ADELINE'S POV
Gunshots. There are gunshots everywhere and everyone in the room has been alert since there was an explosion. Ever since the explosion, there has been firing nonstop. I don't need to tell you that the auction is basically over now because there are guards in every corner of this huge hall with guns in their hands, ready to shoot at anything that walks through the doors.
But so far, no one has come in. I'm still in here with the girls on the stage. We haven't been asked to move so we have been standing here since the chaos started. Veronica and Adrian look confused as they try to calm their guests down. There is chaos in the room right now and Veronica is faltering.
"We have nothing to worry about. Everything is going to be okay!" She yells into her mic as she orders her guards with her hands to stand in front of the door. The girls and I can't even do much. We're all drugged and we're all in danger more than anyone else in this room because we have no control over our own senses.
Dante and Liam were supposed to raid erotica on auction day. I had lost hope. I had completely given up but with the explosion I just heard and with the many bullets coming from outside, my hope cannot help but be renewed. However, with the look Adrian is giving me right now, I can tell he would rather die than let Dante win.
Some guards walk towards the girls and I and urge us to get down from out stages. Once we do, they walk us towards the men who came here for us in the first place. I notice Della and the other girls being led to the men too and then Veronica and Adrian walk towards us.
"This is not what was promised to us Veronica. We came here to do business. We did not come here to die. The men are saying there are FBI agents all over the place. More than they have ever seen before." One of the men says with an angry look on his face. I know that if the girls and I weren't in this building right now, they would have blown up the place already.
I smile to myself as the drug in my system makes me weaker and weaker by the second. I look at the other girls and they are barely hanging on themselves. I notice Della from the corner of my eyes and she looks away from m immediately she sees that I'm staring back at her. I want to tell her that I am not angry with her. I could never be angry at any girl here for any decision they take. We're ll just victims of circumstance. We're not fucking enemies.
"We can leave. We still have men and we can find a way to leave." Veronica says pacing back and forth. She grabs her phne and try to make a call but there seems to be n signal. Dante and the FBI must have jammed the signal.
"This is what we get for having a woman run things!" Another man hisses in anger and Veronica grabs a gun from one of her guards and shoots the man straight in the head. Her guards draw their own guns and cover her in case anyone wants to retaliate. All the men look to her with wide eyes, fear etched onto their faces. All of them except Arthur. He looks rather bored with the situation. As if he's not about to die if Dante succeeds.
"Anyone else have something to say?" Veronica asks, raising her voice like a crazy person. She has literally gone insane and I feel a sense of pleasure at seeing her like this. She doesn't know what to do. She might have been prepared for Dante because she had many guards in this place coupled with Adrian's guards so she was pretty confident nothing would ruin this day.
I bet she didn't expect so many FBI agents to come banging at her door. For the first time Veronica has been caught off guard and she has no way of escaping. She's going to die today and I cannot wait to see it.
"I came here for her." Arthur says pointing towards me. "And I don't care what I have to do to leave this place with her but I am taking my girl and I am leaving. Fix this Veronica!" He scolds, anger clearly visible in his eyes even though he still looks as composed as ever.
Veronica clearly doesn't know what to do.
"There's a passage." She finally says, as if the idea just occurred to her and I sigh, my heart beating in my chest as I realize she must have found a loophole. "We can go around them. We don't have to walk through the front door." She says with a grin on her face.
Arthur walks towards me and grabs my hands, pulling me close to his side.
"You can't touch her yet!" Veronica hisses at him. "You haven't paid for her yet!" After everything that is happening right now she still has time to think like a disgusting person.
She's probably going to die soon and she still has time to worry about money. I don't fight as Arthur pulls me closer to him, I don't have the strength to anyways. I'm getting weaker by the second.
"After what you have done, I don't think you are in any position to make demands Veronica. You want your money? Then I have to safely get out of this place with what I came here for." Arthur argues.
"The secret passage won't do ma'am. They have the entire place surrounded. And the girl, the hostage, she escaped, along with Colton" One of the guards says and the look on Veronica's face is one filled with rage. She grabs her phone and shoots it across the wall, the device smashing as it contacts the cold concrete. A wash of relief takes over my body. Naomi's okay, and Colton is okay too. He must have saved her.
Naomi is fine. I bow my head and let out a breath of relief. With all the chaos and explosions and gunshots, I didn't think she was still alive and it haunted me. I don't know if I would have ever forgiven myself if anything happened to her. Veronica is losing everything slowly. She must have planned to use Naomi as leverage. Now she has nothing. Only me. I'd rather be the one put in danger and not the people I care about.
"Then I guess there is only one thing to do." Veronica says with an evil smirk on her face. She walks towards the door with a pensive look on her face.
"Line up the girls in front of the door." She orders and her guards grab the girls on by one. Both the younger girls and the older girls who were set for the auction are placed on a straight horizontal line in front of the door but as one of the guards tries to grab me from Arthur's hold, he gives the guard a sinister look.
The guard sighs and lets me go. The girls are perfectly aligned in front of the door, and then Veronica's guards behind them and behind Veronica's guards are the men who came here for the auction. My breath hitches in my throat as I realize what she's about to do.
She's going to use the girls and he guards as a shield. She still has her mic in hand which is connected to a speaker. What the fuck is this bitch going to do now?
"You sure this is going to work Veronica?" I hear Adrian's voice and I stare at him from the corner of my eyes as he trembles in fear. He's such a coward. He has a smart mouth when he's in control but the very second that danger presents itself, he's acts like a chicken. I want to be the one to kill him, both him and Veronica.
"If they care about these girls as much as they claim to, then it'll work." She says and then orders one of her guards to open the doors.
It's almost getting dark outside, the only thing illuminating the grounds being the hundreds of lights that are installed in this place. When Dante sees those doors open, when he sees all those girls standing in front of us and doesn't see me, he'll think I'm dead.
The doors open fully, the lights from outside illuminating everything it touches. This very moment, this is what will decide my fate and that of everyone in here.
I don't know what kind of drug Veronica gave us but it only seems to be getting stringer by the second. It makes me weaker and weaker and it makes me not want to be aware of anything around me. The only reason I can still think properly is because I have been fighting the effects of the drug and it hurts. It hurts my head because I don't want to give in to the drug. I want to be aware of everything happening around me. I want to see how this night unfolds. I woke up this morning with no hope. I woke up this morning ready to face the life Veronica had chosen for me. I woke up this morning knowing I would leave this place with Arthur, btu now Dante is here and my hope has been rekindled again. I want to hope and I want to believe. I still hate him for what he did. I still hate him for allowing me to put myself in danger. I hate him for not telling me the truth from the beginning. I hate that I had to find out about him from a place like this.
I hate him so much but I am still in love with him. All the feelings I have for Dante never went away. I just learned to ignore them because there was no space for those feelings in erotica. Here, I was a different person and I was hurt. I'm still hurt. I'm damaged goods now and I don't know if he will ever love me the same again after all what has happened to me in this place. I love him so much and I miss him.
I miss him so much that it hurts.