39. -38-
Dorian
Standing in the dark parking lot behind the hospital, my body buzzed with excitement.
Malin was highly effective in uncovering Aryna’s father’s secrets and refused to wait longer than necessary to act.
My prolonged shift ended only ten minutes ago, and he already bombarded me with messages to be ready to jump into his car.
I checked the thread of texts with ma vilaine to see if I’d missed anything, but strong headlights blinded me.
I locked the screen, squinting inside the car when it came to a halt right at my side.
My brothers occupied the front seats, and I grinned as a thrill rushed through my veins. Good old times.
“Didn’t know you were joining, boss,” I teased, punching Zyon’s shoulder. He flashed me a wicked grin, which, in combination with his dark attire and skull mask lifted on his forehead, looked diabolical. Just the way I loved it.
“Couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hunt down the fucker, could I?” He winked at me, adjusting his leather gloves.
“That would be a waste,” I chirped, changing my white T-shirt for the black one. Malin brought me a duffel bag with clothes, boots, and my favorite knives. My fingers itched to use them properly.
“What exactly do we know?” I asked because after Malin disappeared from my office, I spent more hours in the OR, and when I finally got out, he was gone. Only the note on my desk, written in a neat, beautiful handwriting, proved he was there.
You’ll hate what I found, but love the punishment, the message said, and since then, I couldn’t wait to talk to him.
“Julien Young, Aryna’s father, is a pimp,” Zyon declared, flexing his hand. The leather slightly creaked around his thick fingers.
“Pimp?” I echoed, my stomach twisting with dread. Was he suggesting…
“Trafficker, if you prefer the term.” Zyon flashed me a murderous glare in the rearview mirror, and Malin, who hadn’t said a word since I got in, squeezed the steering wheel so tight I worried he would rip it off.
“His wife, Edith, works in a store during the day, and at night, she fucks with men he arranges for her. According to Malin’s findings, their three children are exposed to sexual abuse and acts, too.
Two boys aged seventeen and a girl aged sixteen are regularly offered to customers. ”
“What?” I snarled, bile rising in my throat. “Aryna?” My thoughts focused only on her, my innocent little angel. If the fucker offered her, too, I would…
“That’s why she ended up at the bottom of the stairs,” Zyon explained, turning to the back to look at me directly. “Her stepsister pushed her after she overheard Julian talking to someone, and she got scared that he intended to…”
He didn’t finish. His teeth clenched, the muscle in his jaw ticking.
“What’s the plan?” I whispered, blocking my mind from picturing what those kids had endured.
The demon in my head screamed, ready to unleash hell.
“Capture and kill,” Malin growled in a voice so low that it sounded animalistic and feral. “Cause as much pain as possible in between.”
I nodded, leaning back into my seat. The world outside quickly moved behind the tinted window, but my mind was elsewhere.
Aryna’s huge, frightened eyes pleaded with me, her tiny hand hesitant to let me go.
Every time I left her side, she withdrew, and even when I promised to return, she didn’t believe me.
Poor girl was let down so many times in her life that I could barely see her behind the walls she built around herself.
Lost in thought, forcing myself to stay under control, I stared straight ahead like a robot. I had to bury my emotions in the deepest corner of my subconscious; otherwise, I would drag Julien Young in the middle of the busiest road and set him on fire in broad daylight for everyone to see.
“You okay?” Zyon asked while we waited at the red light. My heart thundered in my ears, but I kept a cool head.
“Yeah.” I nodded, clenching and unclenching my palm to ease some tension. “Do you know how Aryna ended up with the Young family?”
“Her mother died when Aryna was two years old during the complicated childbirth,” heanswered mournfully. “A few months later, her father was involved in a freaky accident at a construction site. He and his two colleagues fell from the twelfth floor. All three of them had alcohol in their systems.”
“Jesus Christ,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “No family to take her in, I presume.”
“No.” Zyon firmly shook his head. “Her parents were immigrants. No one was around for them here. And their family in Ukraine refused to take the girl in.”
I closed my eyes, regretting asking more questions. Because the more I asked, the more it hurt. My little angel was completely abandoned in this fucked up world, shoved to the people who, instead of protecting her, intended to use her for profit.
The world is full of kids like Aryna, the demon whispered inside my head, its words echoing through my mind like a curse. You can’t save them all.
“I know, idiot,” I mumbled, hiding my face behind my palms. “But tonight, we cleanse the world of one abuser.”
My voice was barely audible, so my brothers didn’t notice that I was talking to myself again. They always took it as a sign that my mental state was in a poor condition, even when it wasn’t entirely true.
The times when the darkness within me was in control were over, but it stayed with me no matter what I did, buried under the duties and responsibilities, patiently waiting for the shackles to slip.
And today was exactly the day I was glad it was part of me.
I’d let it consume all evil, erase the sin, and punish the monster for all he brought to the innocents.
It’s almost biblically poetic, the demon laughed maniacally.
The darkness spread, consuming my rational thoughts, my feelings, the empathy that made me great at my job, but held me back from becoming the person the world needed.
The doctor stayed behind in the hospital, in the OR, where he saved another life. Here, in this car, there was only a cold-blooded killer, a ruthless predator hunting his next prey.
“We’re here,” Zyon said, disturbing my thoughts, and I peeked outside.
The neighborhood looked forgotten. Rotting fences leaned toward the road, rats disappeared into overflowing dumpsters, and two half-naked women passed a bottle to a little girl no older than ten.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” I asked, grimacing when a gut-twisting stench attacked me the moment I exited the car.
“The address is correct.” Malin shrugged and handed me a skull mask, the same as Zyon’s.
“But the surroundings aren’t,” I ground out, pulling the rough fabric over my face.
“Not everyone was born with a golden spoon in their mouth, Dorian,” Zyon said, observing the house we planned to enter.
Grimacing, I walked behind my brothers up the three half-broken wooden steps to the white door. Without much effort, Malin picked the lock and let us into the dimly lit, tiny entry hall.
Zyon moved first. With a golden gun in his right hand, dressed like a ninja in black cargo pants and a black turtleneck, he looked like the embodiment of a living, breathing nightmare.
I followed him, scanning the old flowery wallpaper and inhaling the aroma of baked chicken.
Muffled voices came to me from the upper floor, a series of steps echoing through the ceiling.
Zyon stopped at the living-room entrance, with me on his left and Malin on his right.
Weak light revealed a cramped, neglected space: a torn brown sofa, matching armchairs, a broken coffee table, and the shattered frame of a glass wall beside the stairs.
My heart clenched. Aryna must have crashed through it when she fell.
Cracks spread across the shabby walls, the carpet was filthy, and shelves overloaded with newspapers and boxes sagged under their weight.
“Get him…” Zyon started in a hushed voice, but before he could finish the command, a scream echoed around us. A teenage girl, about fifteen, stared at us as if we were aliens.
“Well, change of plans,” Zyon said, lifting his golden gun and pointing it at the girl to make her climb down the stairs. She visibly shook, and the boys behind her were frightened too. One by one, three boys followed the brown-haired girl, their eyes jumping between us frantically.
“Where are your parents?” Malin barked, eyeing the youngest. He could be around four or five, clutching a dirty green dragon to his chest protectively.
“I-in the bedroom,” the girl answered, nodding toward the upper floor.
Without a word, he disappeared into the darkness upstairs.
The growing panic seized the room. Four sets of eyes stared at Zyon and me as if we caught them…
Wait, we did.
My brows dipped when I noticed a huge backpack thrown over the girl’s shoulder, and two older boys had bags, too. The littlest one carried only his toy and a pair of sandals.
“Where are you going?” I asked, earning a curious look from Zyon. The girl flinched at the sound of my deep voice and let go of the backpack, which hit the floor with a thud.
“Are you trying to escape?” Zyon joined me, slowly placing his gun in the holster under his arm. I followed his lead and checked the stairs.
No reply came. They just stared at us, frightened, like trapped birds, trying to find a quick way out.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” I said gently, unsure of what was going through their heads. With the horrors they endured on a daily basis, I couldn’t imagine what they thought of us. “We want your foster father.”
The girl watched me as if I had grown another head. The boys exchanged baffled looks, one of them nervously shifting his weight from one leg to another until he finally found the courage to speak.
“Are you a police officer?” he whispered, fear lacing every syllable.
“No,” Zyon replied flatly, lifting his eyes toward the stairs as the commotion grew. “We’re much worse.”
He winked at the boy just when Malin threw a naked man down the stairs. The body slammed against the steps before crashing into a crumpled heap at the bottom. A broken gasp escaped him.
“Is this the man we’re looking for?” I asked cheerfully, a maniacal smile stretching my mouth wide. Though they couldn’t see it because of the mask, they could surely hear my excitement.
“He is,” Zyon confirmed, showing me the photo he carried in his pants back pocket. He approached the fucker, pushing him down with his boot on his chest when he tried to lift himself.
“W-what is h-happening?” the man panted, his protruding, confused eyes jumping from Zyon to me.
I opened my mouth to give him a menacing answer, but Malin cut me off, leading a crying woman down the stairs.
She sported a black eye, a busted lip, and scratches and bruises on her arms. A black wool sweater was draped around her slender shoulders.
Tears ran down her cheeks, smearing her makeup, and when she saw us with the kids, she hurried to the smallest one and cradled him in her trembling arms.
“Now, we’re all here,” Zyon interrupted the heavy silence, squashing the groaning abuser with his foot. “I want to make an announcement.”
The family watched him with alert expressions, not knowing what to expect. Malin leaned nonchalantly against the railing, and I plopped into the old armchair, which creaked in protest under my weight.
“You will never see this asshole again,” Zyon boomed, pointing at the quivering guy on the floor. “If the police show up, you say you don’t know where he is.” He scanned the kids and their shocked mother with his dark, devious eyes. “The nightmare is over. You’re free.”
None of them smiled. None of them relaxed. Freedom was such a foreign concept that they didn’t know how to react to it.
“But how?” The woman shook her head in incredulity.
“Leave that to us,” I said, my heart skipping a beat with excitement at the promise of some action. Malin had surely prepared something diabolical.
“W-what about his friends?” the girl asked in a hushed voice, flinching when her foster father snarled at her.
“Shut up,” he hissed, fighting Zyon’s boot. But my brother only moved a little, stood on his neck, and the idiot gasped for air.
“Friends, meaning the customers?” I looked at the terrified girl, her entire body trembled uncontrollably, yet the confirmation nod was firm.
“Do you know names?” She nodded again, watching me with wide, honey-brown, hopeful eyes. “Write them down,” I commanded, standing up. “Consider this matter closed.”
I helped Malin drag the fucker into the car. The whole time, I watched our surroundings, but in this neighborhood, no one cared. While Zyon chained him to the door, I went back inside and took the paper with names from the girl.
“There is one more customer,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder at her foster mother and the boys. “A woman.”
I scanned the names she’d given me, but they were all men.
“A woman?” Malin appeared at my right like a ghost, startling me.
“Y-yes.” The girl shrank under his stare. “A powerful woman who likes to… train young boys.” She swallowed hard, visibly shaking. “I don’t… I can’t… write…”
“It’s okay,” I said softly.
“It’s not!” Her voice jumped, and she clenched her fists. “My brothers barely walked for days after…”
“Name,” Malin cut in.
Her chin quivered. For a moment, she hesitated before finally whispering, “Meredith Cole.”
My mouth fell open beneath the mask.
“Meredith Cole?” I echoed. That name was everywhere. “The Meredith Cole who is running for mayor?”
She nodded slowly.
“Oooooh, fuck.” I handed the paper to my brother, who seemed momentarily frozen. A split second later, he turned on his heel and left. I followed him after making sure the girl understood that she and everyone in that house had to stay quiet about what happened.
“Will you check on Mrs. Cole?” I asked when I joined him beside the car. Zyon was already inside.
“Yes,” Malin replied curtly before slipping behind the wheel.
I looked back at the girl standing on the poorly lit porch. She waved once and, surprisingly, smiled. It wasn’t the wide, radiant grin that should have brightened her face every day. It was small, shy, and afraid, but genuine enough to give me hope that her days would be brighter from now on.