The Sinner's Bargain (Contracts & Deceptions #2) Read online

Samuel opened the file on his desk and turned it to face her. Amara looked at the papers and blinked rapidly, as if it would make her signature an illusion, but there it was, clearly written on the page. She leafed through the pages as she pulled them toward her. There was a series of photographs of the contents of the safe: Blocks of gold, stacks of American dollars, jewelry, ammunition, and a smaller safe. She continued looking through the bank document and shook her head in disbelief as she saw her signature at the bottom of every page.

  “That’s not… I didn’t…” she started, but stopped to swallow her panic. “I swear I’ve never seen these papers before in my life!”

  His lips curved up in a secretive smile that made Amara’s skin prickle in fear. “I know you haven’t.”

  “Why are you smiling?” Her voice was demanding, annoyed…frightened.

  “Because I made them myself.”

  Her jaw dropped. She wasn’t sure if she could breathe quickly enough for her lungs to fill with air. “What do you mean you made them?” she shrieked.

  He sat back slowly, his eyes intent on her. “It’s my job, Amara.”

  “So why are…” she shook her head and blinked. “Why are you pretending you’re helping me?”

  “I’m not pretending anything,” he said, looking offended at the idea.

  Amara placed her shaky hands on her lap, trying to regain a composure she found impossible to hold on to. “I’m not following. I need a moment,” she stood suddenly and paced the room, placing her arms behind her head the way PE coaches tell you to after running laps around the field. When that didn’t work, she stopped and turned to him suddenly.

  “Why would you forge those papers? That’s illegal! You’re practically rubbing shit all over my name, and it shouldn’t have been there to begin with! What kind of person does that to somebody? Do you not realize what you’ve done?”

  “I do what I get paid to do.” His voice was calm with an edge of pride to it that infuriated her.

  “You’re disgusting. I can’t do this.” Amara was shaking so hard she was afraid she was having a mild seizure. She turned toward the door.

  “You still have to be here for the auction,” Samuel called out.

  “Fuck you!” she shouted from the hallway and continued walking.

  “Amara! It’s dangerous. If you leave and don’t come back, you’ll be in danger,” he said, walking up behind her.

  She turned quickly. “If I stay I’m in danger. I’m…” her heavy breathing didn’t allow her to keep talking, she felt like she might faint. “I need to get out. I need to get out.” Panic crawled through her veins and simmered in her blood. She’d never felt so consumed by it —not even when she’d signed the contract with Philip, or when she realized she was stuck going to Paris, or when her mother ended up back in the hospital, or even when she left Colin—either time. Not ever. So she ran. Amara ran the way she came in, pushing past Ava who was still standing near the door. Thinking about the lies, the deceit, the backstabbing, the girl that looked like her, the man that wanted to capture her, her sick mother, Colin’s engagement, all of it made Amara feel sick. She ran out into the smelly alley and didn’t stop until she reached the nearest sidewalk. Her shoes squeezed the toes of her feet and even though it became excruciating, she didn’t stop running. It wasn’t until she reached a virtual wall of people walking the crowded sidewalks of Times Square, that she stopped running long enough to catch her breath.

  Amara stepped into a tourist shop and got herself a pair of flip flops for her aching feet. They would do nothing to shield her feet from the chilly fall weather, but would serve to keep her toes intact until she got home. She walked the eight blocks to her apartment—or rather the apartment Colin had put her in—and laughed maniacally when she finally reached her door. It was one of those punch-the-code-to–get-in kind of doors, and after four failed tries, Amara pressed her back to the door and sagged down to the floor. As the weight of her day finally hit her, hard and fast like a sucker punch, she began to cry, softly at first and then loudly as she gasped for air, strangled by the weight of her situation.

  The door behind her clicked, and Amara’s head shot up from between her legs. She stood quickly, wiping her face as she turned ready to face Colin, but Philip was the one who stood in the doorway.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?” His blue, calculating eyes narrowed on her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I was in the area.”

  Amara’s eyes drifted down to his hands. She hadn’t stepped into the apartment and she felt the need to make sure he wasn’t armed. He was wearing a suit. Always a black suit, as if he was always ready to visit someone’s funeral and pay his respects.

  “I thought you went to Paris when we got back from Washington.”

  “Are you going to come in?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Are you going to give me a choice?”

  “I don’t care either way.”

  She took a deep breath, still shaky from her tears. “I’d rather stay out here.”

  “Suit yourself.” He walked out of the apartment, closed the door behind him, entered something on the keypad and grabbed her by the elbow.

  “Let go,” she seethed, yanking her arm from him.

  “I’m taking you back to Méchant, ma chére. You can go kicking and screaming or you can come calmly. Your choice, but you’re going back.”

  She struggled against him, this time breaking free of his grasp. Amara contemplated walking toward the stairs, but thought better of it and ran into the open elevator instead, pushing the button quickly.

  “Close, dammit!” she yelled as Philip strode toward it. Just as the doors were shutting, he stopped it with the barrel of a gun. “Holy shit,” she squeaked as he stepped in, pointing the gun at her head.

  “I thought our meeting with my boss gave you a better sense of how big this thing is that we’re dealing with. This situation can get us ALL killed. All of us, Amara, so you will go back and do as I say, or I will personally put a bullet in Colin’s head before I ask the nurse, what’s her name…Cathy? To inject your mother with enough morphine to overdose her. Are we clear?”

  The barrel dug into her skull, and she began to hyperventilate.

  “Y-yes, I understand,” she choked out when he pressed it against her harder.

  “Good. If you try anything stupid, and I do mean anything, consider it done. I don’t make idle threats. I’m giving you the easy way out.”

  She was openly crying when they got to the underground garage, and he escorted her to his car, pushing her in and sliding in behind her.

  “Méchant,” he ordered the driver.

  “What am I supposed to do?” she whispered.

  “Do as you’re told!” he growled.

  “But if the guy looking for me wins the auction, I’ll have to go with him,” she said, wiping her face.

  “And we’ll be right behind you.”

  “And if you’re not?” she asked, her eyes cutting to his.

  “We will be.”

  She finally regained her breath, wiped her face and looked at Philip. “Why did Samuel forge my name on those papers?”

  Philip exhaled as he put the gun away and leaned into the leather seat, closing his eyes. “That was a long time ago. We were asked to do that—”

  “My god, Philip, you know my parents, Do you have no sense of loyalty?”

  His eyes cut to hers in fury. “Loyalty? Do you know how much I have helped you? I have done things for you that I would not have done for another girl.”

  “Am I supposed to be thankful for that? For you blackmailing me with my mother’s life? With my boyfriend’s life?” she shouted.

  “I only need you to do this one thing, and then you can go and be the other woman in Colin’s marriage! Or who knows, maybe he’ll actually get a divorce and be with you. Either way I don’t care!” His face was impatient as he looked at her. “Wasn’t the trip to DC enough for you to know t
hat?”

  Amara averted her eyes to the back of the seat in front of her and crossed her arms as she let out a breath. “Just one thing,” she repeated. “One thing. Will we still have to go to Iran?”

  “I don’t want to go back there any more than you do, maybe even less, but we might not have a choice.” The look in his eyes made her shiver. “There’s been a setback with that trip, but I’ll keep you posted.”

  When they reached Méchant, Philip instructed her to follow Ava so she could get ready. Ava and Amara made small talk as they walked up the winding staircase. The building was a warehouse, but it’d been converted into a perfectly suitable mini-hotel. The lighting had a dim, red tint to it, giving it a warm feel, the walls glowing with a rich wallpaper etched in a regal, gold pattern. The doors to each room were much like the ones in Paris—tall and red with skeleton key middles and little beams of light beside them to show occupancy.

  Ava pushed the last door open, and Amara surveyed the space before completely stepping in.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed when she looked at the four women standing in front of her. Courtney wasn’t kidding when she’d said Philip collected lookalikes. All of them looked like Amara. Not identical, but enough that a person who didn’t know her could confuse them or think they were sisters. They all had dark, straight hair that reached their elbows, a couple had layers like hers, and the others were cut the same length. Their bodies were all thin like Amara, although with slight variation in the hip area.

  “You must be Amara,” one of them said, speaking up.

  “I am,” she said, uneasily. “Isn’t it against code to use real names?”

  The girl laughed. “What am I supposed to call you? Jasmine?”

  “Yes,” she responded slowly.

  “Okay, Jasmine, I’m Jasmine.”

  Amara’s brows furrowed. “For real?”

  “All of our Méchant names are Jasmine for the night.”

  “What?”

  The girl shrugged. “That’s what they told us. We’re all wearing the same thing; we’re all standing the same way, and using the same make-up.”

  “But how will… Okay,” Amara said, blinking rapidly. She reminded herself she had this one last thing to do before she was free.

  They all dressed in mere threads of fabric: artfully shredded, tiny black shirts that left little to the imagination and similar skirts, barely covering the panties beneath. Before long, Vivienne appeared at the door, much to Amara’s surprise.

  “It’s been a long time,” Vivienne said with a smile when she spotted Amara.

  Amara nodded in response, still gaping at her. She noticed pairs of handcuffs that Vivienne held in her hands.

  “Okay, girls, stand in a single line so I can put these on you. Don’t look so scared, Ava, they come off after the auction,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’m also going to put masks on you,” she added. “Just a final touch so you can look more…alike.”

  As Vivienne fastened the handcuffs on each girl, she put a key on the side of their panties and gave them a level stare. “For after.” She continued to give her unwanted comments as she stood in front of each girl. Sometimes, “where did they find you?” others “your hips are too big.” Nobody responded to her, they just let her talk, cuff and slip the black, demure masks over their faces.

  “Ready,” she chimed before walking out of the room. “Follow me!” she called over her shoulder.

  The women followed Vivienne to a stage where they lined up in a row beside one another, their shaky arms rubbing against the others as they looked into the crowd. A few scattered women accompanied some of the men. They watched with equal attention and excitement. The look on their faces sickened Amara.

  “This is crazy,” she heard Ava whisper beside her.

  “It’ll be over soon,” Amara whispered back.

  Her eyes scanned the crowd again. The lighting in the room was dim, like everywhere else, and it gave everyone in the crowd a rosy glow. Amara wondered where the man was—the one looking for her—and that’s when she spotted Colin sitting off to the left side by himself with a drink in his hand. Shit. Amara cursed repeatedly. She tried to see if she could spot Sam or Philip, but couldn’t. She needed to tell somebody about him. If he decided to bid on her—if he could even bid on the right her—it would throw everything off.

  Before she could do anything else, the auction started. Ava was pushed up first. She stood in front of the line with her head tucked into her chest, just waiting, as Vivienne introduced her as “Number One.” So they would do it by numbers. Nothing more was said about Ava, before a woman stood up and placed her bid of five thousand dollars, only to be countered by a woman at her same table with a bid of twelve thousand. They both laughed, as if it was such a hilarious thing to be bidding on this poor girl’s body. They gave each other a knowing look, which made Amara’s stomach turn. Ava knew what she was in for, though. The girls in Méchant were prepared to give their bodies away without hesitation.

  Three more numbers went by before it was Amara’s turn: Number Five. She stood, with head held down as the others had, until she heard Colin’s opening bid of fourteen thousand dollars. Her eyes snapped up to meet his. She wanted to warn him to stop. A man standing off to the other side of the room countered him. Twenty thousand. Colin raised it to thirty. Her hands sweated, shaking so hard she was forced to clamp them together as her eyes searched the room for Philip, Vivienne…anybody who could help. The man raised his bid to forty and Colin countered with fifty. Amara waited on bated breath and sighed in relief when the man didn’t counter the offer. She should have been nervous knowing Philip would be furious if that was the guy they’d been waiting for, but a part of her was relieved. Vivienne said that standard procedure was for them to check who the winning bidders were before they left with the girls —that’s how they would know if the man was there. Maybe if he bid on one of the others and was caught, Amara wouldn’t have to do much more.

  The longer she counted the numerous ways this could go, the more tied up she felt. The cuffs around her hands began to be weighty, and the mask on her face felt like it was suffocating her. Amara had to squash an overpowering need to get out, to run and never look back.

  Auction over, each girl stepped off the stage and stood beside their winner, eyes still downcast, Amara included, until Colin squeezed her chin and tilted her face toward him. He glared at her, but she was defeated. She met his gaze openly, brokenly, until he finally dropped his hand.

  “THIS IS WHAT you call being busy on a Friday night? Selling your body to a room full of strangers?” Colin seethed as he pushed her up the stairs. They were on the opposite side of the staircase that led to Philip and Samuel’s office, but it was just as dark and narrow.

  “I had to be here. What’s your excuse? And really, Colin? Fifty thousand dollars? For a casual fuck?” she spat. She looked at him over her shoulder and shook her head as she came to a stop in the middle of the stairwell.

  “Shut up, Amara. Just shut the fuck up,” he growled, holding her between the handcuffs that captured her hands. He nudged her to keep walking.

  She was exasperated, unwilling to shut up, and wound tight by the fact that he’d come for her without knowing what Philip and Sam were up to —without knowing that this was her chance to get out. They stopped outside of a large door, and Amara took a deep breath as he unlocked it and pushed her inside.

  “Why were you here? How did you even know it was me? There were other girls on the stage that looked exactly like me!” she asked turning to face him as he switched the light on. Like in Paris, the lighting maxed out when it was barely bright enough to see.

  Colin narrowed his eyes, brushing past her. She turned, looking at him expectantly and watched as he shrugged off his suit jacket and began to roll up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. Her eyes left his to scan the room, finding that it was eerily similar to the one she was assigned in Paris —everything garishly decorated in gold and black. The bed in t
he center of the room had a mirror above it, which made her heart quicken, knowing that it hid a camera. She knew—she just knew—Philip would be watching them. Maybe even Samuel, and God only knew who else. A shiver ran through her at the thought.

  “You cold?” Colin asked.

  Her eyes snapped to his.

  “You shouldn’t be wearing that.” His eyes painted her body in a slow caress, although there was a bite to his look—one that made her stomach dip.

  “I’m fine. There’s a mirror in this room,” she said quietly.

  “And?”

  She swallowed, her eyes looking at the cherry hardwood floor between them. “That means they’ll probably watch us.”

  Something inside him seemed to snap as he strode toward her. His heavy footsteps were loud in the room, save for her rapidly pounding heart. When he reached her, Colin cupped her face and lifted it to look at him. There she stood, her hands cuffed, her head back as far as it could go, being examined by Colin’s intense eyes. She felt completely at his mercy. “This is what they did in Paris? They used to watch you while you fucked those men?”

  “I only… it wasn’t… it only happened…”

  “I’m only going to tell you this one more time, Amara, so listen closely,” he said, dipping his head, placing his lips at the shell of her ear, letting her feel his breath on her. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” He whispered it and bit her earlobe, making her moan. Somehow he made the words sound sweet, though they were anything but.

  The tip of his nose ran along the side of her face slowly, caressing her cheek, her neck, and her shoulder and back up to her ear. Amara pushed her body forward, as close to him as she could get, and moaned softly when she felt his tongue at the edge of her mouth, licking, his lips slowly sucking hers to capture her bottom lip between his teeth. Her arms fought against the handcuffs behind her back.

  “Free my hands,” she pleaded as she stared up at him. “Please.”

  Colin shook his head, his brown eyes clouded with desire. His tongue drew a line along the seam of her lips, making her legs wobble with each stroke. The pads of his fingers crawled up her arms and into her hair, threading through it until they reached the nape of her neck, where he grasped it tightly, pulling her head back. His lips left hers and made their way down her neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.