Vulture cocked her head, lips twisting in a mocking smile. “Oh? What company?”
Son of a -
“What we have here is a treat! This is the debut night of Ever’s final piece in the Greed series, You Own This.”
I turned my attention from the scavenger to the man at the podium, pulling Kee even closer to my side, closing ranks in the face of attack. I didn’t owe Vulture a name. I didn’t owe her time. I didn’t owe her attention. She’d taken enough from me and other artists by carving a job out of the carcass of our work.
“We’ll start the bidding at…” the man began, his sentence cut short as the room went black.
Keely
A scream flew out of my mouth as we fell into darkness. Ethan wrapped a protective arm around my shoulders in response, a blanket of warmth covering my bared shoulders as he pulled me flush against his muscled body.
More screams echoed mine, terror striking at the thought of what could be happening in the dark. Was it a robbery? An attack? Were those screaming being harmed? Were we next?
The rustling of auction-goers that followed was deafening, those nearest to the exits not wasting time hauling ass to save themselves. Like the Titanic, it was every rich bitch for themselves. I wanted to join them, but there was no budging, Ethan’s arm a vice around me. Apparently we were going down with the ship.
Those ahead of us were chattering loudly but not fleeing with the rest of them, and it wasn’t until the tree of a man in front of me moved that I discovered why. A glowing upfront had everyone captivated, the Ever painting illuminated with toxic yellow writing, FUCK YOUR GREED scrawled across it in furious writing.
I smiled in the cover of darkness, proud of the artist’s message. It was about time someone blasted the money-hungry baboons.
The lights flicked back on, the message vanishing as they did, the painting returning to its original state showing a disheveled couple on a sidewalk with a blur of well-dressed figures in the backdrop, name-brand bags and suits aplenty.
People froze as the screaming stopped, the room suddenly exploding into a new ruckus, disdain from some about the language while others clamored about its value, the auction-block flash of defiance upping its desirability.
Ethan’s arm remained around me, the hard wall of support pressed close. It was exactly how I’d imagined it to be, though I’d never thought we’d be together at a Lorelei event, surrounded by the very people that treated me like a trinket as a child.
His eyes flicked to mine, the deep blue hue always catching me by surprise. The dude could be an eye model, if there was such a thing. Well, he could be an everything model, but his eyes were out-of-this-world, the color somewhere between ocean waves and storm clouds.
With one look, I knew what he was asking, so I nodded my head with a smile, “I’m okay.”
He mirrored my smile, only his was never the toothy, friendly gesture of everyone else; he always had a catlike smirk, one brow raised high with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “I know.”
“I’m sorry for the brief electrical interruption,” the auctioneer announced as he fumbled with the mic, his once-perfect coif tousled in the fracas. “It seems Ever had a message to convey.”
I smiled wider as I scanned the frenzied faces around the room, millionaires confronted with their indifference head-on by an anonymous art troll whose talents they couldn’t ignore. One whose works highlighted their shortcomings for all the world to see.
“Now, let’s start off the bidding at $5 million. Do we have $5 million?”
A flurry of paddles rose, an avalanche of white circles all around. Five million for a painting? Sheesh. I’d color them a picture quick for $5.
“Do we have $6 million?” the auctioneer continued, glancing at the crowd with a smug grin.
Just as many paddles rose with “$10 million!” shouted from the rear.
Holy crap. No wonder my parents were never invited to Lorelei events. They didn’t have that kind of money laying around for a painting. They didn’t have that kind of money laying around, period. We lived comfortably but not that comfortably.
“$15 million!” another bidder called from the right, his voice thick with an Arabic accent. He was a tall, serious man surrounded by bodyguards, his white thawb regal in the tide of tuxedos.
“Dubai,” Ethan muttered, eyes focused ahead.
Ah. It made sense he wanted the newest Ever. Dad mentioned the new galleries opening in Dubai. He’d been trying to convince Mom to go, but she wasn’t sold on vacationing somewhere that wasn’t an island in the Caribbean.
“$15 million!” another voice boomed.
Good God. People were tossing around figures that regular people wouldn’t make in a lifetime. Me included. I’d be lucky to have peanuts after I paid off my undergrad loans.
The auctioneer kept his eyes on the action, paddles still popping up like crazy as bidders tossed out figures inching up by hundreds of thousands without missing a beat. “$15.9 million for Bidder 382. Do we have $16 million?”
“$20 million!” one dared, followed up by cries of $25 million, $40 million, and $50 million in rapid succession. The numbers kept growing, my eyes flicking from paddle to paddle like an air hockey puck. It was madness. That money could be changing lives yet they were spending it on a painting.
“$75 million!” the Arabic man bellowed. Someone hadn’t flown halfway around the world to play games.
The auctioneer smiled wide, though it never reached his eyes, his brows frozen by some sort of nip/tuck gone awry. “$75 million for Bidder 103. Do we have $75.1 million?”
“$80 million!” an Englishman countered from the front. He was the same man I’d passed coming into the park who’d had a pipe in one hand and a woman’s behind in the other.
