Chapter 17 #2
When I enter the house the poker table is the focal point of the living area. Poker chips and cash are scattered all over the place.
On the table is an ashtray and that’s when I smell the cigar smoke and beer.
It looks exactly how I imagined it would.
Liquor bottles everywhere and the TV still playing noisily in the corner.
One body sprawled nearby the broken window bleeding on the floorboards.
Another man collides into a wall in the hallway trying to run.
Cassidy catches him halfway there and shoulders him into the wall, picture frames fall and glass shatters around them.
“WHERE IS HE?” she screams.
The man struggles against her restraint. “I don’t fucking know!”
She drives her knife into his shoulder.
He howls and both his hands move to the wound as he shrinks to the ground.
“Reaper,” I warn, scanning the house with my Glock hoisted.
A back door shuts somewhere inside.
Both our heads whip to the noise at the same time and our eyes meet.
Cassidy’s eyes look like a predator has taken over.
“He’s running.”
The back door bangs powerfully against the side of the house as monsterinyourcloset868 escapes into the storm.
Cassidy frees her knife from the man’s shoulder and is in pursuit before I can react.
I fire once, killing the man, and shove past the body in the hallway and sprint after her, boots beating along warped floorboards before I hit the back porch.
The downpour smashes into me with punishing force.
The property behind the house is even worse than the front. Rusted cars sink into mud between a vast number of trees while the fencing is broken and battered. Floodlights mounted near an old shed oscillate in the storm casting momentary light and then darkness.
Ahead of me, Cassidy tackles him before he makes it ten yards.
They crash hard into the mud.
He screams out as she gets on top of him.
“I’m sending you straight to hell!” Cassidy snarls.
He swings recklessly trying to throw her off, but she drives her forearm into his throat to choke the fight out of him.
I close the distance fast; gun raised as mud flings in every direction.
“WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!”
Then Cassidy leaps off him and he clambers on his stomach, digging into the ground to try to get away. She grips the back of his neck and smashes his face into the ground.
I hear a dull crack, and I know she broke his nose.
He wails and drops into a fetal position holding his nose, blood spurting profusely.
“Do you enjoy hearing people beg?” she screams over the storm. “Do you like watching them cry?”
He breaks out into full blown hysteria now.
“I didn’t touch anybody! You’ve got the wrong guy!”
She pounces on him and punches him.
Once. Twice. Mercilessly.
His teeth spray blood into the mud.
“Reaper,” I bark, grabbing her shoulder before she kills him right there. “Not out here.”
Her chest heaves strenuously and fear seeps into my veins for a moment because I genuinely don’t think she’s coming back from whatever headspace she’s in right now.
Lightning tears across the sky as she spins to face me.
Wet strands of her hair cling to her cheeks, blood coats her skin and runs down her hands from her split knuckles.
It’s her expression that knocks the air from my lungs.
The fury is gone and in its place is something cold, detached from emotions, as though she’s seconds away from rupturing.
“We drag him inside,” she says monotonously.
Monsterinyourcloset868 twitches from fear and begs, “No, no, please!”
Cassidy grabs a fistful of his hoodie and tows him through the mud, not caring that the fabric is bunched around his neck and is choking him. The more he tries to wrangle away the quicker her strides become.
He screams as she drags him across the property.
I stay alert at our backs, scanning the darkness for any movement.
By the time we approach the house he’s barely coherent, crying and choking on blood while Cassidy tugs him up the porch steps. His pants catch on every loose piece of wood, tearing them, scraping his skin.
Bodies still dispersed around the house.
Poker chips remain scattered across the table exactly where they left them.
One beer bottle slowly rolls across the floorboards from the storm shaking the house.
I hoist him on top of the poker table, grab the extension cords hanging near the wall, and move fast, wrenching his arms behind his back and tying them together while Cassidy keeps the knife pressed beneath his jaw.
Monsterinyourcloset868 thrashes back and forth fighting the cords splayed across the poker table, the entire surface creaking beneath his weight on his stomach.
The downpour vibrates the roof, nearly smothering the sound of every shaky breath he takes.
But none of it hides the unease in his breathing or the wrecked sounds departing his lips.
Cassidy waits at the far end of the table, saying nothing. Blood trails from the edge of the knife clenched in her hand, pattering onto the faded floorboards one drop at a time while her eyes stay glued on him with unnerving stillness.
The room reeks of rain-soaked earth, stale whiskey, the metallic scent of blood.
The trafficker’s gaze skitters between us, whatever fear was there before morphs into something more hostile.
“Who the hell are you?” he demands, sizing us up now.
“I’m your reckoning.” Cassidy spits out.
He looks around the room and at his dead friends, “What the fuck do you want? I have money, girls, drugs, just name your price.”
“Oh, we know. We broke into your warehouse and the girls are safe, condolences to your employees though.” A cold smirk pulls at Cassidy’s lips just as realization detonates behind his eyes. “Monsters don’t get to keep what they steal.”
“Now you’re going to suffer for it.” I state as I find an overturned chair and take a seat.
“You don’t understand,” he stammers. “I swear, I never laid a hand on those girls!”
Cassidy lunges without warning, fast enough that terror jolts through him before her hand ever touches him.
She buries her blade through his calf, embedding into the table, anchoring him there.
He groans in misery from the pain as sweat beads on his forehead and falls in thick rivulets onto the table.
“Shut. Up.”
The entire room falls deathly silent except for the storm raging outside.
He starts shaking harder.
“You organized the livestreams,” she whispers, void of emotion. “You sold it. You laughed while they cried.”
“I just streamed what I was told to!”
She thrusts a second knife into his other calf, eliciting another guttural scream from him.
Blood gushes from the wounds, soaking the money and poker chips left on the table before running over the sides in thick drops pattering on the floor.
Cassidy hovers over him, droplets from soaked strands of her hair splash on his skin while her voice stays disturbingly steady.
“You chained girls in cages and tortured them for money.”
“You don’t understand who I work for,” he spouts out. “If I disappear, they’ll know.”
“That’s the point.” I confirm as he looks over at me.
He must see something in my face that says he’s not leaving this house alive, and it seems to destroy the last little bit of hope he had left.
His breathing turns ragged.
“Please,” he begs. “Please don’t do this!”
Thunder makes the shitty windows shudder.
Cassidy straightens composedly, leaving him writhing next to her before looking over at me.
There’s no hesitation in her expression, no uncertainty.
“What do you want to know before he dies?” she probes.
The room falls into a tense oppressive silence.
Monsterinyourcloset868 starts talking over himself, tripping over his words in bewildered desperation.
“There are accounts! I can give you names, locations, everything!”
I observe him, not because I care about saving him, but because while information matters, networks matter more. Men like him never operate alone, and they always have knowledge of other trafficking rings in the area.
Cassidy takes out a pair of fabric scissors from her vest and starts cutting his pants off him, then his boxers while humming a Lincoln Park song.
“Who funds the streams?” I ask point-blank.
His throat bobs before he answers, trying to catch a glimpse of what Cassidy is doing.
“The site’s protected through offshore servers; I only handled local operations.”
Cassidy cuts the rest of his fabric off, leaving his bare hairy ass on display.
“Wrong answer.”
“I SWEAR!” He shouts, salvia flying everywhere.
She snaps on a pair of latex gloves she removed from her vest.
He starts hyperventilating.
“The highest paying clients,” he chokes out. “That’s who matters. Private buyers. Invite only.”
“Names.”
“I don’t know real names!”
Cassidy nudges the poker chips over in front of her.
He cries out, “Usernames! I only know usernames!”
I shift forward in my seat, giving him my full attention. I can’t help but take in the table as well.
The same table where these men sat laughing twenty minutes ago.
Now one of them is tied across it bleeding into the cards and green felt.
“Start talking,” I demand.
And this time he does.
Monsterinyourcloset868 jerks under the restraints, rainwater and sweat soaking through his hoodie while the poker table creaks beneath his weight.
Cassidy begins arranging the poker chips in neat stacks.
The trafficker’s breathing turns irregular.
“There’s hundreds of accounts,” he falters. “Most of them hide behind VPNs and encrypted relays.”
“Usernames,” I interrupt.
Lightning beams through the windows, bleaching the room white for a moment.
He squeezes his eyes shut trying to think.
“Rotfather, kingfishes, rabbitmask.”
Cassidy finishes stacking the chips.
He winces away from her.
“And?”
“There was another one,” he whispers weakly, closing his eyes, clearly not wanting to tell us this information. “One that spent a lot.”
I lean forward in my chair, every muscle in my body tightening as anticipation coiled hard in my chest.
“What username?”
He shakes his head repeatedly, unable to stop. Catastrophic horror takes over, knowing what will happen if he gives us the name.