Chapter 96 – An Unbreakable Vow with the Heartless Tycoon

The lion roars with dissatisfaction upon realizing it hasn’t gotten a bite of Leilani. Leilani is scared for her life. Although she can fight off a dog, there’s no chance she can fight off a hungry lion.

“Who wants me dead so badly?” she wonders.

The last thing she remembers is lying on the bed in the staff dormitory trying to sleep. She remembers hearing the door creak as if someone was entering the room and everything became blurry.

Leilani looks up at the wire she’s dangling from. It’s dozens of meters long and she knows she can’t climb it.

“Go away,” Leilani yells at the lion.

Leilani tries to kick its head but it jumps to her feet and one white high heel falls. There is another round of shouting. The lion tears at the show with its teeth. The scene is thrilling.

Leilani wants to scream with fear, but she forces herself to stay calm. She pulls her legs up higher and takes off the remaining high heel. She holds it in her hand like a weapon.

“Do you see her—she’s going to throw her shoe at the lion! She’s such a warrior!” the women gasp.

“I feel so sorry for her—to be fed to the lion-like that. I wish I could protect her,” the men murmured.

Waylen grabs the balcony railing aggressively and takes his gun out. He takes aim and fires into the cage. The lion suddenly leaps toward Leilani and the bullet whooshes past it. Leilani’s lower body is very close to the lion and Waylen knows it’s dangerous to try to shoot again. He was taking a risk before by shooting at the lion’s rear, but now that it’s so close to Leilani he doesn’t dare fire. Waylen throws his gun to the ground with rage and frustration.

Robert rushes up to Waylen, “Sir, the control room has been notified. But there’s something wrong with the equipment and they can’t pull her up.”

She can’t go up and the men in the room have been warned not to lower her so she’s stuck suspended above the lion. Waylen is about to push Robert away to fire again—the danger is damned—when he hears cheering.

“No wonder this is the grand finale,” the crowd gushes, “This is the most exciting show!”

“Oh my God, what a woman! She uses her feet as bait,” screams one excited onlooker.

Waylen looks at the stage. Leilani is stretching her feet out to the lion, urging it to jump. Every time it jumps she jerks her legs upward, taunting and exhausting it. Infuriated, the lion gathers all of its strength and prepares to jump again. Its mouth is stretched wide and its teeth gleam in the stage-lights. Leilani swings the shoe in her hand and smashes the heel into the lion’s eye. Blood pours out from its ruined eye socket.

The lion flies into a rage. It leaps again, but it can’t even reach the bottom of her dress. It is too exhausted from its earlier attempts. The lion skulks away to a corner of the cage to catch its breath and Leilani tries to catch hers.

She wants to call for help but there is cheering, discussion and noise everywhere and she knows that no one will hear her. She can’t afford to let herself get distracted at such a critical time. Though the lion is injured, she knows it will try to attack her again.

She knows it will have to change strategy because of its wound, and that gives her time to take a break and gather her strength for what’s to come. Suddenly Leilani feels her body moving—the wire is in motion again. The audience screams. The wire is not moving upward but downward. Leilani is quickly falling into the cage.

The lion watches Leilani and carefully stalks toward her, determined to get its prey this time. As the wire descends, Leilani gets closer and closer to the ground and the lion. She quietly reaches for some wh.i.p.s hanging from the wall of the cage.

She takes several wh.i.p.s and swings them throw the air. The sudden attack startles the lion, and it stops and sits down. It licks its teeth and analyzes its enemy.

“Is the woman a lion tamer?” murmurs the crowd, “It stopped attacking her!”

“What a brave woman,” says an admiring man, “I’d love to take a look at her face.”

The discussion begins to change and the mood lightens. Everyone assumed that Leilani would die a horrible death under the lion’s sharp teeth and claws, but now it seems that the beast fears her.

A loud sound startles Leilani. Someone has thrown something into the cage toward Leilani. Leilani looks at it out of the corner of her eyes and sees that someone has given her a gun.

The lion has to submit to Leilani as she wildly swings the wh.i.p.s at it. It is surprised and startled by the sudden attack and it doesn’t dare go near her. It has already learned that she’s a dangerous enemy at the cost of an eye. Instead, it watches and waits for her to show a sign of weakness or a moment of distraction.

Waylen aims his gun at the lion and prepares to pull the trigger.

“Sir, bodyguards are on their way to her,” Robert says, “You’ll hurt Mrs. Bamford if you shoot now.”

Waylen ignores Robert and continues to squint down the barrel of the gun. He wants to run down and help her himself but he’s afraid that the lion will go for her at any moment. He has to wait and find the proper angle to shoot it.

As the wires descend, Leilani knows she can’t let her guard down for even a second. She grabs the wh.i.p.s tightly and peeks at the gun lying on the floor behind her—in seconds she’ll be on the ground and she can get the gun. Suddenly the lion sees its chance and goes for Leilani. She turns around and swiftly picks up the gun.

Two bullets pierce the lion’s skull simultaneously. The beast lets out a stunning roar and collapses to the ground. There is thundering applause from the audience. The show has been even more exciting and soul-stirring than advertised. Only a few audience members guess that this particular show was not the one that was planned.

Leilani collapses to the ground with relief and exhaustion. Waylen falls to his knees and drops his gun—he’s drenched in sweat. Leilani is the only woman in the world who can inspire such fear in him.

Suddenly the lights went out on the stage and a single beam focuses on Leilani. Her diamond-encrusted mask glitters beneath the light. All of the guests are curious to see the face of the brave and smart woman who fought off a lion. The mask is a deliberate tool to excited the crowd and invokes their imaginations.

Another beam illuminates the right side of the stage and a man in a suit and gold-rimmed glasses appears. He picks up the microphone and greets the audience, identifying himself as the host. Then he moves on to more important matters.

“I’m sure you all enjoyed a wonderful night,” he says, “We all got to see this charming goddess subdue a lion—and I have to say my blood is still pounding. So who among our distinguished guests wants the honor of spending the night with her? There’s a bidding device in every private room. Show us how serious you are about getting to know this incredible woman.”

Realization dawns on the crowd. The whole purpose of the show was to auction off the woman as a sort of exclusive, high-class p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e.

“Sir, they say they don’t know it’s Mrs. Bamford,” Robert explains to a fuming Waylen, “They’d hired someone else for the role.”

“Then I want to know what the hell she’s doing up there,” Waylen roars.

“The girl was scheduled to stay in the same dormitory room where Mrs. Bamford currently resides,” Robert explains, “It would seem they mistook Mrs. Bamford for the girl. I’ll go talk to them and make it clear she’s your wife.”

“Wait a moment!” Waylen says.

Robert turns around and gives Lance a puzzled look.

“Don’t do anything yet,” Waylen says.

He rests his hands on the handrail, suddenly calm again. He stares at the white figure in the giant cage. He’s relieved that the lion has been shot and Leilani is safe, and he vows to make the hotel pay for its mistakes later, but a sudden and perverse curiosity has seized him. The host’s words replay in his mind, and he wants to find out just how much other men think his wife is worth.

“Ten million!”

An offer is made as soon as the host finishes talking. The number flickers in green LED lights across the window of one of the private rooms. The general audience exchanges curious glances and wonders who offered such a high price. It seems exceedingly high for a common entertainer. The dissipated, wealthy men in the club know that it costs about that much to spend the night with a rising starlet.

Robert is also surprised. Waylen orders him to hold the bidding device but forbids him from bidding. The women in the private room who were watching the show turn quiet, intimidated by Waylen’s shouting. Lisa has already told them the true identity of the lion tamer, and they can’t believe that someone else has dared to make the first bid.

Robert and Waylen speak quietly to each other, and the women speculate amongst themselves about Leilani and the cage.

“Is it really Leilani in the cage?” whispers one, “Why is she there? The lion almost ate her alive!”

“Was it intentional or what?” asks another, “Who would dare to touch Waylen’s wife? “

Another one chimes in, “You can never tell with rich people. What if they put her there deliberately and hoped she’d be mauled to death. Then they could claim it was a horrible accident.”

“That’s horrible!” gasps, “How could you think such a thing?”

“Think about,” whispers replies to the woman, “Why didn’t Waylen really move to stop it and why does he allow the auction to continue now? As you can see, he hasn’t made a single bid. She’s wearing a mask so he can claim he didn’t recognize her. Maybe he’s sick of her, maybe the rumors about the divorce are true and she never signed a prenup—a man like Waylen Bamford could have many motives for killing his wife.”

“That’s ridiculous!” says another, “I think Lisa is behind this. She’s pulled this little stunt to clear her way to marry Waylen. I wonder who she knows that helped her pull this off?”

They all whisper as quietly as they can, terrified of disturbing Waylen and drawing his wrath.

More green lights flicker in another private room: “50 million.”

“Has the price really jumped from 10 million to 50 million?” the audience whispers with disbelief.

Leilani still sits on the ground but she changes her position to lean against a wall of the cage. The lion is dead. She fired once, and a mystery person fired again. She has no idea who fired the shot, but she knew it was meant to save her life.

She touches the mask on her face and wonders if Waylen recognized her. Something painful rises in her heart and she turns melancholy. She looks up when she hears the host announce the $50 million bid. The room that made the $50 million bid is not Waylen’s.

She’s not sure Waylen recognizes her, but she’s very interested to see his look after he learns that someone else has bought her for the night. In a daze, Leilani hears more noise and she looks up and sees $250 million on the screen outside one of the rooms.

“$250 million for a night?” Leilani thinks incredulously.

Leilani immediately recognizes the room and she imagines she can see the unconventional figure and arrogant face behind the glass. Waylen has bid

Everyone is shocked at the jump from $50 million to $250 million. Talk about throwing money away as if it’s dirt. The crowd assumes that the bidding has ended—who would bid more for a night with a woman—but a screen lights up: $400 million.

Leilani turns to look at another private room, five rooms away from Waylen’s. The occupants have just bid $400 million.

“Who is it?” Leilani wonders.

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