Chapter 15
The Hunter
Atlas
The room was dim, the only light coming from the muted TV playing a rerun of some telenovela I wasn't paying too much attention to. The hotel smelled of old cigarette smoke and synthetic air freshener. Another dump on the outskirts of Mexico City.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my eyes glued to the GPS tracker app on my phone. I checked the damn thing every day. Sometimes twice an hour, even though nothing pinged. It was the same fucking story—no sign of Kit since she disappeared.
It has been thirty days.
Thirty days of bloodshed.
Thirty days of kicking in doors and slaughtering every bastard that stood between me and her.
One month of waking up not knowing if she was still alive.
Jacob was sitting at the table cleaning his rifle. Quiet. Focused as always.
The silence between us had become a language of its own. Each of us lost in our own thoughts. I was thankful to him. He's kept me sane throughout the entire ordeal.
I refreshed the app again.
Just habit at this point.
Hoping for something that never came.
But this time-
BEEP.
I froze.
A little green dot blinked on the map.
Then again, and again.
My breath caught in my throat.
No fucking way!
The dot.
It moved.
"Jacob."
My voice cracked.
He looked up instantly alert.
"What is it?"
I stared at the screen, my heart pounding.
I zoomed in.
A live signal!
"She's online."
I stood up so fast the chair behind me crashed to the floor.
"She's live, Jacob."
He was on his feet instantly.
"Where?"
I turned the phone around, showing him the screen.
A precise location in the Mexican mountains. GPS triangulated. A strong signal.
"The collar." I muttered under my breath.
"Someone finally took it off. I knew the collar blocked the signal this whole time, but now…now I had her."
A laugh erupted from my throat…sharp, stunned, manic.
I didn't even realize I was moving until I was relentlessly pacing the room, my hands running through my hair.
"Holy shit. Holy fucking shit."
I spun and then grabbed Jacob's shoulders.
"That asshole must still have her. If he sold her, she would most likely be somewhere on the other side of the world.
Gut rot said he lived in the mountains somewhere, and I believe she is still with the scumbag.
If she isn't with him, it doesn't matter.
Now I can get her out of there. I know she's alive because the dot is moving back and forth.
The collar's off. Whoever removed it slipped. They fucking slipped!"
Jacob grinned, patting me on the back.
“I'm happy for you, Atlas."
I practically danced across the room, switching from the app to call my brother, dialing faster than my fingers could move. "Come on. Come on. Answer."
The line clicked.
Zach's voice came through, calm as always.
"Hey Atlas. Any news yet?"
"Yes! I need you to pull something up for me."
My voice was urgent, full of adrenaline.
"You got her location?" He asked excitedly.
"Yes, I'm sending the info now. I got a live ping. The collar came off, and my GPS started beeping like crazy. She's in that compound somewhere, Zach. I need visuals ASAP."
I texted him the address.
There was a hint of excitement in my brother's tone.
"You got it. Give me a few minutes to hack the system."
I waited while he worked his magic. By the time I'd reloaded my Glock, Zach's voice came back over the line.
"Atlas…I'm in."
I hear typing, clicking, more typing….tap, tap, tap.
"Holy shit, Atlas. She is with Hector. This guy's network is heavy. Not cartel standard. These are black-market encrypted feeds. Fucking military grade."
"Can you break them?"
Zach scoffed.
"Who's your daddy?" My brother joked. "Already did. I've got full access. Interior. Exterior. Night vision. Infrared. All of it. Sending the live stream to your tablet now."
My device lit up in seconds.
"I'm proud of you, kid. Did I ever tell you how much I love your fucking guts?"
Zach laughed. "You're making me blush, Atlas. I'll keep the feed up here, so I can fix any glitches that may happen within the system. Because of the complexity, I want to make sure I monitor the coding. I'm also going to connect to your cell and Jacob's so I can speak directly to you."
"That's perfect. I'm going to go through all the footage. Thanks again, kid." Zach cleared his throat.
"Of course. I'll stay on the line until you navigate through everything."
"Good idea." I said.
I opened the first camera-
And there she was.
My Kitten.
She was kneeling beside Becca, both of them naked, scrubbing the floor in some polished tiled kitchen like two slaves in a palace. Her hair was messy, damp most likely from a shower, her body a little thinner…but she was alive.
I dropped to my knees as if I'd been punched in the gut.
"Kit…" I breathed. Her green eyes lifted for a moment….like she felt me watching.
"Zach," I whispered. "Keep every feed live. Record everything. Send the info to my cell and Jacob's, too. I want full eyes on the compound until the mission is over."
"I've got you, brother."
"I'll be in touch soon, kid."
I hung up and looked at Jacob.
He was already strapping on gear, loading mags into tactical pouches.
"We raid tonight?" He asked.
I shook my head, calculating.
"No, too risky. Now that we know it's Hector who has them, we need to see the guard pattern.
I want to know where the bastard sleeps, shits, and breathes.
I want to see the layout of the whole compound.
We have to plan around their routine. I want to listen to every word that spills from his lips. " I rubbed my chin.
"As much as I'd love to take her tonight, it's not possible. A few more days shouldn't matter. He's had her for this long. He must have a reason for keeping them both. Once we have everything we need, we'll rip that mansion apart, piece by piece."
Jacob nodded.
"And when we finally do?"
I looked back at the screen.
At her.
My fucking obsession.
My Queen!
My voice dropped to a growl.
"I'm going to carve Hector's name into the floor with his own spine."
Jacob and I spent the entire afternoon and most of the night combing through hours of archived footage. By the time we hit the halfway mark. I was close to losing my fucking mind. Every frame burned like acid. My Kitten, suffering at the hands of those animals.
Those motherfuckers are going to bleed for this.
Every last one of them. And Becca? Hell, I have a newfound respect for her. I'm actually not a sympathetic guy, but after watching what she and Kitten endured, I realize there are levels of hell I wouldn't wish on anyone except the assholes who run the compound.
I've read some gruesome reports from the CIA, interrogated cartels before putting a bullet in their heads and dealt with multiple trafficking rings, but I've never sat through the unfiltered, hour by hour reality of what really happens; until tonight.
Hector's little house of horrors didn't just record the pain, it archived it like it was a fucking trophy to be proud of.
The ringleader hadn't returned yet, but his threat of fucking and torturing Kit tonight has me pacing, itching to put a fucking bullet between his eyes.
Every instinct in me screamed to storm the mansion now, but one wrong move would get her killed.
Not only her, but me, Jacob and anyone else within a mile of the compound.
The cameras gave us everything we needed. We were able to tap into all the buildings on the property. Inside and outside. We could see his entire security, and man was he going to pay for his sins once I got my hands on him.
There were multiple women locked in cages, chained to walls, or sprawled out on cold concrete floors like nameless animals.
Some were screaming while being punished, their voices muffled by the sounds of fists connecting to their faces.
There were hisses of hot irons being used against their skin.
Others were cut open, strangled until their eyes rolled back, their limp bodies left on the floor for the next round of trainings.
The guards and handlers carried out the orders as if they were born for it.
Efficient, sadistic and relentless brutality crept along the walls in every building on the property.
I can handle gore. I've ripped men's hearts out of their chests, gouged out eyeballs, painted walls red without losing a wink of sleep—but this?
This was different, more like a slow poison that seeped into my bones.
It didn't just make me angry; it gutted me, clawed at something buried deep within.
It dragged me back to my father.
He was just like these men. Ruthless, heartless and violent.
Watching them work was like staring into the past, but I couldn't look away. My chest ached with a pressure I hadn't felt since I was a boy, and I realized this wasn't just another mission; it was personal. Just then, I felt an emotion that had never bothered me before.
Guilt.
It gnawed at my insides for what I had done to Kitlyn.
Kidnapping and terrifying her in the beginning was wrong.
I didn't care at the time, but I do now.
Making a chick squirm under my strap is something I will always enjoy, but I would never subject any woman to the abuse I was witnessing on these tapes.
I owe my queen an apology when I pull her from that hellish nightmare.
I will correct all the wrongs I did to her.
For now, she is safe in Hector's apartment, as bad as that is.
As much as I wanted to go shoot the motherfucker in the face right now, I can't. If I want Kitten to make it out of there alive, I'd have to sit quietly, even if he makes good on his threat.