I took out the eggs and bacon and switched on a burner. My thoughts went back to the girl. No sound came from the room. All cried out from her whipping, she was probably sleeping off the rest of the drug.

She was different than the others. She fought me; they all did to an extent. But they also begged for their lives. She’d done the opposite. She’d told me to get it over with if I was going to kill her. I wondered where she’d come from. Who’d had her, and who’d branded her. I wondered if her new owner would want that mark cut out. They usually liked them pure. Maybe he’d burn his own brand over top of whatever decorated her hip.

There was one thing that bugged me, though. That kind of nagged at me. When she’d bitten my hand, I’d gone to slap her but stopped. I’d never stopped with any other girl before. It was something in her eyes that had done it. Not the fear, but something else. Something almost familiar.

I lay strips of bacon into the pan and cracked two eggs beside them, the sizzle and smell making my stomach growl, and wondered who she was. It wasn’t just her looks but the look inside her eyes. She was different than the others. She wasn’t a random pickup off the street. And I had a feeling she was older than the usual girls by a few years. The girls I trained were between eighteen and twenty-one. I wouldn’t take them younger. If I had to guess, I’d say Gia was twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. The buyers usually wanted young flesh.

Sick fucks.

Sicker than you?

I scrambled the eggs and told that voice to fuck off. Once everything was cooked, I plated it and set it on the table, grabbed my laptop out of its bag beside the door, and booted it up. I finished the plate of food as I checked my bank balance for the deposit—ten grand up front, the rest upon sale, the final price determined by the amount the girl brought in. Not bad money. But I guessed human trafficking brought in serious money. The auctions were always interesting. I enjoyed looking at the girls. Who wouldn’t? But I more liked watching the buyers, who were mostly men, some couples, and a few single women. The same ones seemed to turn up at every auction. I wondered if they were growing their stable of stolen women or if they needed to replace lost or damaged goods.