19. Chapter 19 #2
Emile scratched his chin, his lips pursed.
“Yeah, those aren’t their real names. We traced them and found out the ginger is named Bryce and the blonde is Chase.
Their photos match up to some fake profiles online with the names Chad and Gabe, but they’ve all been deleted.
There’s tons of them. They create new accounts with purchased followers every couple weeks, delete them, and then others pop up. ”
“That was why we couldn’t find them online. It was how Chad started talking to Tara, he sent her a DM.” Lucy’s skin looked pale, and I clenched my jaw.
“What else?” I asked.
“Well, here’s where it gets interesting.
After your little meeting with Marty yesterday, we started to do some recon on Wrangler.
We dug through some deep web search engines, and low and behold, it looks like we’ve found him.
” Emile’s usually bored drawl solidified into something more serious.
“We discovered Wrangler is a prominent user of an illegal platform that sells everything from drugs and weapons to human body parts. He specializes in video content of people, mostly women, being attacked. It’s extremely gruesome, and some users pay big money to watch and request things. It’s some sick, twisted shit.”
Wrangler’s film guys. When Marty told me they film the girls, I didn’t know he was talking about this. My stomach soured as I thought about what happened to Lucy’s friend. Her big topaz eyes met mine in horror.
Her voice was faint. “So they make, like, snuff films? How many people have they done this to?” she asked Emile, her jaw shaking.
“Well, um…” Emile started, “there’s thousands of videos on there, hun. They’re taken all over the US, it’s pretty heinous.”
Lucy’s lip quivered as she took in what he was saying. Wrath shot like fire up my veins. Red clouded my vision. I decided right then I was going to kill every motherfucker who watched those videos after I burned Wrangler to the ground.
“Jesus…” Lucy took a pause before finishing her thought. “So how do we find them? Isn’t there some kind of headquarters or something where we can track them down?”
She was so damn brave for even suggesting it. That fire stole my fucking heart every time. But there was so much she didn’t understand about this world, and I already knew what Emile would say next.
“It’s not always that simple. Typically, with these black-market operations, their ‘base’ gets moved around quite a bit.
Considering these videos are being taken all over the country, there are likely lots of them, constantly shifting to keep their tracks covered. ” Emile took a sip from his martini.
This was no surprise to me. I was well-versed in underground operations, and one of the most important factors was inconspicuousness. In order to be successful, it had to be untraceable. I looked at Lucy’s face, and my heart seared with rage to see the worry gathering in those beautiful eyes.
“Well then what are we supposed to do? If we can’t track them down, how the hell are we supposed to stop them?”
“We can track them down, but we have to go from the ground up. We can’t attack the top unless we know where it stands.”
My eyes never left Lucy’s face as she worried about her bottom lip between her teeth. God, if only she knew what that did to me.
Focus, Dax.
I blew out a frustrated huff through my teeth. They had set their target on Tara, and now it was on Lucy too. I’d never let them get to her, though.
Emile nodded on the screen. “That’s really the only way to do this. We can take these fuckers down, but it takes finesse,” Emile plucked one of the olives from the skewer in his now-empty glass and ate it.
Emile started talking again, “I doubt you’re gonna get anything from that burner you took from Marty after what your dumb ass did to him yesterday.” He looked at me pointedly.
“What does he mean, what you ‘did’ to Marty?” Lucy’s warm eyes shot to mine, her eyebrows knitting together in concern.
Emile gave me a pointed eye roll through the screen, and I wished I could reach my hand through it to strangle him.
He lifted his brow in a way that whispered, What?
You didn’t tell her that either? He popped another olive into his mouth.
I glanced over at Lucy, my cheeks hollowed. “Well, I might not have given you the full stor—”
Suddenly the artwork hanging on the walls of my office started swinging, the ground rumbling to life beneath us. The room seemed to sway around us. My pulse ricocheted against my chest.
“Get down!” I swung my arm around Lucy, tackling her underneath the desk.
The ground shook under our bodies as I clung to her beneath the table.
I felt the vibrations of the desk chatter around us, and the clacking of everything on it rattling.
The sound of glass shattering in the distance was muffled by the static noise coming from the security monitors above us, and I watched as one of them came crashing down the side of the desk next to us.
The lights strobed as Lucy screeched, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
I held her against me as the shaking slowed to a sudden stop.
Her ragged breath was choppy against my neck, and I remained still for a moment, gripping her beneath me.
“What…the fuck…was that?” Her voice trembled, and I withdrew from her a little.
“I think it was an earthquake,” I blew out, though I wasn’t sure.
I set her down fully on the floor and removed myself from under the desk.
The lights were still again, but everything on my desk was messed up.
One of the framed photographs I had on the wall was broken into pieces.
Lucy followed me out from under the desk, her face pale.
I grabbed her arms, holding her still in front of me. “Are you okay?” I asked, inspecting her limbs for injury.
“Yeah, I think so.” Her eyes darted around the office. “What about…?” Her focus shifted to the door and my heart dropped into my stomach. The screech of the fire alarm sounded from the hallway.