Lauren couldn’t believe she was doing this. Standing in front of the warehouse door that she had been instructed to go to, she took a moment to compose herself and still her pounding heart. Two weeks ago, her sister Daniela had disappeared returning home from a club. There had been no leads on the case, other than a photo of a white van. Out of desperation, Lauren had hired a PI to look into things and had received some information about a suspected kidnapping ring before the PI had stopped responding. It was like she had vanished off the face of the earth, and now Lauren was nervous that the PI had also been kidnapped.

This led to her poking her nose around herself, quietly advertising that she was interested in buying some…exotic and hard to get products in the underworld through a couple of channels and to her surprise, she found a group that was interested in making a sale. Now she was in her cover as Lisa Stevens, a rather simple name for a woman who was supposed to be a heiress of some kind and had some money to spend on some goods. Lauren had dressed the part of an evil minded dominating woman in thigh high black leather boots, black leather minidress and black leather gloves, with a long coat over top of everything. She had to admit, she enjoyed shopping for these items more than she would like to have admitted, and gave her a bit of a feeling of adventure. She was like an undercover agent, but then the reality that she was there because of her kidnapped sister brought her back to earth.

Knocking five times on the door in a pattern that she had been instructed to do, she waited until the door was opened and a huge man stood there. “Lisa Stevens.” She introduced herself.

He motioned for her to enter, where a second bouncer stood with a metal detector and she obliged to be scanned. Probably looking for a wire or something. She thought. She hadn’t worn one out of fear of being discovered if they checked and she sure was glad she hadn’t. They beckoned for her to follow and she was escorted down a set of dark corridors in the warehouse to a fake wall, which slid aside to reveal a staircase that led deeper into the building. The underground basement was far more advanced, with metal walls and various monitoring rooms that she walked past. Lauren idly wondered if any of those cameras were monitoring Daniela, before she was brought into a larger room dominated by a desk and a man in a suit. He rose as they entered and smiled at her. “Welcome Ms. Stevens.” He said as he walked around from behind the desk and held a hand out for her to shake.

Soon, they got down to business to talk about things. He spoke about how they acquired hard to get merchandise and worked as resellers as well to hold auctions. She found herself trying to pay attention to everything and actually getting interested in the business he was selling. She suspected it was kidnapping and potentially white slavery, but it was beginning to sound like they offered much more. Then he switched topics. “Would you like to take a look at some of our merchandise?”

“Of course.” Lauren said, wondering what exactly these men might have to offer.

He flipped a switch and the wall slid aside to Lauren’s right. Turning to look, it took all of her willpower to not cry out in shock. Behind the wall was a large tank filled with water and floating inside of it was a woman. From the waist down, the woman's legs were fused into a beautiful blue-green mermaid tail. Waist up she was fully naked, her generous breasts on full display to anyone looking into the tank. Her arms were pulled behind her back and secured in a latex armbinder, giving her a no-arms look initially. A clear breathing mask was strapped over her face and connected to something at the top of the tank, likely providing her oxygen needed to stay underwater and the clear mask gave Lauren a clear view of the red rubber ballgag strapped between the woman’s teeth. A metal cuff was wrapped around where her ankles would be in the tail, chaining her to the bottom of the tank and Lauren could see a metal collar locked around her neck. As her dark hair billowed out in the water, Lauren could feel her insides freezing over as she stared at her sister. “I trust you like what you see?”

Lauren nodded, unable to take her eyes off of Daniela who floated inside the tank. “We also have another item up for sale if you’re interested, mermaids are quite popular these days if I do say so myself. Take a look here.”

Another switch was flipped to reveal a second tank. Similarly bound, gagged, and suspended inside the tank, although this time in a purple mermaid tail, was Monika. Lauren could only stare at the PI she had originally hired to investigate Daniela’s disappearance, and now she knew where she had disappeared to, right into the clutches of the same man that had kidnapped her sister. He gestured towards Daniela. “This beauty was snatched off the street one night as she was on the way home from the club with friends. Her two friends are also here, but we didn’t turn them into mermaids and will fill other orders.”

Then he pointed towards Monika. “This woman was a private investigator, a really good looking one too as I’m sure you can see. We found her poking her nose around one of our warehouses and couldn’t resist adding her to our stock.”

He rose from his chair and stood in front of Monika’s tank with his hands clasped behind his back. “She was investigating the disappearance of our club girl mermaid over there. However, you already knew that. Didn’t you Miss Tennyson?”

Lauren felt like an electric shock had run through her body at the use of her real name, and started to rise from her chair but was immediately pushed back down into it by one of the hulking bodyguard brutes that had silently approached her from behind. She squirmed and struggled but with his meaty paws pressing down on her shoulders, she could not move from her seated position. “It was very nice of you to simply present yourself to us and waltz right in.” B’s smile was now more evil looking as he stood up and walked over to one of the crates

From inside that crate, he drew out another tail, this one red and pink. “So.” He grinned as he held up the tail and started towards his captive, who was still squirming in her chair. “Let’s complete the set, shall we?”