“We found the captives and the monks,” Sawyer announced softly over the radio in her ear. “They’re being held in the dormitory area, but there are too many guards around for us to free them without starting a major firefight. We’re going to have to stick with the plan and try to rescue them as they’re being moved off the mountain.”
Crap.
“Adriana and I are topside now,” Elliot reported, interrupting whatever else Sawyer might have been about to say. “They’re calling for some of the guards to help move the captives, so I think the auction is about to start.”
A few minutes later, Harley saw several guards, including Sawyer, slip into the room and take up positions along the outer perimeter of the space. A tremor of concern slid down her back at the sight of all the tactical gear they wore and their expressionless demeanor. While the buyers in the room obviously assumed the men were here for their protection, something told her, once the shooting started, the guards would gladly shoot every rich snob in the place to stop her and her teammates.
She casually glanced at Sawyer, noticing he kept to the farthest, darkest corner of the room. To anyone else, it would seem like he was completely focused on the area he was guarding, but Harley knew he was taking everything in—marking the location of each threat, the number of windows and doors, and the complete lack of cover the room provided if this turned into a firefight. Which it almost certainly would at some point.
“Weapons are in the bottom of an empty trash can in the storage room near the restrooms,” Sawyer murmured over the radio.
He was good. She didn’t even see his lips move.
Harley wandered over to the buffet to help herself to some hors d’oeuvres. Tiny plate in hand, she nibbled on a canapé as she strolled around the room admiring the murals on the wall. When she reached the corridor near where Sawyer stood guard, she casually set the empty plate on a nearby serving tray, then headed down the hall toward the restrooms. Slipping into the storage closet, she quickly grabbed her small-frame Glock and backup magazine, tucking them into the holsters attached to the waistband at the back of her tailored pantsuit. Unlike at the club in Paris, she and Misty—along with Erin—had opted for slacks on this rescue mission, instead of dresses and high heels. When things got crazy tonight, they wanted to able to move quickly.
Peeking out the door to make sure no one had seen her, Harley walked back into the main room, taking a glass of champagne from the tray a nearby server offered as Erin passed by and walked down the same hallway to get her weapon. A few moments later, Forrest did the same. Harley would feel a lot better after all of them were armed.
The black velvet drapes at the back of the dais rustled, catching her attention, and Harley watched as a big man wheeled a large, cloth-covered box out from behind it. She frowned when she heard something sloshing around and realized it was full of some kind of liquid. To say she was curious was an understatement.
She was a little surprised one man was strong enough to handle the box. Then again, that guy was at least seven feet tall and muscular as hell. Harley did a double take. The guy’s skin might not be green right now, but she was sure he was the scaly shifter they’d fought in Morocco.
Harley was relaying that information over the radio when Seamus stepped out from behind the curtain with someone else she recognized, this time from Paris—the guy she’d shot as he tried to escape with Adriana. She’d recognize that beat-up leather jacket anywhere.
“The guy in the leather jacket I shot in Paris is here, too,” she added softly into her mic.
The guests fell silent as the large crate was finally positioned in the middle of the dais and the big man who’d been pushing it moved aside. It was like they all knew they were about to see something no one else had probably ever seen and were holding their breath in anticipation.
Stepping up to the box, Seamus pulled the satin cloth covering it away with a dramatic flourish. All around the room, gasps of surprise filled the air.
Harley blinked. What she’d assumed was a box turned out to be a glass tank filled to the very top with seawater and inside floated a girl who couldn’t be any more than sixteen or seventeen at most, long, pale hair as fine as corn silk swirling around her. Naked from the waist up, she tried to find purchase on the inside of the slippery tank with one arm while attempting to hide her breasts with the other. Her pale green eyes were filled with so much fear and anguish, Harley wanted to cry.
Dragging her gaze away from the girl’s, she saw the girl’s lower body was covered in blue and green iridescent scales like a fish, ending in a webbed tail twice as wide as her shoulders.
Crap. The girl was a mermaid.
“I don’t think I need to tell anyone what you’re looking at,” a deeply accented voice said.
Harley turned her attention away from the poor creature in the tank to see a man stepping onto the dais. In his midforties, with curly, brown hair and a beard, he had gray eyes the color of steel.
There was a sharp intake of breath over the radio, but Harley ignored it as the man stopped beside the mermaid’s tank. The young girl darted to the opposite side, like she’d do anything to put space between her and the man.
While the man didn’t introduce himself, Harley instinctively knew he had to be Boc. One look at him convinced her the guy was soulless. You had to be to kidnap a mermaid from her ocean home and sell her like a piece of meat.
“The tank will be made available to the winning bidder,” Boc continued, reaching over to rap his knuckles loudly on the glass and smiling when the mermaid winced in pain. “If you’d rather not transport it, however, we’ll gladly drag her out. Her human legs will reform as soon as she dries off. Though I feel obliged to tell you now, the transformation is extremely painful for her. The screams she lets out during the process are unlike anything you’ve ever heard in your lives.” He chuckled. “Which, in my opinion, are well worth the purchase price alone.”
It took everything Harley had not to pull her gun and shoot Boc then and there, even as everyone around her beamed. These people were sick.
“Since this is our first item tonight, let’s start the bidding on the low side just for the sake of fun,” Boc continued. “Say…five hundred thousand euros?”
Harley only got more disgusted as the people around her eagerly began to outbid each other. If she hadn’t already been willing to risk her life to save the captives, one look at these sickos would have changed her mind.
Movement out the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned her head to see that Sawyer had stepped out of the shadows. He seemed visibly stunned as he stared at the dais, his face paler than she’d ever seen it.
She weaved through the crowd toward the buffet, feigning disinterest in the bidding as it quickly climbed over eight million euros and pretending to focus on the plates of fancy food and glasses of champagne. The move took her closer to Sawyer and allowed her to talk to him without anyone noticing.