Present

Fucking hell. Sierra was right, Alexis was terrifying. Her grip on my hand was so strong that I knew she was trying to tell me something, probably a warning, a threat to not fuck over Sierra. I made sure to not let go first, to communicate back through the handshake that I understood what she was telling me, and that my intentions were pure. Or... mostly pure.

"Lex, you can let go, love. I think he gets the idea." Leigh said, his hand on Alexis' lower back.

"Just making sure." Lex said as her grip finally loosened and she let go of my hand. I then smiled at Leigh, who smiled back.

"Nice to meet you." He said. I nodded.

"Same to you." I said, and before I could reach out to shake his hand, he had removed his hand from Alexis' back and pulled me into a hug. I thought it was a friendly gesture, one that said he trusted me.

"Now, Max likes you, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but if you hurt her, it's not just Lex that you'll need to worry about." My body tensed briefly at his whispered words. He pulled away from me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Welcome to the family." He said, turning to Sierra and letting my shoulders go.

"Thank you." I said, glad that Sierra had people that cared about her that much. That would protect her by any means necessary without a second thought.

"I assume you want the Venom." Leigh said, now talking to Sierra, who nodded excitedly.

"I didn't think they would have one, to be honest." She replied, and I let them talk about cars. Most of it would go over my head, so I stayed back next to Alexis, who was scanning the room with a deadly gaze, looking for threats.

"You expecting anyone to turn up we need to worry about?" I asked her. She shook her head.

"No, but that doesn't mean anything. When we left the Court, we blew up the compound we were working from, so I am expecting someone to catch up with us." She said, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Subtle."

"Oh yes, it was very subtle as we tore away in sports cars with a building spewing fire and debris behind us." She said with a smile on her face. Her eyes landed on Leigh briefly, the smile faltering before she plastered it back on again. I looked at my feet.

"So, Leigh, huh?" I asked, looking at her with a plain expression on my face. Her expression was anything but.

"Shut up."

"You should just go for it." I heard her breathing get heavy next to me. Angry. I had made her angry.

"Agent Triggs-"

"Hey, if it makes you feel any more secure, he's definitely interested in you, too. No one puts their hand on someone's lower back without an ulterior motive." I cut her off, which she didn't seem to like, but her eyes briefly flicked over to Leigh.

"Just leave it." Her voice was quiet, so I dropped the topic, instead shifting my focus to the salesman who was walking his way over to us with purpose.

"May I help you?" He asked, Sierra turned away from the Venom and looked the man in the eyes.

"That would be splendid." She said, a smile on her face as the man watched her with judgement in his eyes.

"This car may be out of your budget-"

"What makes you say that?" She cut him off, tilting her head to the side in a way that warned the man to tread lightly. He didn't say anything, instead just looked her up and down before looking at the rest of us. I was dressed in a suit, but I had left my jacket in the car, and Leigh and Lex were in black combat clothing. We definitely looked like an odd bunch to be at an auction like this. I smiled as I realised how much he was going to regret approaching us in a few minutes.

"I asked you a question." Sierra stepped towards him as Lex, Leigh and I all shifted to stand behind her in a wall.

"Well, clothing suggests-"

"Okay, I'm going to cut you off there because I'm not currently in the mood to be offended by a middle-aged white man. Instead, I'm going to give you an instruction, you will follow it. Are you ready to listen?"

"I don't think that-"

"What's going to happen is you are going to find whoever is in charge today and bring them to me. From there, my friends and I are going to purchase every vehicle under this roof. Now, if whoever is in charge gets here and tells us to leave instead of taking this offer seriously, I will have no choice than to go to my backup plan. I really need these cars." She said, and while I could only see the back of her, I knew she was smiling at the man. A forced smile with poison in her eyes.

"Ma'am, this isn't-"

"You don't know what my backup plan is, so I would think twice about whatever words are going to spill out of your mouth. Now get the person in charge. I don't have all day to wait around." She said, and I knew the smile was now gone, replaced with a signature glare I had seen quite a few times before.

The man decided it was best to not say a thing and instead nod before walking away from us.

Sierra turned to face us. She was absolutely livid.

"Darling, I think you need to take a breath." I said as I walked over to her, tucking her hair behind her ears before holding her cheeks and forcing her to look up at me. She was shaking she was that angry, her face going red.

"I don't need to take a breath. I need to be treated with respect."

"And you will be. We'll all make sure of it." She shook her head but took a slow breath.

"Excuse me, I was informed that you wanted to speak with me." Sierra turned around to face the new man who was standing in front of us, a smug smile on his face. "You wish to purchase all of our vehicles here today?"

"Yes, I do." Sierra responded gently.

"The estimated value of every car here is near twenty-million dollars. I don't know where you would get that kind of money from, and I would need to have proof of funds." The man said with a smug smile on his face, like he caught us out.

"Lex, Leigh, the bags..." Sierra said, and the two behind me grabbed the two bags they had brought in with them and dropped before greeting us. Leigh threw one to the man with a little more force than necessary, and the man opened it to see the bag full of cash.

"This is highly irregular-"

"Obviously it's irregular, but tell me what you think you're going to sell here today. How much that number would actually equate to, because it's definitely not twenty-million. These are all second-hand vehicles, nothing special about any of them. While this Venom costs a little over one-million brand new, it's not brand new, is it? So, what I have is a proposition for you. You have fifteen vehicles here. What I am going to do is give you fifteen million dollars. That's a million dollars for each car, which we know isn't going to be what you'll get for auction. Now, the extra that I am giving you for each car is for discretion. I need registration papers to be delayed by two weeks."

"These bags aren't enough for fifteen million." The man argued, but if that was all he could come up with, then I knew we were leaving with these vehicles.

"No shit, there's more in my R8 and my friends Veyron. So, what do you say?" Sierra asked after specifically mentioning their cars, holding her hand out to the man who watched her nimble fingers warily before shaking. "Good, I'm glad we could come to an agreement on this. Now, because of the absolute fucking disgraceful service I have received today, I would like to get these cars delivered within two hours free of cost, yes?" The man cleared his throat, looking down at his hand that was still in Sierra's, being squeezed with far too much force.

"Of course, we could do it in an hour if that suits." He offered, and I knew Sierra had her signature sweet smile back on her face.

"That would be wonderful. I'll get the rest of the cash and give you the details."