Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Aiden had never been a worrier. There was no point in worrying about things he couldn’t change. He was normally good at adapting and flying by the seat of his pants, no matter how uncomfortable the situation was.
But being kidnapped and taken to the Middle East to be sold was… something else entirely. He had no delusions about what kind of future was awaiting him: even if Janice hadn’t confirmed their kidnappers’ plans, with his looks, it could only be one thing.
Aiden wasn’t vain, but he knew he was good-looking. A bit too good-looking. It had always attracted people’s attention, and not always in a good way. Kids were cruel. High school had been… tough until he had filled out, and even after that his face was a little too pretty for his comfort.
Frankly, Aiden used to hate his looks. Growing up, Wolverine had been his favorite superhero, and Aiden had wanted to look like him. Instead, he looked like a blonder, prettier version of boy scout Scott, sans the tragic backstory and laser-shooting eyes. His hazel eyes might not shoot lasers, but he’d been told they were uncommonly pretty, with ridiculously long eyelashes like something from an anime. His face had annoyed the teenage him so much that he even had a phase when he’d dyed his hair black, but with his pale skin, he’d looked like a lame emo vampire instead of Wolverine, so he’d stopped doing it and learned to live with his face. Some girls were into it even if he wasn’t. And it wasn’t like he was alone in this. It was a family curse. Jordan, his older brother, even had to act like a hard-ass who didn’t understand jokes in order to be taken seriously at work.
But now it seemed Aiden’s blondie looks were responsible for this mess.
Maybe he should have kept the black hair.
***
It didn’t take their kidnappers weeks to get to the Middle East. It took them two months.
The ship had taken several detours to avoid the authorities and pick up more cargo from cities in South America. Aiden wasn’t sure how many more people these assholes had kidnapped—the others were kept separately from them—and they seemed to have been sold faster than them, too.
“Each of you will make us more money than dozens of them,” one of the assholes had told them, his eyes flashing with greed as he scrutinized them. “Premium goods fetch premium prices. We’re not in any hurry to sell you.”
Time seemed to drag. Aiden only knew that it was the end of February already—which meant his birthday had come and gone without his noticing—when one of the girls, Amelia, passed away. She’d gotten progressively sicker during the voyage, and even the doctor the dickheads had eventually brought couldn’t do anything for her. Apparently it was a heart condition. She passed away in her sleep two days before their arrival in Dubai.
Aiden didn’t know what the assholes had done with her body. Had they simply thrown it to the sharks? The thought made him ill, but he couldn’t help but wonder if her fate was a mercy compared to what awaited the rest of them. It probably was.
Their kidnappers weren’t happy about having fewer premium goods to sell. They held a long, heated discussion, only some of it in English, but Aiden thought he got the gist of it. It seemed they were supposed to deliver five beautiful blonde women for a specific high stake auction at the beginning of March, but now they were one woman short and they were panicking.
“They aren’t good enough!” their leader snapped when one of his goons suggested that they replace her with one of the pretty girls they had kidnapped in Argentina. “Simply ‘pretty’ isn’t going to cut it! I’m supposed to deliver exquisite jewels for that auction, worthy of the sheikhs! That auction is famous across the Middle East! The auction organizer will have my head if I deliver subpar goods!”
Good, Aiden thought vindictively, but then one of the assholes pointed at him and said something in Arabic. His buddies got a speculative look in their eyes and then started nodding.
Aiden got a very bad feeling about it.
Chapter Two
Unfortunately, his bad feeling turned out to be correct. Apparently, the assholes’ ingenious solution was to have Aiden replace the poor girl.
“Are you fucking serious?” Aiden growled as three goons manhandled him into a building. “Do I look like a woman to you, you dumbasses?” he said, gesturing to his body. He was taller than average, and he was in great shape.
One of the goons laughed while another punched Aiden in the stomach. “Shut your mouth.”
“Don’t damage the goods,” their leader said before looking at Aiden. “You don’t need to look like a woman. If they don’t like what they see, no buy. Simple. If they like it, they buy. The important thing is, you look expensive. After seeing your pictures, the auction organizer agreed that you’d be a worthy replacement. There are some supposedly straight sheikhs who are rumored to have perverse tastes, so you might tempt them.”