“Pack him up.”
We keep Dante alive, but barely.
His wrists are cuffed behind his back, metal biting into torn skin already swollen and raw. Zip ties cut deep into his ankles, one of them wrapped just above what used to be his foot. The bloody gauze around the stump has gone stiff and black, soaked through hours ago. The jagged end of his shin presses forward at an unnatural angle, wrapped tight but still leaking.
A strip of duct tape covers his mouth, sealed into sweat and blood. He makes guttural, wet sounds in the back seat. His whole body twitches with every bump in the road.
Travis drives. His hands lock on the wheel. His jaw stays tight. He doesn't look in the mirror.
I turn in my seat. “Directions.”
Dante nods frantically, muffled pleas leaking behind the tape. I grab his jaw and rip it off.
He gasps for air like a drowning man. “Take the next right,” he stammers. “Then the service road. No headlights once we’re off the main road. They’ll see you.”
We follow the directions.
The pavement disappears beneath us, replaced by dirt and gravel. Pine trees press in from both sides, branches clawing at the vehicle. The tires crack over loose rock like bones snapping underfoot.
“Keep going,” Dante says, his voice climbing. “There’s a lodge at the end. Looks abandoned. It’s not. Cameras. Motion sensors. Heat tracking in the trees. If you stop too early, it will trigger the perimeter.”
“Where’s the cutoff?” I ask.
“Past the fence line. There’s a boulder with a red ‘X’ carved into it. Ten yards past that is the safe zone. That’s where you park.”
He looks around the car, panic shaking his voice. “I got you here. Okay? I did what you wanted.”
Luke’s voice slides into my head like static.
“He still thinks there’s a deal coming. Show him what you really are.”
The trees thin, and the manor comes into view. The exact one from the footage.
It sits there like it has been waiting for us.
Details Travis pulled on Dante flood my mind. Black Ridge Club. Payments routed through shell accounts. Girls moved in and out for years. Shipped, traded, disposed of. Dante’s fingerprints on all of it.
He is not just a coward with a gun to his head.
He is a pipeline.
“This is it,” Dante says too fast. “This is the place. I swear.”
I open the door and step out. Cold air hits my lungs hard enough to sting.
Dante twists in the back seat, panic flooding his face. “Okay, asshole. You said if I helped—”
I yank the door open and grab him by the front of his jacket.
“Out.”
He tries to brace himself against the seat. It doesn't help. I drag him out of the car and slam him onto the gravel beside the road. He hits the ground hard, breath leaving him in a broken grunt.
Dante scrambles halfway upright, blood still drying across his face. “Wait. Wait. I told you where it is.”
I look down at him and think about the footage Travis pulled. I think about the girls who never walked back out of the places Dante delivered them to. The ones he dropped off like shipments.
“I don’t have time to let you die slow. So this is going to be quick.”
