Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Two
They didn’t stop to rest.
Dawn was only just beginning to thin the night when the vans pulled away from the first compound, the sky bruised with pale grey and the promise of morning that felt undeserved. Dust clung to the tires. Blood clung to everything else and no one spoke. What they had done back there didn’t ask for words, and this morning wasn’t about recognition or command. It was about erasing the rot Marco had established in their world.
Aht leaned forward in his seat, elbows braced against his knees, gaze fixed on the road as if it were a map only he could read. The bandage beneath his shirt had shifted again. He felt it with every bump, the slow, sticky warmth spreading where Asli’s bullet had torn through him hours earlier. He didn’t acknowledge it. Pain had never been a warning to him only background noise.
Markus looked at him once, long enough to confirm what he already knew, then faced forward again. Saying anything would have been pointless. When Aht moved like this, there was no argunt that could reach him.
The second warehouse appeared just as the light began to change. No noise spilled from it. No careless silhouettes loitered near the gates like the first one. From afar, it looked almost legitimate; lights dimd but steady, fencing intact, and guards positioned with enough discipline to convince an outsider everything was under control.
Aht felt the lie in it imdiately.
"Here," he said, quiet and firm. The vehicle slowed and stopped. The engine cut, and the morning air crept in, cool and sharp.
They went on foot, keeping to the edges, letting the weak light work for them instead of against them. From behind the fencing, the truth showed itself in fragnts. Trucks packed too tightly. n moving with restless purpose instead of boredom. Doors opening and closing far too often for a place that claid to be clean. This wasn’t relaxed. They were just existing.
Good.
They waited. Not because ti softened them, but because Aht knew the difference between striking at the right mont and rushing in just to make noise.
A side door finally opened. Two n stepped out, voices low, one already striking a lighter while the other scrolled through his phone, irritation written into the slope of his shoulders. Neither of them had ti to register the sound behind them. The cigarette hit the ground still burning. Their bodies were gone before the door could swing shut again.
One of the n eased it open wider, keeping the bodies close, using their weight to stop the chanism from locking again. Markus and Aht slipped through first, their shoulders squared, guns low but ready... Always ready. The others followed in a tight line, pulling the door shut behind them without making a sound.
Music thumped through the building imdiately. It was too loud, too steady, the kind ant to drown thought as much as noise. The bass vibrated through the floor, through their boots, and through down their bones.
The sll hit first. Sweat. Chemicals. Old fear that had soaked into concrete and never left.
They moved deeper, boots quiet despite the music, shoulders brushing past stacked crates and partitioned walls. The walls did little to block the sound; their laughter layered wrong over the beat, voices raised in command, and not pleasure.
And then, cutting through it all, they heard it.
Crying.
Not loud. Not hysterical. The kind that had learned it was safer to stay small.
Aht stopped.
The sound threaded through the space ahead of them, breaking and catching, followed by a sharp male voice and the dull slap of sothing heavy against flesh. Markus felt it in his jaw before he realized he had clenched it.
They rounded the corner.
Won lined the far wall, chains looped cruelly around their necks, tal collars bolted tight enough to leave red grooves in skin already bruised and raw. So were barefoot. So couldn’t have been older than girls. n shoved them forward in short, violent motions, barking orders like they were handling livestock instead of human beings.
Then it dawned on them: each woman was tethered just close enough to be dragged forward, just loose enough to be paraded, assessed, passed between hands that treated them as inventory. Doors opened and closed along the walls, n pulling won away and shoving others forward to take their place, the exchange quick, practiced, and utterly devoid of sha. This wasn’t containnt. This was a market.
One woman stumbled and a man yanked her chain hard enough to snap her head back, laughing as she gasped for breath.
Sothing inside Aht went quiet.
He stepped forward.
The first man never saw it coming. Aht didn’t raise his weapon. He closed the distance in three strides and drove his elbow into the man’s throat, hard and precise. Bone cracked. The man dropped without a sound, choking on nothing.
The room erupted.
Markus was already moving, gun coming up as he barked orders sharp enough to cut through panic. "Take the sides. Get them away from the won."
The n followed instinctively. This wasn’t training anymore. This was muscle mory and fury.
Gunfire snapped through the space, controlled and deliberate. Not wild. Not reckless. Aht’s n knew better than to spray bullets where hostages stood. So of the traffickers rushed forward, knives flashing, desperation making them stupid. Markus t one head-on, blocking the blade with his forearm and driving his fist into the man’s face so hard teeth skittered across the floor.
Another lunged at Aht from the side.
Aht caught him by the collar and slamd him into a steel post. Once. Twice. The third ti, the man went limp, sliding down in a boneless heap.
Chains rattled as the won tried to pull back, so collapsing to the floor, others screaming now, fear breaking loose at last. One reached for Aht without thinking, fingers trembling, nails digging into his sleeve as if anchoring herself to sothing solid.
"Get them out," he said, voice low but carrying. "Now."
Markus gestured sharply, and two n moved in, cutting chains, shrugging off coats, draping them over bare shoulders. Soone tried to grab a woman and drag her with him toward an exit.
Aht shot him before Markus could blink.
The man fell backward, eyes wide in disbelief.
The warehouse didn’t fight long after that. Whatever discipline Marco had tried to build here shattered under real resistance. n broke. So begged. So ran.
None of them made it far.
When the last body hit the ground, the space felt too quiet, the cries fading as the won were ushered out, guided gently now, hands steady, voices low and reassuring in ways that didn’t co naturally to n like these but were offered anyway.
Aht stood where he was, chest rising hard. The ache in his side flared sharp and wet, heat spreading beneath his shirt again. He looked down just long enough to see the blood, darker now, heavier than before.
He ignored it.
The last man broke formation.
Markus saw it out of the corner of his eye, the sudden jerk of the man’s body and the way his panic made him tense. He wasn’t running blindly. He knew exactly where he was going.
"Shit," Markus breathed as the man bolted.
He broke from the line with a curse, shoving past one of the won so hard she crashed to the floor. His boots slapped against concrete as he ran, head down, panic finally louder than the music.
"Left," he muttered, already moving.
He went after him, fast and silent, cutting through a narrow corridor lit by a strip of flickering white. The man reached a steel door at the end, hands shaking as he slamd a code into the panel. The lock chid once.
But it was too late for him.
Markus fired. The shot took him high in the back, snapping him forward into the door. He slid down slowly, fingers still twitching near the keypad, blood saring the tal as the lock reset itself with a dull beep.
Markus didn’t stop.
Instinct pulled him forward, a cold pressure behind his eyes that told him whatever that man had been running toward was worse than what they’d already seen. He stepped over the body and pushed the door open.
The music died the mont he crossed the threshold.
The room was smaller, sealed tight, the air thick and wrong. Mattresses lined the floor, so bare, so stained dark enough to tell their own story. Chains hung from the ceiling this ti, shorter, heavier. A cara blinked red in one corner, still recording. There were won here too, but they weren’t standing. So didn’t look up at all. Others flinched at the sound of the door, eyes wide and empty, as if expecting pain instead of help.
Markus stopped.
His breath caught, sharp and ugly, and for the first ti that night his hands didn’t feel steady on the gun. His mind tried and failed to turn what he was seeing into sothing distant, sothing he could file away and survive.
He couldn’t.
Markus’s eyes were suddenly drawn to a second door at the far side of the room. Sothing about it made his stomach knot, a whisper of instinct warning him. He hesitated for the barest mont, then went over and pushed it open.
The sight hit him like a punch. His knees stiffened, and a hot knot of revulsion twisted in his gut. The air here was heavier, thicker, as if the room itself was holding its breath. Every step forward felt impossible, every exhale shallow. His mind scrambled to register the shapes, the shadows, the movent, but it wouldn’t let him think in words. He froze, unable to move, the sheer horror of what he had just seen rooting him in place, knowing that nothing in this warehouse could have braced him for it.
A cold sweat pricked his skin. His hand tightened on the gun, but it felt small, and insufficient. His throat tightened, and for one unbearably long second, all he could do was stare, paralyzed by shock and disgust.
Behind him, the room echoed with movent. Markus found his voice again, rough and low as gravel.
"Aht," he said into the comm. "You need to see this."
And for once, he hoped Aht was still angry.
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