Chapter Thirty-Two
O’Connor
It’s been years since I’ve worked properly with a team, but we flow into our roles seamlessly as we approach the mansion. It’s hauntingly quiet as we ghost through the back gardens, and one look at the mansion confirms my suspicions.
The patio doors are wide open, and the house is dark.
The Scotts ran.
They knew when Linden escaped that someone would be coming for them to uncover their secrets.
But they have no idea how much we already know.
Many of their associates are already listed in Project Obsidian’s little black book. More distinctly… The hit list.
The other three Ghosts flank me as we enter the house.
We pass at least a dozen dead bodies as we cut through the kitchen towards the rec room.
All of them are wearing the house staff uniform. Not guards.
Using Linden’s instructions, we find the hidden passage to the underground cellar.
And a sight grizzly enough to make a grown man puke greets us at the bottom.
But I focus on the man at the far end of the medical bay. Lighting boxes of paperwork on fire.
A guard bleeding out of his right eye.
He raises a gun, but he’s not quick enough. I shoot him twice.
Left arm. Right arm.
Purposefully, keeping him agonizingly alive.
“Grab him. Take him back for questioning.”
“Copy.”
My counterparts move in sequence around me. Two grab the guard and start to haul him up the cellar stairs. One puts out the fire, attempting to recover the files being destroyed.
I can’t stop looking at all of the hospital beds. The shackles.
“There’s no operating room,” the one who looked at Linden’s leg says. He’s medically trained, and that’s the only reason I allowed it.
“So?”
“That means they weren’t taking their victims anywhere to operate on.”
“Are you saying that they didn’t experiment on them here?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” He walks between the beds, lifting one of the clipboards left behind. “They operated on them right here, in front of everyone. So the others had to watch.”
I promised I wouldn’t lie to Linden anymore… But I don’t think she can know about this. It’ll kill her.
“Fucking monsters.”