Epilogue One
FIVE YEARS LATER
Silence.
Pure. Blissful. Silence.
In my world, it could be a blessing or a curse—two sides of the same coin. It could mean the difference between salvation and insanity. For me, I preferred a little bit of both.
Because right now, my carefully constructed silence was being broken up by the wet sounds of blood dripping from my hands.
The warm liquid cascaded down the sharp blade still clutched in my fist—a blade that once belonged to a long-dead man.
I watched satisfied as life became suspended while red velvet collected between the spaces of the wooden floorboards, gravity assisting in its saturation.
For a while, all I could hear was the slow drip, drip splashing against the expensive mahogany. And then I remembered to breathe.
Oxygen burst its way into my lungs, my veins coursing liquid fire as my body finally caught up with my mind. I willed myself out of the psychosis, reconnecting with the internal fibers that kept me in one piece, slowly bringing myself back to the present.
And with a steady heartbeat, I stood over the man I had been hunting for the past two years.
It took me a long time just to learn his name, the ghost living in the shadows, hiding behind the curtain while his little puppets danced, fucked, and massacred.
Most of them had no idea who they even worked for, too happy to fill their pockets with the pennies that could feed their families for weeks.
Suffering was priceless if it paid for the food on your table—just as long as it was someone else’s suffering.
But that was what poverty did. It created suffering in the most capitalistic way, giving birth to a market of crime that allowed so many to flourish.
When legitimate employment was scarce or failed to provide, other methods of employment were very appealing.
Drug mules, hit jobs, kidnapping, bribery, monopolizing services, flesh trade—scheme after scheme after scheme.
Crime was the corporate overlord in this neck of the woods, the only source that actually paid and paid well.
So it was no wonder rich men from all over the world came to the slums to invest in desperation and corruption. But not everyone was here for the money. Some men just wanted to cause misery.
And those were the men I took my time with.
And this man in particular, whose face was now missing several notable features, had the misfortune of catching my attention the night I learned the story of one of his survivors.
A woman who had been purchased from a secret auction, who had been held captive and forced to become dependent on drugs had become lost to the slave trade.
It was only after her captors had believed she’d overdosed and left her for dead that she miraculously found her way back to life.
Her name was Natasha.
And Darren had fucking killed her.
I might not have been able to save her that night, but I sure as shit could avenge her death. It took me forever to find the ones responsible, but every single member of that cartel was literally in pieces and scattered all over South America—save one. That was until now.
His bodyguards had already made their descent into hell, their skulls riddled with bullet holes.
They were the lucky ones. Just like all the guards and johns who had already been rounded up downstairs.
They were the reason there was a demand, thus creating the need for the supply.
They could die with the rest of the men keeping the women and children here captive.
They’d feel the flames at their feet soon enough.
Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, I smiled down at Enrique Torres, the leader of what was left of the Los Rojo Cartel.
He stared up at me with dark brown eyes that had long been dead before I ever came along, but the stress of evading me for so long had clearly aged him significantly.
His bloodied chest heaved up and down, his body desperately clinging to those final seconds of life.
Just long enough to speak one final word.
“Puta,” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. My smile widened.
“Say ‘fuck you’ to Darren for me.”
He smirked, his eyes slowly glazing over as they focused somewhere on the ceiling, the light finally leaving them.
Taking in a deep breath, I inhaled the scent of blood and death, letting it rush through my lungs to feed the darkness still living inside me.
It was thick, heavy with strife and conviction, spawning the heady taste of satisfaction as it lingered in the back of my mouth.
And after having my fill, I released it back out, filtering out the rotting toxicity so that I exhaled nothing but sweet relief.
Relief that the last man of the Los Rojo Cartel was no more.
Removing the blood-coated brass knuckles from my fingers, I pocketed my treasured gift, sheathed the knife in my belt, and turned away from the mess I had made of Enrique’s face.
Pushing my way through the broken door barely hanging off its hinges, I headed down the hallway that was riddled with busted walls and bullet holes.
One of the stairs had collapsed, so I had to hop over it as I descended to the first floor of the brothel. The house was pretty sophisticated, with a decent security team for what little money Enrique had left.
But my team and I had much better funding and a lot more experience.
Not to mention, we ran on a healthy diet of rage and campaigned with such savagery that we had unofficially made a name for ourselves as we worked our way through all of South America.
To the locals, they called us the Firestorm, but to our targets, they only had a name for me—the fire bitch. I took it as a compliment, glad to see my style and efforts were being recognized among the filth I hunted.
So when I made it down to the first floor and locked eyes with the twelve men who were currently hog-tied with barbed chicken wire on the floor, they knew things were about to officially heat up.
My team stood over them, some aiming their rifles at our captives’ heads while others whistled absentmindedly as they doused them in kerosene.
They all screamed obscenities at me, their voices drowning each other out to the point I could only make out a few insults, none of them new or original.
Looking down at the seven johns that had been unfortunate enough to pick today of all days to enter the brothel at this hour, I smiled with an odd sense of glee. Their struggles had caused the barbs of the chicken wire to cut into their wrists and ankles, streaks of blood dripping down their limbs.
One of the guards tried to roll toward me so he could attempt to bite my leg, but I lifted my boot in time and kicked him right in the mouth, sending his teeth flying across the room while blood splattered onto the face of the john lying next to him.
“Luck really wasn’t on any of your sides today, was it?” I said aloud to them, smirking widely. For some reason, I was feeling especially sadistic today. Maybe it was because I was in such a good mood.
“It never is,” a familiar, deep voice agreed near the front doorway.
I glanced up, and a fluttering warmth filled my chest as my gaze connected with the man I owed my very life to.
Jason’s steady figure kept me grounded to the world I sought to cleanse with fire.
He ensured I never strayed too far into the darkness that constantly threatened my sanity.
I owed him everything and doubted I would ever be able to repay him for all he had sacrificed for me.
And standing right next to him with a bloody muzzle, Camaro growled and barked at one of the men lying closest to her. Quite a few of the guards were missing significant parts of their faces because of her. She really had a thing for cheeks and noses lately.
“You ready to finish this?” Jason asked as he pulled out a special Zippo and held it up for me to see.
We always left behind the same thing everywhere we went—a pile of ashes and our signature Zippo buried beneath it all.
It was a simple lighter, silver chrome, with no distinguishable pattern, inscribed with only one word—justice.
Some people thought what we were doing was wrong in a sense—that we should let the authorities handle things and allow the true justice system to take its course. That we were just vigilantes on a self-righteous power trip, leaving terror in our wake.
But fuck that and fuck them. I was judge, jury, and executioner, and I’ll be damned if anyone tried to undermine my mission with procedural technicalities or judicial corruption.
I wasn’t a principled lawyer looking to play by the rules anymore, and I wouldn’t be bound by anyone else’s ethics but my own.
And the world was fucking better for it.
“Time to go home,” I agreed with a nod.
Grinning, Jason tossed me the lighter, the weight of it knocking against my palm as I caught it before winking at the men still struggling on the floor.
The rest of the team chuckled as they all piled out of the house, their steps causing the wooden stairs of the front porch to creak as I followed them toward the door.
Stopping in the doorway, I turned to face the open room and addressed the screaming bodies trying to somehow roll away in an attempt to escape what was coming for them.
“Do you guys want to know why they call me the fire bitch?” I asked, my voice wicked with unhinged delight.
They all gaped up at me with terror and dismay as I flipped the lid of the lighter and flicked it to life. Satisfaction spread across my lips as I tossed the lighter deep into the house, the screams of the men intensifying as they watched the little flame ignite the kerosene.