Auctioned While Pregnant: 99 Nights Of My Husband’s Betrayal Chapter 05
“Seat 90! I’m in!”
“24! Count me in!”
“87!”
I logged the seat numbers without moving my lips.
The list was getting long tonight, and every man in this room was volunteering his own name for it.
The hall turned into a butcher shop. They were shouting their numbers, high-fiving each other, debating who would ride me first.
My pulse was a drumbeat in my ears. I let it happen. My face didn’t move.
“Who says I can’t cover it?”My voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the shouting like a razor.
The silence that followed was thick and suffocating.
“Ms. Vance, it’s simple math.”
The auctioneer laughed first, a sharp, ugly sound. “Unless you’ve grown an extra limb in the last ten minutes, you’re thirty-six million short of a full match.”
“Unfortunately, you have nothing left to pledge.”
“Pregnancy brain is real, huh?” someone jeered from the shadows. “The boys fucked the math right out of her!”
I didn’t flinch. I let the filth of their words wash over me.
I moved my hand slowly, pressing my palm against my stomach.
I felt the faint, rhythmic pulse of the life inside me—the life Julian had planted and then abandoned.
“My child,” I said, my voice steady enough to crack stone. “Insured at thirty-six million. Check the rider.”
The room went dead. Truly dead.
Julian’s jaw clenched so hard I heard the bone pop. He remembered. The policy I’d forced him to sign weeks ago, back when I still thought he was a human being.
The auctioneer’s eyes widened. He scrambled to flip through the papers, his fingers shaking as he found the hidden rider.
“Thirty-six million… for the fetus.”
“Match the bid,” I said, looking directly into Julian’s hollow eyes. “Every cent. Can I cover the collateral now?”
The auctioneer swallowed hard. He looked at the men, then back at me.
“You can. But let me be clear, Lena. Once you match, you owe every insured part. We don’t do bundles. We collect individually. It means…”
He paused, his voice dropping into a dark, jagged whisper.
“We’re going to take you apart, piece by piece.”
“Including the child.”
The side doors groaned open.
Four men filed in. They lined up at the platform’s edge, silent, watching me like butchers watch meat.
The auctioneer looked at me, his gavel raised.
“Are you sure? Once I drop this, we harvest until the debt is paid. There are no refunds.”
I straightened my spine. I made myself look at the four men instead of away from them.
“Bidder 438. Match.”
“Last time I ask,” the auctioneer squinted, his hand shaking. “You confirm?”
“Scared?” I asked.
Bang.
The moment my word fell, the gavel hit the wood. The sound was a gunshot.
“Bidder 438. Transaction confirmed. Collect!”
The cloth came off the first blade. The man holding it took his first step onto the platform.
I raised my hand. A small, simple gesture.
“Wait.”
The auctioneer sneered, “Changing your mind? We don’t do refunds, Lena. You signed the blood contract.”
I looked past him, at the man with the growling blade, one step from the platform’s edge.
Then I looked at Julian, sitting very still in his chair, waiting.
The same way he’d waited for me to sign, for me to break, for me to beg.
But he wasn’t going to get any of those tonight.
He was still the first name on my list. Since the video started playing.
Everyone else in this room was a footnote.
I let a smile find my mouth. It felt strange there, like it belonged to someone else.
“Who said I’m paying with my body?”
Between my index and middle finger, I held a card.
It was heavy. Solid gold.
No bank name, no flashy logo. Just a single number embossed into the metal, reflecting the overhead lights like a sun.
“That is…”
Julian shot to his feet. He looked like he’d been struck by lightning.
All ninety-nine men followed. Those in the back craned their necks, then their faces changed. It was something like terror.
“Wh-what is this…”
“An invitation-only black card?” The auctioneer’s voice was a ghost of itself.
Everyone in this room knew. You don’t apply for a card like that. You don’t qualify for it with mere millions.
That card was a key to a world they weren’t even allowed to look at.
“Ms. Vance…” The auctioneer’s face went gray. “Using a counterfeit card… the penalty is—”
I tossed the card onto the table.
“Run it. ” I said.
The auctioneer picked it up with shaking hands. He turned to the terminal, his breath hitching in his throat.
“Bidder 438. Verify the funds!”
The screen flickered once. Then the balance field began to load.
A thin white bar crawling left to right, agonizingly slow.
Then, finally, the balance hit the screen.
The auctioneer’s eyes bulged. He stopped breathing.