Selling Scarlett (Love Inc 1)

The buyer’s gaze snaps to me. “You can’t do that!”

“You be quiet,” he hisses.

“He’s not for sale.”

“What about you?” He steps to me, taking my chin in his hand and running a finger over my cheek. “Are you for sale?” he asks me. “We get many requests for feisty American girls.” His gaze flicks between my legs. “They told me you are barely used.”

I blink up at him, too revolted to say anything.

He releases my face and chuckles. “She is just a baby.”

Abruptly he’s leaving my bed and walking toward the door. I glance over at Cross, and I’m relieved to find his jeans still zipped.

The buyer pulls something out of his back pocket, and as he reaches the doorway, his two sidekicks lean in to hear what he has to say. I gasp as I notice they’ve both got long, machine-type guns slung across their chests.

The shock of it is so horrible, I forget to translate what he’s telling them. The two sidekicks move to stand behind the buyer, and all of a sudden they’re all talking at once. Then the three of them step back, and Priscilla and Lockwood come in.

This time, I can hear their conversation clearly.

The buyer speaks in Spanish: “We’ll take them both. The man, especially, will fetch a good price in a larger market. Dark hair and blue eyes is a good look. For the woman, I am thinking Asia.”

I keep my eyes trained on the ceiling as my heart races. I dare a quick glance over at Cross. He seems asleep, but is he really?

Lockwood says, “How much?”

The buyer makes a tsking noise and continues speaking in Spanish. “I want to see more of them. A fresh woman is a fresh woman, but how big is the man?”

“He is large,” Lockwood says in Spanish.

Oh my God. Does he actually know that? My cheeks and head feel too hot, like any moment now, steam might start flowing from my ears. Please, no.

“I want to inspect the girl.”

“Please,” Lockwood says, also in Spanish. “Her legs still have blood on them.”

He waves at me, and Priscilla holds her arm out like a game show display girl.

I’m swallowing convulsively. The man nears me, and I wonder if I throw my legs up, if I can kick him with my knees despite my tied ankles. He scrutinizes my face and then he reaches for my chest.

As his hand comes down to grope me, I experience my first real moment of hopelessness. His fingers are inches from my breast when I close my eyes, but his hand never makes it. He crashes to the floor, knocking me off the bed, and his two sidekicks start yelling. The buyer jumps up as I fumble onto my elbows, leaning on the bed’s frame. I’m shocked to see Cross standing over me, clutching a handgun.

It must belong to the buyer, because the man’s face is a mask of shock as he reaches to the now-empty holster on his right side.

For the longest moment in the history of moments, Cross and the buyer stare each other down. Then, out of nowhere, Lockwood fires a shot at Cross. Cross ducks, and the sidekicks come in screaming. One of them has Lockwood on the ground in seconds, aiming what looks like an AK-47 at his face. Priscilla is screaming, sticking her arms in the air, her huge boobs bouncing as she jumps in place. “Don’t hurt me! Have you seen my movies? I’ll do anything you want!”

At first I think she must have lost her mind, but one of the gunmen actually lowers his rifle and gives her a hungry once-over.

She moves toward him, leaving Lockwood, Cross, the buyer, and me in our standoff. I shift my attention to translating Cross’s Spanish, and I’m stunned to realize he’s negotiating some kind of deal.

I catch something about, “Giant stockpile of guns” and “American airplane, not far from here” before my eyes and my attention home in on the buyer.

A small part of me will forever regret that I’ll never know if Cross would have been able to lie us to a happy ending. Priscilla is on her knees, Lockwood is on his back, and Cross, only days out of a coma, has elicited a respectful—if skeptical—expression from the buyer, who is obviously more interested in getting an airplane loaded with weapons than he is in whatever money he could make from us.

The buyer is wearing a skeptical-but-coming-around expression, and Cross is owning it, and I’m just sitting there, not like a badass heroine at all, wondering if they’re going to kill us when they realize there’s no plane, when a third sidekick with a huge machine gun runs into the room and cries, “Chota!”

“Chota?” the buyer snaps.

“Chota!”

“CHOTA!”

And, just like that, the buyer and his sidekicks run like hell.