Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We step back into the main room of the guest house.
The beds are empty now, stripped, abandoned, even the sheets are gone like the people who were on them.
Restrained to a chair. His head is tipped forward, blood drying at his mouth, wrists bound tight enough to turn his hands a dull, angry shade behind his back. His ankles are secured together with a zip tie.
And us.
The rescue crew has already departed. One girl made it. The one that was purchased.
Only her.
I let that sit in my chest for a minute.
I latch onto it because if I don’t, I will start counting the ones who didn’t make it. The ones who were here before we got here, and the ones who never even had a chance to be found.
My thoughts snag on a memory I didn’t ask for, their faces so clear. Marie and Sofie.
A sharp inhale cuts off.
Part of me wanted to find them here.
The other part is relieved they weren’t.
This place doesn’t keep people alive; it processes them.
The temperature hasn’t changed, but the room feels heavier now, burdened by something unseen. As if the walls remember how they’ve soaked in every vile thing that has occurred here.
How many lives were taken in this house just to extend others?
My molars grind as my eyes land on the person at the head of all of this.
He stirs and lifts his head, eyes finding mine.
There’s calculation behind them; there has to be for a man in his position.
I tow a metal chair across the floor, and the legs scrape against the vinyl; the sound reverberates through the room.
I turn it, sit, and loosely hang my arms over the back with my chin resting lightly against them.
Tyler stands back, ready if I need him, weapon in hand.
I study the man in the chair, let him feel my rage.
My gaze lands on a tray abandoned among the clutter.
Medical supplies, discarded packaging, syringes, and vials.
Evidence of whatever horrors have been happening inside this place.
I snatch one without taking my eyes off him.
“What are you doing?” he gulps, his brows shoot upward.
I don’t answer.
I drive the needle into his arm and depress the plunger.
The color drains from his face. His breathing turns shallow, and his eyes go wide as he glares at me furiously.
“What was that?” he shrieks.
I toss the empty syringe aside.
The plastic skitters across the floor.
“No idea.”
The lie lands exactly the way I want it to, I’m pretty sure it was a cortisol shot.
His pulse visibly pounds in his throat.
Because the human mind is capable of imagining far worse things than reality ever could.
And judging by the fear in his eyes, he’s already imagining every one of them.
His eyes bore into mine with arrogance, and now I’ve pissed him off.
“Walk me through it,” I insist, my voice even.
His throat works once, unimpressed, quite different from the way we left him.
I sigh, “Start at the beginning, and don’t waste my fucking time pretending you aren’t important.”
Out of nowhere, I spring out of my chair and, within a few strides, stand in front of him.
I take my knife and drive it into the thick muscle right above his kneecap.
A tremor runs through him, breath stuttering as his body attempts to pull away from something it can’t escape.
My other hand moves before the rest of me does.
Crack.
My palm connects with his face, and his head snaps to the side as a breath tears out of him, blood forms at the corner of his mouth.
I snatch his jaw, forcing him to look at me.
My lips curve, “That’s your first warning. I haven’t unchained my creative side yet.”
Tyler lets out a snort, a quiet laugh slipping out after.
His chest rises and falls as sweat trickles down his face, and a moment of raw fear breaks through.
“Sometimes I’m the buyer, and I’m always the transporter, the first and last piece of the puzzle,” he pants out, “Placement.”
“Placement,” I repeat, the word rotten in my mouth as my stomach turns in disgust.
Placement is such a harmless word for what they are really doing.
As though organs aren’t being ripped from innocent human beings and trafficked across borders like merchandise.
As if someone’s family member didn’t die terrified on a metal table, so another piece of filth with enough money could keep breathing.
My thumb connects with the corner of his mouth as I brush the blood, smearing it across his bottom lip, tenderly back and forth.
He stills at the invasive touch, his entire frame tensing as discomfort crawls noticeably across him.
“You don’t answer to the cartel,” I continue, regarding him with cold fascination on how something wearing human skin could become this corrupt.
“You keep it alive. A snake can’t strike without blood pumping through its body, and that’s what you are.
The vein feeding the beast while it hides in the dark, pretending its hands stay clean. ”
I crouch in front of him, impelling his gaze to meet mine.
“You think killing me changes anything?” he rasps, blood coating his teeth as he struggles against the restraints. “You cut me down, and another man takes my place tomorrow. That’s how this works. You can’t stop it.”
I go eerily still, then I smile, entertained.
“You know,” I boast, still crouching in front of him, “I’m feeling generous today.”
His expression flickers with hope, and he releases a breath that sounds close to a sob.
I scoot forward, elbows resting on my knees like we’re discussing the weather instead of organ trafficking.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I smile as though I’m offering him a kindness. “If you can walk out of here,” my smile widens, “I’ll let you go.”
The room falls silent.
He gawks at me, trying to decide if this is real.
Behind me, I hear Tyler move. The sound is deliberate, a silent reminder that he’s still there, still watching my back.
“You’re insane.” The confession tears out of him.
“No,” I throw my head back and laugh. “Insane would’ve been letting you keep doing this.”
Then I tenderly pull his feet toward me with my blade glinting in my hand, and in one motion, I slash through both of his Achilles tendons.
A broken, primal sound rips out of him, so raw and desperate it scrapes through the walls as his entire body convulses from the pain.
Then I whip my blade through his restraints that bind him to the chair, the zip ties parting one by one before I straighten slowly to my feet.
“Stand up,” I say sweetly, stepping back to give him room. “If you can walk out of here, I’ll let you go.”
He lurches forward; both hands braced on the seat of the chair as he propels himself upright.
His entire body shakes from the effort, legs wobbling violently beneath him like they can barely remember how to hold his weight.
Blood streaks down his ankles and the back of his feet, puddling beneath him as he pulls in tortured breaths through bared teeth.
For one suspended second, he thinks he’s going to do it.
Then he takes a step.
A wet, tearing sound splits through the room.
His leg gives out instantly.
The back of his ankle opens as the severed tendon ruptures completely open under his weight, flesh peeling as his body collapses sideways with a strangled scream. His knees slam onto the floor first with a sickening thud, hands scraping uselessly at the vinyl while agony detonates across his face.
And then the dam breaks. Sobs tear out of him violently, wet and uneven, his entire body curling inward as the pain finally shatters whatever composure he had left.
“Colombia,” I bite out. “Which one?”
Air jerks in and out of him as he clutches his legs to his chest.
“I swear I don’t fucking know.” He pales.
I grab his jaw again, harder this time, my fingers digging in until he winces.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I forewarn, the words devoid of feeling. “And then I stop asking.”
“They call me,” he relents. “I don’t call them. They reach out when they need supply. High value with very specific requests.”
My grip tightens just enough to make his words stumble.
“Which cartel?”
His eyes squeeze shut like he can hide from it.
“Cartel del Norte,” he admits, shivering from the pain. “I’m their U.S. contact. I source, prep, and hold inventory until transfer. Everything routes through me before it crosses.”
“Of course you are.”
Tyler comes up beside me now. Close enough that I can feel the heat of him on my shoulder. A tether to my sanity.
I don’t look at him.
“You process them here. The doctors do the harvesting. You prep them. Then what?”
Every muscle in his body appears to be failing him, his movements growing increasingly erratic.
“They get cataloged,” he stammers. “High-value ones go to Colombia, and the others get sold locally to private buyers.”
The disgust hits me hard enough to make my stomach lurch.
“After you get what you want, you let your friends come in and tear through what’s left.”
I get my answer from his silence and now everything makes sense.
“Routes.” Not giving him a chance to recover. “Drop points. Every location is tied to you between here and Colombia.”
He nods as soon as I finish and doesn’t stop when I do. “I will tell you everything, addresses, coordinates, contacts, just please stop.” Then he holds up his hand between us, quivering, trying to ward me off, surrendering.
I walk back over to the chair and drag it over to where he’s lying and lean down so I’m directly in his face.
“Good, start talking.”
And he does. It spills out of him in messy pieces, locations, timelines, coded names, ports, airstrips, and handoffs. Every bit he thinks might buy him another second.
I let him think this is survival.
That this is the part where he earns his life.
When he eventually runs out of words, the room lapses into quiet again.
He looks at me like he’s already halfway out of here.
I stand, controlled and leisurely, and I peek at Tyler.
It feels like a fuse ignites somewhere deep inside me, burning away hesitation until all that’s left is something methodical and merciless. I stop fighting it and sink into it willingly.
Then my attention shifts to another metal tray beside a table near the wall.
A laugh almost leaves me as I stroll over to it.
Because, of course, they’d keep tools everywhere in this place.
My fingers close around the bone drill.
The trafficker’s entire body jolts the second the motor whirs to life.
High-pitched and ferocious.
The sound alone changes everything.
“No,” sheer terror burrows into him as he writhes on the floor, “No wait!”
I turn it once in my hand like I’m inspecting it, intrigued.
The spinning bit catches the light.
“You know what I think is interesting?” I ask conversationally over the scream of the motor. “Men like you always expect suffering to belong to someone else.”
Panic overtakes him, throwing his breathing into chaos.
Tears mix with blood down his face now.
“I told you everything, everything I know!” He sobs, hiccupping.
“You did.”
Then I squat in front of him again.
The drill is still screaming between us.
“But I don’t think you understand yet.”
Then I tip my head as I watch him unravel, something dark and disturbing unfurling inside me.
“What it felt like for them.”
His eyes lock onto the spinning bit, and something desperate overtakes his face.
Real fear.
The kind that strips people down to whatever they truly are underneath.
“Please!” The word cracks apart halfway out of his mouth.
Behind me, I feel Tyler tense.
Not stopping me, only keeping a close eye on me.
I place the tip of the drill lightly against his skull.
Not enough pressure to break skin.
Just enough for him to feel the vibration.
His entire body twitches.
More sobs wrench free.
His chest heaves so vigorously, I’m not sure he can pull enough air into his lungs to keep breathing.
“I told you everything,” he cries out, voice collapsing into itself. “Please! I swear!”
The drill presses harder against his skull like an unspoken promise.
A shriek rips out of him anyway.
I study him with detached indifference.
“You still don’t get it,” I indicate. “This stopped being about information a long time ago.”
His entire frame shudders, fear radiating from him so strongly it seems to take on a life of its own.
Behind me, Tyler shifts his weight, but he doesn’t interrupt.
Because he knows.
He saw the beds.
The operating tables.
The bodies.
“You housed them here. Drugged them. Cataloged them. Let people carve through them like they were inventory.”
Inventory. Not people. Not lives. Just a product.
“I never touched them,” he cowers. “I handled logistics! I wasn’t the one hurting them!”
A dark sort of clarity envelops me, and I give him a horrifying smile.
“You built the road that led them here,” I whisper, accusingly. “And now you want credit for not swinging the knife yourself?”
His mouth opens, and nothing comes out.
The drill whines louder as I squeeze the trigger slightly harder, the spinning bit scraping just enough against bone to make him convulse with a scream so brutal it shreds through the room.
Tyler exhales slowly behind me.
As though he’s watching a storm he knows better than to step into too quickly.
The drill whirs louder in my hand.
His composure shatters instantly.
“No, no, no, I have a family!”
I step closer as he is trying to get away from me, but he doesn’t get far.
Close enough that he has to look directly at me.
“You were right about one thing,” I chuckle, “Someone will replace you.”
Tears stream harder down his face now.
His entire body is quivering.
“But that’s okay.”
I crouch slightly, meeting his eyes one last time.
“Because I’ll be waiting for them too.”
The drill whines louder as I press it forward into the back of his skull, bone fragments and dust scattering as the vibration rattles through him. His body begins spasming as his scream detonates through the room.
Once I get through the bone, I pull the drill out and see a white colored substance.
And for the fucking hell of it, I do a few more.
Jackinthebox149 hasn’t stopped screaming and throws his hands over his head to protect it.
Not wasting a moment, I lunge and the drill whirls to life again as I hold it with both hands, and I plunge it back into one of the holes. Blood and brain matter shower over me.
Tyler’s hand closes firmly around my wrist a moment later, not stopping me.
Anchoring me before I can disappear too far into it.
When it’s over, silence folds over the room again.
I get a hold of my balance and stand up, stained in blood that no longer feels shocking.
Then Tyler extends his hands to me and cups the side of my face, his thumb sliding beneath my eye while he looks at me as if he’s trying to pull me back from the edge, but we both know I’m already past it.
I let him guide me toward the door.
Behind us, another piece of the trafficking network collapses into the dark.
But it still isn’t enough, not yet.
Because somewhere deep inside me, something dark stretches awake, and it’s not satisfied.
Now it’s starving for more.