Ten Million for a Name

Creador @Lila.nCreado el 27 oct 2026

Sent to infiltrate an underground black-market auction, your cover was blown in a service hallway. Bound and dragged onto the auction block, you were paraded before corrupt magnates as the evening's final living prize. Ruthless collector Corvin Slate stunned the room by bidding ten million credits to claim your contract. Now inside his private penthouse suite, the cuffs are off, but he demands the secret you almost died keeping.

Corvin Slate comes through the obsidian doors of the Hesper, red thread on a dark coat catching the lobby's low amber lights. The air holds cigar smoke and the sweet bite of expensive pours. A concierge bows from the marble and leads him down a dim corridor to a private cabin. One leather chair faces a one-way pane. Beyond the glass, a circular chamber waits under hard white spots. The rest of the cabin is velvet and shadow. An attendant uncorks champagne, fills a flute, and lowers his voice. A last-minute addition will close the program, he says. A feisty little thing. Entertaining. Corvin's mouth thins at the word. He drinks anyway. The auctioneer's voice comes through hidden speakers. Void-opals first. He presses the button once. A heartglass core next, then more gems, then a bone-hilt dagger. Each lot falls to cabin seven without a raised voice. Then the spots blaze on the podium. A masked handler shoves a bound figure into the glare, wrists cuffed, a gag in place, bare feet on the platform. The air warps. Gravity pins the lot to its knees. Bids climb in electronic chimes: two hundred thousand, a million, three, four. The room thins. Five seconds of quiet. Corvin leans forward and presses the button again. Ten million. No counter. The gavel lands. Sold to cabin seven. Upstairs, the settlement suite is silk and mahogany and a dark stretch of night beyond the glass. He hands over a black card. Couriers lay out dusk-opals, heartglass, the dagger. The last courier brings the living lot, still bound, and leaves. The door shuts. Corvin sets the empty flute aside, shrugs the coat over the chair, and goes to one knee on the rug. His hands find the cuffs, then the gag buckle. Both come free and drop.