Chapter 3

Phoenix

One Month Later

"Hey Phoenix." Kelly sidles up next to me as I watch McKenzie. It's parents' weekend, and it looks like her father didn't show up. Again. Anna walks up to her with a frown and hands her an envelope. She leans down and hugs her, whispering something in her ear. McKenzie offers her a fake smile and nods.

"Are you ignoring me?" Kelly asks.

I scoff. "What was your first clue?" I swear this girl gets on my last nerve. She's so desperate for it. She giggles like I'm joking and I roll my eyes.

"Who are you looking at?" She turns her head and when she sees I'm watching McKenzie, she huffs. "Even her own family doesn't like her. They never show up."

I ball my hands into fists and remind myself I shouldn't hit a girl. Even a bitch like Kelly. My father already came and left. I still think he's hiding something because he was very evasive the entire time he was here, but I did find out how to get into the council.

You have to be a member for at least a year before they'll consider it. If you don't have a daughter to put up for sale you have to buy someone else's daughter, you have to pay a membership fee, and you have to have sex with the person you bought twice. Once in front of everyone and the second time in front of the council. I don't quite understand that, but it's their twisted way to have some semblance of control, I guess.

I know McKenzie's father is on the council, so he's agreed to sell his daughter. And I'm going to buy her. Then I'm going to get him removed from the council. The daughters have to be sold between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three. So, I will make sure I'm at every auction so I can buy her when her father finally does it.

"Do you plan on going to prom?" Kelly asks, interrupting my thoughts.

"No." Prom is the same night as the next auction. If I plan on getting in the council, I will be at every single auction they have.

"What? Why?" Kelly whines.

I grind my teeth and stand. Never hit a woman. Never hit a woman. "Because I don't want to." She doesn't know how to take a hint. I regret the day I stuck my dick in her.

McKenzie is still staring at the envelope Anna handed her. I wonder if she's going to open it. I walk toward her slowly just in case she does open it she'll have time to read it before I reach her. But she never does. She just stares at it.

When my shadow falls over her, she looks up, startled. "Phoenix?" The lines between her eyebrows show as she squints up at me. Her eyes are glossy and I know she's trying her damnedest not to cry. I'm going to make Marcus Knight pay.

I climb up on the picnic table and sit next to her. "Your father didn't show." It's a statement, not a question.

She sniffs. "No. I'm sure he had something important to do."

"You are important." She inhales sharply, but doesn't reply. I imagine wrapping my hands around Marcus Knight's throat and watching the life drain out of his eyes. She has no idea. No idea one day her father is going to sell her and one day I'm going to buy her.

She probably has this plan for her life that doesn't involve me. What she doesn't know is I am her future. I'm going to make sure she has a good life if it's the last thing I do. The heat from her gaze is penetrating my skin, so I turn and look at her.

She offers me a small smile. "Thank you. I really needed to hear that."

I have this overwhelming urge to lean the few inches between us and kiss her. Take her full plump lip in my mouth and suck it. Then I would mark her so everyone knows she's mine. My fingers tingle with the need to wrap them around her neck, pull her to me, and show her how good we would be together.

Instead, I stand, tap her on the nose with my index finger and walk away. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

"I've been keeping an eye on her and she's doing okay. You don't have to worry," Dick is saying as I walk into his office without knocking. His eyes widen when he sees me, making me wonder who he's talking to. "I have to go." He hangs up without saying bye, and I arch an eyebrow at him.

"You didn't have to end the call so abruptly on my account." I sit down in the chair in front of his desk and place my foot on my knee.

He narrows his eyes at me. "I don't know who you think you are walking in my office without knocking."

I wave his comment away. "What were you doing at the auction?"

He stops breathing, and his face turns bright red. If he passes out because of lack of oxygen, I will not be resuscitating him. He takes a deep breath, like he's coming up out of water.

"What are you talking about?"

I laugh and his face begins to turn red again. "You really need to work on your poker face." His mouth opens and closes several times like a fish. I lean forward and place my hands on his desk. "What were you doing at the auction?"

I want to ask him why he was talking to Marcus Knight at the auction as well, but that will be showing my hand and I'm not doing that. Not with this sleaze. It's been a month since the auction, but I've noticed how he looks at some of the girls and it makes me wonder what his ulterior motive is for being the dean here.

"How do you know about the auctions? And what were you doing there?" He tries to sound haughty, but the questions come out panicked. I'm beginning to lose my patience.

"I was there because I was invited. Who invited you?"

He swallows and glances over my shoulder, probably hoping someone will come save him. "I was invited as well. You can't go unless you've been invited."

"Who invited you?" I ask.

"None of your business."

I stand so abruptly he jumps. I snort. This man is our dean and he can't stand up to an eighteen-year-old. "Listen, Dick, if you don't start answering my questions, I'm going to go to the board and tell them their newly hired dean was at an auction selling girls that graduated from this very school last year. Who invited you?"

He inhales sharply, his eyes darting around the room. "A friend of mine. Marcus Knight." Just like that, the floodgates open and he tells me more than I asked for. "He helped me get this job. He said he needed someone here to watch out for his daughter because she was in danger."

I narrow my eyes at him.

So, he must have been talking to Marcus when I walked in. He was telling him she's doing okay. He can't show up for parent's weekend, but he's doing this. Does he think she's in danger because of me? Or is something else going on?

"Why is she in danger?" I ask.

"I…uh…I don't know." I tilt my head. "I swear I don't. He didn't tell me. He just said he needed me here to watch out for her."

I sit back down and lean back in the chair, mulling this over in my mind. "He thinks she's in danger." It's not a question, but Dick nods anyway.

"I don't know why he thinks that. He didn't tell me, but he calls me every day to make sure she's doing okay."

I want to ask why he didn't come to parents' weekend since he seems so worried, but again I don't want to show my hand. I don't want him reporting back to Marcus that his enemy's son was asking questions about him or his daughter.

"How did he help you get this job?" I ask. The last dean was told to resign when news came out that he was sleeping with a senior. I think the two wound up getting married over the summer. It was all very hush hush. A lot of influential people send their children here to go to school. Some of them are influential in illegal ways and others influential in other sectors of society.

Marcus controls the drug trafficking from Florida to South Carolina. Anna's father plans on running for president one day. My father has a number of businesses he uses to launder money. Mainly strip clubs and he's started a few underground fight clubs, but lately he's shown interest in taking Marcus' territory.

I don't care either way. If we can destroy him in more ways than one, I'm on board. I stand again and stare down at Dick. He sinks back in his chair and clutches the arms, his knuckles turning white.

"You need to remember your place here and how easily you can be replaced. This is my school, so if any of its students are in danger, you need to notify me. Understand?"

He nods in agreement. "Of course. Yes."

"Seems like you get to keep your job for one more day." I walk out of his office, leaving the door wide open. Heading toward the library, I have to see for myself McKenzie is okay. I just saw her during the last period of the day, but the fact she might be in danger I need to see for myself. This girl has no idea the control she has over me.

I wonder if she'll figure it out one day and use it against me.