THE KING’S VESTIGE

Chapter 4

City B had a market where people were priced like art. Tonight, Kade was walking into it unarmed.

The club sat on the edge of the financial district and looked like every other building from outside, but he knew better. He had spent three hours finding people who mentioned the Gilded Cage and made them talk.

Kade wore a black suit he had stolen from a store and carried fake papers that said he was a foreign investor. The papers were good enough to get past two checkpoints already.

The third checkpoint was inside the club. A woman in a red dress sat behind a glass desk and smiled at him like she could see through everything.

"Name?" she said.

"Marcus Chen." Kade gave her the papers.

She scanned them, and her smile grew sharper. "You're here for the special event."

"That's right."

"Follow me."

She walked toward the back, and Kade followed her past tables where rich men drank champagne and laughed too loud. Women in expensive dresses pretended to care about whatever they were saying.

They went through a door that said employees only and down a hallway that smelled like bleach. Then they descended stairs that kept going deeper than normal basements should go.

"First time?" the woman said without looking back.

"Yes."

"Rules are simple. No touching the merchandise before purchase. No photographs. No recordings. Payment is immediate after bidding closes. You win a lot, you have ten minutes to pay or your bid is gone and you're banned forever." She stopped at a metal door. "Understand?"

"Perfectly."

She opened the door. Sound hit him first, or rather the complete lack of it. The silence felt wrong because he had expected noise, but instead there were just rows of chairs facing a stage. Maybe thirty people sat there watching screens that showed lot numbers and prices.

The woman led him to an empty seat in the back row. "Your bidding tablet is in the armrest. Good luck."

She left. Kade pulled out the tablet, which was already logged into his fake account with a balance that would make most people pass out. His military connections had access to funds that didn't exist on official records.

On stage, a man in a white mask stood behind a podium and spoke in a voice that was too calm and too professional.

"Lot seven. Male. Twenty-three years old. No visible scarring. Bilingual. Starting bid is fifty thousand."

Numbers flashed on screens as people entered bids. Kade watched the price climb to two hundred thousand in less than thirty seconds. The masked man said sold, and someone in the front row stood up and walked toward a side door where handlers waited.

Kade looked around the room and studied every face, trying to figure out who ran this place. Security always had weak points, and the weak point here was whoever gave the orders.

"Lot eight. Female. Nineteen years old. Trained dancer. Minor cosmetic damage. Starting bid is seventy-five thousand."

A girl was led onto the stage wearing a white dress that was too thin. Her hands were bound in front, and she kept her eyes down like she had learned that looking up made things worse.

Someone bid one hundred thousand. Someone else bid one fifty. The price kept climbing while the girl stood there shaking. Kade felt rage building, but he forced it down. Losing control here meant losing Lyric.

The girl collapsed and fell hard on the stage floor. The masked man didn't pause.

"Lot eight appears to be experiencing distress. Moving to lot nine."

Two handlers dragged her off stage. Kade wanted to kill everyone in this room. Instead, he just sat there, waiting and listening.

"Lot nine. Female. Eighteen years old. No prior sales. Excellent condition. Starting bid is one hundred thousand."

Kade's blood turned to ice. They brought Lyric onto the stage.

She looked smaller than he remembered. Her chestnut hair was pulled back, revealing bruises on her neck. She wore a white dress identical to the one the previous girl had worn. Her eyes were vacant, like she had already decided to disappear somewhere inside herself where the pain couldn't reach.

Kade gripped the armrest hard enough to leave marks. Every instinct screamed at him to rush the stage and tear apart anyone who stood in his way. But that would get them both killed.

The numbers started climbing. One twenty. One fifty. Two hundred. Three hundred.

Each bid felt like a knife in his chest. These people were betting on his sister like she was a horse or a painting. Like she wasn't a person who loved poetry and used to dance in their kitchen when she thought no one was watching.

The price hit five hundred thousand. Kade looked at his tablet and calculated how much he could access without triggering security alerts. The military funds were deep, but they weren't infinite, and drawing too much at once would raise questions.

Six hundred thousand. Seven hundred. The bids were slowing down now. Only three people were still competing, including someone in the front row who kept raising the price in hundred-thousand-dollar increments.

Kade entered eight hundred thousand into his tablet and pressed submit. The number flashed on the screens.

The room went quiet. People turned to look at him. The masked man paused before speaking.

"We have eight hundred thousand from bidder twenty-seven. Do I hear nine hundred?"

The person in the front row raised their paddle. Nine hundred thousand.

Kade entered one million. His finger hovered over the submit button. This was more than he should spend. More than he could easily explain. But none of that mattered.

He pressed submit.

"One million from bidder twenty-seven," the masked man announced.

Silence filled the room. The person in the front row didn't move. No one else raised their paddles.

"Going once. Going twice." The masked man's voice remained emotionless. "Sold to bidder twenty-seven for one million dollars. Please proceed to processing."

Kade stood up and walked toward the side door, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had just bought his sister's freedom.

Now he needed to figure out how to get them both out alive.