Chapter 33 #2
We moved along the outer wall, the stones rough and ancient beneath my palm. The wall rose three meters high, sealing the place off from the world.
“This way,” she whispered.
A narrow wooden door sat recessed within a buttress, weathered and unmarked. She pressed her hand into a shallow depression in the stone beside it and leaned her weight forward. The latch shifted.
The door opened inward without a sound.
Inside, the air changed–cooler and still.
We stepped into a narrow vestibule, the space smelling faintly of incense and stone.
Scarlett closed the door carefully behind us.
“No one uses this unless it’s supplies,” she said. “And even then, rarely.”
We moved deeper into the complex.
The cloister opened ahead—a square courtyard ringed by vaulted walkways. Cypress trees rose from the central garden beside a low stone well. Nuns in brown habits crossed the far side of the walkway in silence, heads bowed.
Midday activity meant routine.
Routine meant patterns.
Scarlett didn’t hesitate.
She guided me along the shadowed edge of the arcade, keeping our steps measured. My height worked against me. The ceilings dipped lower near the connecting corridors, forcing me to duck beneath carved stone arches.
“These passages were built for humility,” she murmured. “You bow whether you want to or not.”
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
We passed the refectory. Through a half-open door, I saw long wooden tables arranged in disciplined rows. A nun stood at a small pulpit, reading from scripture while others ate in silence.
Scarlett didn’t slow.
We turned into a narrower corridor branching off the cloister. The light dimmed, and the walls thickened.
“The chapter house is to the left,” she whispered. “The priest’s office is beyond it.”
A pair of low doors forced me to bend fully at the waist to pass through. My shoulder brushed against the stone.
“You’d never survive here long,” she murmured with a half-giggle.
I shot her a look but didn’t answer.
We reached a heavy wooden door with iron hinges.
“He won’t be inside,” she said. “He meets visitors at this hour.”
“You sure?”
“One hundred percent.”
She pressed the handle.
Unlocked. Trusting.
We stepped inside.
The office was sparse—stone walls, a crucifix mounted above a simple desk, tall cabinets lining the far wall. A narrow window let in a thin band of daylight.
Scarlett moved immediately toward the cabinets.
I closed the door quietly and scanned the space. There were no footsteps outside. No voices approaching.
She pulled open the top drawer of the first cabinet and sifted through documents.
“Nothing obvious,” she muttered.
I moved to another cabinet and opened a drawer.
Inside were binders labeled in neat script. I could make out the words: Cultural Preservation. Educational Outreach. International Relief.
I flipped through the first binder. They looked similar to the records we’d already seen—large amounts, codes, and routing numbers. These were keepers.
Scarlett returned to the desk. “There’s got to be more—something beyond these cabinets. All the records look computer-generated. It would make sense for there to be a laptop or something,” she huffed.
She opened each drawer, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Determined, she crouched beside the desk and ran her hand beneath the bottom drawer.
“There’s a catch here,” she said excitedly.
A hidden latch clicked, and a false panel slid open.
Inside lay a small external hard drive—roughly four inches wide, thin and black—and a sealed envelope thick with printed spreadsheets.
She exhaled slowly.
“He thought this was clever.”
I took the drive and turned it in my hand.
“This is good stuff,” I said quietly.
Scarlett nodded. “I bet he isn’t just a priest. He’s the gatekeeper.”
“For what?”
She met my eyes. “Access.”
I placed the hard drive and the envelope into the backpack, then returned to the cabinet and grabbed the binder.
“We need to get going,” I said.
Scarlett rose without argument.
We retraced our steps. A pair of nuns crossed the corridor ahead; we slipped into a recess until they passed. Their sandals scuffed softly against the stone.
So far, no one had seen us.
We were five steps from the corridor that would take us back to the secondary exit when a voice stopped us cold.
“Scarlett Hayes.”
The sound of her name inside those stone walls was like a slap.
A priest stood at the far end of the cloister arcade, hands folded in the sleeves of his robe, posture composed. Sunlight cut across the courtyard behind him, leaving his face half in shadow.
Scarlett froze.
He took a step forward, his eyes raking over her with open disdain.
“Don’t take another step closer to her, Father,” I growled, and he halted.
“I had heard rumors,” he said smoothly in English. “That you fell prey to the devil. That you traded your vows for working in a whorehouse.” His gaze sharpened. “How dare you enter this sacred place? You defile the presence of God within these walls.”
Scarlett flinched beside me.
I’d had enough.
I stepped in front of her.
“You sell girls to men who buy bodies by the dozen,” I said evenly. “Don’t speak to her about God.”
His expression shifted, but only slightly.
“You presume much.”
“I don’t presume,” I replied. “I read.”
I reached into the backpack and pulled out one of the financial sheets.
“Donations from Eveline & Co. Transfers from shell accounts tied to Franklin Whitaker. Wire transfers connected to offshore banks in the Caymans.” I shoved the paper back into the bag. “Crown princes. Heads of state. Corporate magnates. Millions flowing through this monastery.”
His jaw tightened.
“You think those men fund charity work?” I asked. “Or orphaned children?”
Scarlett stood straighter beside me.
“You’re the sinner,” I continued. “You’re the only devil breathing in this room.”
The priest’s composure cracked.
“You arrogant thug,” he snapped. “You think you understand the world? Men of power require discretion. They require arrangements.”
“For children?” Scarlett demanded. “For girls who vanish in the middle of the night?”
He turned on her.
“Do not pretend innocence,” he said. “You were not forced. You were offered salvation and chose to run.”
I saw her hands tremble.
“You groomed them,” I said quietly. “You fed them. You cataloged them. Then you sold them.”
His lips curved.
“Celibacy grew tiresome,” he said, the arrogance bleeding into something uglier. “I spent years alone in a stone cell. When a benefactor invites you to his island, a paradise.. Let’s just say I found religion in the arms of a beautiful teenager and never looked back.”
Scarlett sucked in a sharp breath. “You sick bastard.”
His hand moved.
A pistol appeared from beneath his robe.
“Hands up,” he ordered.
I raised my open palms slowly, stepping slightly in front of Scarlett.
She clung to my side, one hand lifting in surrender.
The priest smiled.
“How convenient,” he said with a smug laugh. “A cemetery out back. No one questions freshly dug graves here.”
I kept my tone even. “You should say a prayer.”
“For what?”
“For yourself.”
Behind me, Scarlett shifted.
Her hand slid up my back, careful, deliberate.
She found the pistol I’d shown her how to use.
The priest didn’t notice.
He was too busy watching my face.
I said the first thing that came to mind. “Confess.”
He smirked.
The click of a safety disengaging was soft.
I barely registered it.
Then, BANG!
Scarlett fired from beneath my jacket.
The shot thundered down the corridor.
The bullet hit the fucker square in the chest.
His body jerked backward. His gun discharged as he fell, the round shattering the window behind us in a burst of glass and light.
He collapsed hard against the stone floor.
Blood spread beneath him.
Scarlett didn’t hesitate as a nun rushed through the doorway, pistol already raised.
I moved to draw my SIG—
—but Scarlett stepped away from me, lifted the gun, and fired.
The round struck the nun in the face. Damn, my girl was a good shot.
Bone and blood sprayed the wall behind her, and she dropped instantly.
Scarlett’s voice shook with fury. “That’s what I prayed for every time you made my knees bleed.”
She lowered the gun a fraction, chest heaving, eyes locked on the bodies at her feet. “You lived in my head. In my nightmares for too many years.” Her jaw tightened. “Not anymore. I don’t have to carry you in my head anymore,” she screamed.
For a fraction of a second, silence filled the space.
Then shouting erupted somewhere further in the building.
I drew my SIG.
“Let’s go,” I ordered.
Scarlett nodded.
We stepped into the next hallway.
Another nun rounded the corner, gun raised but trembling.
I fired once.
The bullet punched through her throat. She fell against the stone and slid down, leaving a dark smear behind.
We took off running.
The cloister that had been silent minutes before now filled with shouting, footsteps, and doors slamming.
Scarlett led, cutting through a side corridor that bypassed the refectory.
Two novices stared at us, frozen.
I ignored them.
We reached the fortress wall and forced the secondary door open.
The driver already had the engine running. He must have heard the chaos breaking out.
We climbed in and sped away down the narrow road, sirens wailing behind us.
By the time we merged into traffic heading back toward Madrid, police cars tore past in the opposite direction. Ambulances followed.
“You okay?” I asked, threading my fingers through hers.
She smiled weakly.
But her eyes weren’t the same.
Taking a life changed a person. It didn’t matter why you did it or how justified it was.
It carved something out of you and left a scar.
I understood that feeling from not that long ago.
The first time I pulled a trigger and killed a man, the world had shifted on its axis.
There was a line between the ordinary and the unforgivable.
Once crossed, it didn’t fade, and Scarlett had just stepped over it.
That knowledge settled heavily in my chest. It was another scar she would have to bear. Another piece of innocence burned away because men like Franklin Whitaker, Delgado, and her father existed.
She had moved without hesitation and fired without flinching.
And that frightened me almost as much as it impressed me.
The underworld didn’t simply swallow you whole. It invited you closer, one necessary act at a time. One justification layered over the next. Until you woke up and realized you no longer stood outside it.
Scarlett was standing on that edge now.
But she’d survived worse.
She’d endured humiliation, coercion, exile, betrayal—and she hadn’t broken. She bent. She adapted. She endured.
My little bird was stronger than she looked.
Stronger than she believed.
And I would make damn sure she never had to carry that burden alone.