Chapter 17 #2
I holster the gun. “I don’t want your money.”
“Please, I’m returning to France tonight. I will never come back. What do you want? Money, drugs, whores, connections? Just tell me. I will make it happen.”
He thinks he is Tinkerbell, spreading his fairy dust to solve problems he created years ago.
Why do they always have to complain, cry, and beg when they act so tough and hurt innocent people?
When I was a kid, I didn’t whine. I faced the situation head-on and found a way out.
If any of them were truly that brave, I might consider sparing their life, but they never are, just like I don’t plan to let them live.
“What do you want?” He lashes out in a croaky voice, and I pull my pocket knife from my thigh bag, sending a clear warning.
“Your blood,” I reply with an unhinged smile. “I don’t appreciate that tone when I’m the one holding the knife, Mr. Dubois. All I want is your time.” My unsettling, dark voice fills the room with dread. It flickers rampantly in Jean’s horrified gray eyes.
Yes. I’m intimidating.
So. Fucking. Patient. It makes them shit their pants when they have no idea what I am capable of.
I press my gloved finger to his open wound until he screams a few octaves higher. I love it when they sing, especially the names of their bosses, and where I can find them.
Blood drips down his arm, and he groans, “Who are you?” His panicked tone intensifies as he realizes there’s no escape. He searches for a glimmer of hope behind me, beyond this room.
He’s not going to find any.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m no one important.” I slide a photo of Winona out of my pocket and show it to him. “Why her?”
“What are you talking about?” he shakes his head in rapid movements. “I don’t know her.”
“Let me jog your memory.” I stick the blade in his mouth and slash the left corner, watching it paint his teeth crimson as he cries for god. “I don’t like wasting my time. If you answer my questions, it’ll go a lot faster. Why are you targeting her?” I shove the photo into his face again.
“I don’t know, man. She’s just a target, I swear. It has nothing to do with me. I don’t know her.” Jean thrashes against the bindings, yelling his answer like a toddler. The wrinkles around his eyes and forehead deepen. “She’s just a girl. You’re doing this for one meaningless girl.”
She’s my girl.
Every day that I’m away from her, I lose her even more.
“Answer me before I start working my way up and down your body.”
“Go fuck yourself.” He bravely spits in my direction but misses the mark—a mixture of blood, drool, and snot over his gruff face, dripping down his chin.
“Your funeral.”
“Wait. Wait. Wait. Merde.” He draws a shaky breath. “Batard, tu vas me le payer!”
I roll my eyes and plunge the knife into his thigh, pull it back—while he whimpers and begs for mercy—and stick it into the same spot again. He really doesn’t get the hang of it. I grab his jaw firmly, keeping him locked on me.
“We can play this game all night. You’d be drained of blood by the time we’re done. If you want me to stop, start giving me concrete answers, or you’ll end up like your nephew.”
His eyes widen. “What did you do to my nephew?”
I lift my eyebrows, and he swallows hard.
He flicked a switch that had a no-return policy.
“My condolences. He was about to propose to his girlfriend, so he took a day off. He is in a body bag, but it took him a long time to tell me all about you. You would have been proud. His experience was much worse, given that you told him to hire people to kill her.” I look into his eyes and sigh.
“He was following orders like me.” His eyes filled with tears, his shoulders trembling.
A forced smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth. “Yes. Every action has consequences, Mr. Dubois. You know that better than anyone. When you take that risk, unwanted company may knock on your door.”
“So, you think I’m a monster because I’m on the wrong side of the tracks. Do you think you are better than me when you show up and kill everyone?” He coughs up blood.
“Never claimed I was,” I reply, looking him straight in the eyes without missing a beat. “But that runaway train is coming in fast.”
“Do you believe everything they say about me?” he asks, the light slowly fades from his eyes.
“Belief is doubt. I know for sure you are exactly who I say you are.”
“Fils de pute.” He curses in French. I bend slightly to align my knife with the other corner of his mouth, but he immediately says, “Dick Graves.”
That name turns my blood cold.
“What about him?” I grit out.
“Decades ago, a deal went bad, and we had to cut ties. Then, years later, Dick returned, saying he had found a way to restart the business. He was the one who got us into this mess and then vanished. Drugs were enough for me. I didn’t want to traffic innocent little kids; it’s sickening, but they all forced my hand. ” Tears glisten in his eyes.
So the rumors about Dick were true, and when I killed him, it disrupted his plans.
“Who are they?”
“They will kill me.”
“Not if you’re already dead.” I raise my brows, fixing the blade across his cheek. “Why her?” I repeat like a broken record.
He finally leans back in the chair. “My guess is she knows someone who’s involved in this world in some way or another.”
Like Romina.
She mentioned that they were targeting Winona because of her. The next question is, how is she connected to this?
“Who do you work for?” I press the knife and dent his cheek. Jean hisses as a trickle of blood paints the blade. “Their names will make it less painful.”
“Minh and Third Eye.”
I arch my eyebrow. “Is that a nickname?”
“Yes. I don’t know more than that.”
“Where can I find them?”
“They don’t operate that way. They patiently wait for a major shipment for a year or two.
The shipment comes here for a quick check-up and supplies before heading to a place owned by one of them, an abandoned site that was once an asylum.
I’ve only been there once. The place looks like it’s haunted by ghosts. ”
I know someone who would like that.
“The bosses meet with their team and instruct them on what to do next. They used to traffic them, but now they force them to play games and kill each other, or set up death traps for entertainment.”
Sick fucks.
“Third Eye offered a reward for killing the girl in your photo. He’s the one calling the shots when the big boss isn’t available.
If he decides someone should die, it gets done.
People vanish before he even finishes snapping his fingers.
He doesn’t mess around. He relays the message to those who need to hear it. He never plays by the rules.”
Uhh.
Interesting.
Neither am I.
“Thanks for the advice.” I retract the knife from his face and pocket it, then step back a few feet toward the door. “Do you know the big boss?”
“No one does. He is a ghost.”
We’ll see about that.
“I need the address of that asylum,” I tell Jean, and wait until Braxton finishes typing it into his computer.
“Word of advice: never hire a kid to do your laundry; they hate it. Have you ever seen a kid who loves doing laundry? Come on, it’s an annoying chore.
They would rather let someone else do it if they can. Just saying.”
I fire once at his head, and he dies instantly.
They all deserve to rot in the pits of hell for the suffering they bring to the children they kidnap, torture, and abuse.
I rush out of the warehouse, cross the street, and run a few blocks to a small parking lot. The van’s door swings open, and Braxton waves me to get in quickly. I climb inside and shut the door just as Mitch drives off.
“It smells like ass in here,” I say, grabbing a bottle of water and chugging it down.
“Mitch probably hasn’t showered in a week,” Braxton laughs while typing on his keyboard.
“Says the guy who sits on his ass all day,” Mitch retorts.
“We definitely need a new set of rules around here,” I conclude.
Mitch shifts gears, pressing the gas pedal harder. “You just killed a bunch of people, and you worry about this?”
I stretch my limbs and flash him my shit-eating grin. “It’s called prioritizing.”
“Done,” Braxton announces. “The camera footage from the warehouse has been destroyed. No one can recover anything. However, I saved the recordings from their meetings in case you’d like to review them and see if anything interesting pops up.”
I nod at him proudly. “Great job, you two. Let’s find an open pizza place. I’m running on a protein bar, and my stomach scolds me for that.”
“Yes, boss.”
They chant in unison.
Countless dirty needles and rusted blades litter the floor as I run across. The awful stench of urine and the carcass of an animal assaults my nose.
I launch myself up the stairs of an old, dusty structure to reach the roof quickly. Rough footsteps reverberate, and orders pass between the five men chasing me.
The slung rifle over my back sways as I shift from side to side, ramming my shoulder against an old wooden door that swings open.
This was an old asylum owned by a private businessman. After it was shut down, he added several buildings to convert it into an industrial warehouse that eventually went bankrupt and found a place in the trafficking world.
The man who owns it today is Third Eye. The team I infiltrated a week ago, pretending to be a sniper they hired for the job, has a large shipment they bragged about for days.
I got clear instructions: kill the operating teams once the transaction is made; no loose ties, no witnesses.
Finally.
I waited a long time to get to these fuckers after my team and I spent the beginning of the year in Tokyo, Italy, Romania, and Brazil.
The place is abandoned, yet private property signs pop up everywhere, and cameras are installed around the wrought-iron fence to prevent unwanted visitors from sneaking in.
“You started killing them early,” Braxton’s amused tone graces my ears. He watches everything from the camera that’s attached to my vest.