AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We finally were able to move in on one of the largest trafficking operations that still existed after the intel we received from the night of the auction at Noire House. Trucks were intercepted that night, while members of the Anguis gorged themselves on pleasures of the flesh, allowing us to act swiftly and ruthlessly.
This isn’t an act of taking prisoners or dispensing justice.
This is an elimination.
One by one, Hawke and I have been able to take these operations down, and we’re closing in on the final target. But that is also the one posing the greatest risk, controlled by a black shadow that has plagued our lives for decades.
They’ve been hiding in plain sight for years now, and they know we’re coming for them. Which will make it all the more satisfying the day we blow them apart.
I’ve got half a mind to sew a grenade inside their leader’s chest while still conscious and pull the pin out through a hole in their windpipe.
The ring we’ve just decimated gave us scraps and morsels of intelligence. Random pieces of information we managed to pull from the men and women during torture, but nothing revolutionary. Most of it was their final attempt at evading the inevitable consequence of their foul existence.
Abusing children and profiting off willingly inflicted exploitation…they can lose their heads, and their tongues, for what they’ve done to countless innocents.
Ven’s methods of extracting information are effective, to say the least. The man is a master of his craft. And after three days straight without sleep—days that bled into nights as he removed teeth and tore out fingernails and sliced away chunks of flesh—he’s finished what he came here to do. For the time being, at least.
Ky, the team, and I took care of the rest.
The Anguis have made Raven Flannaghty their executioner for too many years. It’s the least we can do for him to give his tarnished soul a break from embodying the Grim Reaper for a change.
I’m standing in front of the rusted sink in the packing shed, surrounded by the stench of blood and manure, scrubbing the caked evidence of death from beneath my fingernails. I want to bathe in bleach until the stink of piss and shit from their bloated corpses has been eliminated from my senses.
There’s a small square of mirror hanging from a crooked nail on the shed wall in front of me. It’s cracked along one side, with spider web lines reaching across the glass, cutting my reflection into pointed fragments. Mud splatters line one side of my face. Most likely blood, too. Trying to scrub the worst of it off with the tattered cloth hanging beside the basin seems futile.
Outside, the moon is high, and the night air is crisp. There’s not even the usual sound of the barn owls for company. Just horrific, repetitive, crunching as the pigs get to work on the bodies.
Drying my hands on the rag, the familiar buzz of my phone emits from the pocket inside my Kevlar vest.
It’s Hawke.
Reports are starting to roll out. Our media contact packaged it up nicely.
He attaches a link to an online article, which, when I tap it open, reveals the breaking news report that reads about a prominent politician who has died in his sleep. That’s the pretty little bow we put on things to satisfy the public at large, but it sends a silent warning to all those he might have been associated with that someone is coming for them.
They know the target on their back gets larger with every day they still wake up breathing.
In reality, that man was torn to shreds by the time Ven was finished with him. Nothing more than strips of burnt flesh and hollowed crevices after gouging out his eyeballs.
On your way?
Will be there in a few hours.
The aftermath of a stealth move like this requires Hawke and I to work together without the risk of phones being tapped or walls listening in on private conversations. Which means that from here I have to head straight to Hawke’s place, when I’d much rather be making my way to the compound. But we’ve got days of work to get through before the next gathering of the Anguis rapidly approaches.
Without realizing I’ve done it, my thumb hovers over the contact name I have yet to utilize.
Foxglove.
The last time I spoke to her was at the auction night, and for some festering fucking reason, I keep mindlessly pulling up her name on my phone as if I’m going to do something with it.
My thumb starts typing as I run my other hand over the back of my neck.
There is an event you need to attend.
No. I quickly delete the entire line of text.
You will be required at Noire House. Dress accordingly.
