Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
The house is cloaked in darkness when I walk inside the front door. Now that the adrenaline is gone, fatigue creeps in from every direction, the feeling of bone-deep exhaustion as my shoulders hunch forward.
There aren’t any lights on in the entryway, shadows pool in the corners. No movement or sign of life, only the low hum of the air conditioner. I take off my jacket, kick off my shoes and place the jacket along with my purse and keys on the hooks, our drop spot for our stuff.
I close the door behind me, locking it, a habit. There are three bolts on it besides the typical one and I recheck to make sure I got them all, as always.
Only one door has a ribbon of light stretching under it.
I work a hand through my hair and glance toward Tyler’s office door.
Of course, it’s closed and he’s in there.
The man treats sleep like an inconvenience and downtime like a foreign language. Most people unwind after a long day. They watch television, read a book, scroll through their phones, or simply sit still for a while.
Not Tyler.
Tyler immerses himself behind a wall of monitors and glowing screens, chasing leads long after everyone else would have called it a night.
The soft clatter of keys and the hum of electronics have become as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.
His mind is always moving, always searching, and always trying to solve the next problem.
Restlessness lives in his bones. If he’s awake, he’s working. Digging through databases. Following digital footprints. Building maps out of divided pieces of information that nobody else would notice.
It’s equal parts impressive and concerning.
And if the light is still spilling from beneath that office door, it means he’s found something worth losing sleep over.
My feet carry me to the back of the house where his office is located and by the time I get to the office door, I already know what I’ll find.
I push the door open softly and Tyler is exactly where I expected him to be, hunched over three monitors, coffee cups strewn across the desk, and open notebooks cover what little space is left.
Lines of code snake across one screen while surveillance feeds and documents fill the others.
Tyler doesn’t even register my presence. His attention is entirely on whatever has captured it in front of him.
The clicking of keys fills the room as his fingers work at an intensive pace. The muscle in his jaw is ticking relentlessly; a telltale sign he’s found something that’s far from good.
I brace my shoulder against the doorframe, crossing one ankle over the other as my gaze sweeps the rest of the room. Not wanting to ask but knowing it’s inevitable.
“What did you find?”
The typing stops instantly. Tyler looks up. His eyes lock onto mine, and something in his expression drives a spike of weariness straight through me. Whatever he sees on the screen has turned his expression grim.
“A lot.”
My smile evaporates the moment I enter the room, moving beside Tyler.
“A lot of what?”
Tyler scrubs a hand across his face before rotating one of the monitors in my direction.
Images blanket the screen. Dozens of photographs of young women, their professional headshots, modeling portfolios, social media pictures. Every face staring back at me wears a smile, full of hope.
The sight makes my stomach plummet.
“Missing women, victims.”
The single word seems to rob the room of oxygen.
I bend closer to the monitor, studying the photographs one by one as cold, creeping revulsion winds its way through me.
“What happened to them?”
Tyler blows out a slow breath and rubs a hand over his jaw.
“The username we pried from the trafficker.”
A bead of perspiration forms at my hairline, and my heartbeat kicks into overdrive.
“PrettyLittleDolls00?” The name falls from my lips in a hoarse whisper.
His expression shifts into something severe, all warmth gone.
“Yeah.”
A sense of foreboding coils low in my gut because I already know what Tyler has uncovered is going to be vile.
Tyler clicks open another file.
Two photographs appear side by side.
The first photograph shows a man in an expensive suit, well-polished, dark hair slicked back with pearly white teeth on display.
The type of man people trust without thinking twice, it’s the distinguished look about him.
The second photograph is of a man that triggers a visceral sense to get as far away as possible.
He wears a gray suit with a white coat over it, oval wire glasses, thin frame and vacant eyes. A doctor.
“PrettyLittleDolls00 isn’t one trafficker.”
My eyes move between the photographs.
“It’s two.”
Tyler points to the man in the suit.
“This one handles the recruitments, finances, buyers, auctions, transportation. Everything business-related.”
Then he points to the doctor.
“And this is the surgeon.”
Every single nerve in my body stretches like a drawn bowstring.
“The surgeon?”
Tyler’s shoulders go rigid.
“He performs procedures on the victims.”
The atmosphere grows heavy with unspoken meaning.
“What kind of procedures?” I ask warily.
For a moment Tyler hesitates and doesn’t answer me. He looks like he would rather do anything else before opening another folder. Then he double-clicks it.
Nothing could have prepared me for what was inside. Unofficial medical records, surgical notes and photographs taken before and after the procedures or surgeries. Each file is worse than the last.
Acid burns the back of my throat, and I have to clamp my mouth shut to keep from vomiting all over the keyboard.
“What the fuck is this?”
The words emerge a little more than a breath.
“They recruit women through a fake modeling agency.”
Tyler’s voice is flat and controlled in a way that means he’s furious.
“They target aspiring models. Social media influencers. College students. All women.”
Photographs flash across the screen.
Advertisements populate the screen along with casting calls and model searches.
The ads sell hope to these island girls, dream jobs, fame, and a way off the island to somewhere bigger with more opportunities.
Dreams that lead directly into a trap.
“They invite them to a fake office they rent out for a small period of time and make it look legitimate for professional headshots.”
I already know how this plays out, and a toxic blend of helplessness and fury blazes through my veins.
“So, when they show up…” My voice abandons me before I can finish.
Tyler acknowledges the statement with a subtle tilt of his head.
“They are erased from the lives they once knew.”
I examine the images, landing on face after face, women who believed they had been given a chance at a brighter life.
Instead, they walked unknowingly into a cage.
“They don’t kill them.”
The look Tyler gives me makes my stomach drop. For the smallest sliver of time, I find myself thinking death would be better, and guilt hits me like a punch the instant the thought takes root.
“They transform them.”
I gape at him in incredulity, certain I misunderstood, needing to hear every detail, no matter how vile.
“What?”
His eyes lift to mine, about to reveal another layer of the horror that will brand into my memory forever.
“The doctor morphs them into what they call marionette dolls.”
Hearing what their fate is leaves me staring at the screen stunned.
I can’t stop wondering how humanity became this monstrous.
At what point did people stop seeing human beings and start seeing commodities?
Somewhere along the way, empathy was traded for profit, and now women are being bought, sold, and discarded as if their lives mean nothing.
The thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Tyler opens another recovered file.
The sickness inside me enhances with every image.
They’ve been altered so significantly they no longer look human.
Extreme body modifications including petite frames, over enlarged breasts with the perfect waists.
Their skin looks porcelain, oversized eyes framed by impossibly long lashes, glossed plump lips, dental work, synthetic hair.
Everything about them has been engineered to resemble living dolls, beautiful, delicate and disturbingly artificial.
They mold them according to their specific market of buyers.
These women are being treated as commodities not human beings.
“They spend weeks reconstructing them.”
My voice comes out tremulous.
“For what?”
Tyler clicks another file open.
A photograph occupies the whole screen.
I stop breathing.
It’s an old theater, elegant despite its age, with rich red velvet curtains framing the stage that looks like it belongs in a different century, gilded balconies rising in tiers above the seats, and massive crystal chandeliers that sparkle.
Dangling below the stage lights are women.
My pulse lurches into overdrive.
They are dressed like ballerinas, adorned with elaborate ballet costumes, white satin slippers, flawless makeup, fixed smiles with their backs held unnaturally straight.
All of them are breathtaking but the beauty is manufactured and their eyes are lifeless.
“What am I looking at?” I ask Tyler.
“A previous auction.”
I fixate on the image, analyzing the details.
The women aren’t dancing freely; they are suspended by rope-like cables that recede into the rafters above them.
Harnesses are concealed by their costumes.
Displayed like exquisite puppets.
“Do they make them perform?”
Tyler inclines his head confirming my question.
“For the clientele.”
I can’t peel my eyes away.
“What exactly happens when the curtains go up?”
Tyler wavers in his response and avoids eye contact with me.
“A macabre performance staged as a ballet.”
I force down a lump in my throat, “And?”
“Each buyer casts a vote on who will be named the prima ballerina. I’m not sure what happens after that.”
The seats on the ground level, every row is vacant.
“The buyers watch from their private boxes and bid by lifting a numbered paddle, it signals to the auctioneer an offer for the woman up for auction.”
The women are positioned on the stage like livestock.
“They bid during the performance.” Tyler carries on informing me.
A blistering wave of rage rolls through my stomach.
The doctor doesn’t just alter them. No, he displays them like dolls, showing off his work.
He turns human beings into a fucking showcase.
“How many?”
Tyler looks at another file.
“My informant has told me, eight.”
My heartbeat thunders.
Eight women. Eight victims.
Eight people running out of time.
I shut my eyes and brace myself before asking, “When?”
Tyler angles another screen my way.
A countdown clock sits in the center.
Hours.
Minutes.
Seconds.
The countdown bleeds away in red digits.
Understanding dawns on me all at once.
The auction isn’t next week.
It’s not tomorrow.
It’s tonight.
“They go live at midnight.” Tyler discloses.
The words hang between us like a death sentence.
Midnight.
That’s only a few hours away.
I look back at the theater photograph.
One girl stands near center stage.
She’s so tiny and terrified.
Her perfect smile doesn’t reach her eyes, the exhaustion, fear and hopelessness.
She’s nothing more than a ghost trapped in her own body.
The girls in these photos are gone, but the ones tonight still have a chance, and nobody is coming for them except us.
The thought hardens into something solid inside me, unbreakable.
Tyler pushes away from the desk and stands.
His eyes lock onto mine, focused exclusively on the mission.
He states, “There will be a few security guards positioned around the perimeter. We’ll have to take them out before we move in. No cameras. No internal security. The people inside are more than capable of making up for that. Expect the buyers to be armed.”
“How many buyers are predicted to be there?”
“Only three.”
The number sounds miniscule until Tyler continues.
“This auction is exclusive. Invitation only. The kind of people with more money than conscience.” He scowls. “They are given the first selection of the newest inventory.”
I glance at the countdown one last time.
Then at the photographs, the theater, and the stage.
At the women being forced to dance while strangers bid on their lives.
My hands curl tighter.
The anger doesn’t fade; it condenses into something lethal.
I raise my head and meet Tyler’s gaze.
“We move tonight.”
“About fucking time! There’s my little reaper.” He grins at me savagely. “Let’s go save some girls and turn their little show into a massacre.”
“Tonight, we cut every fucking string.” My voice is cold enough to surprise even me.
The outcome feels inevitable.
By sunrise, that theater will never host another damn auction again.