t get her out of here alive if you do and you know it—”

I block him out. I feel his presence in my mind, fighting to get through to me, but he can’t. I won’t let him.

I have more important things to think about. Somehow, I have to get her out of this place.

Whatever it takes.

The auctioneer’s voice slices through my haze. “What a beauty, gentlemen! Fresh, young, and full of fight—this one won’t disappoint. Shall we start the bidding at ten thousand?”