The image is grainy but clear enough. Grant, standing beside two uniformed officers outside a precinct in Colorado. Same cold smirk. Same dar eyes. The badge on his chest looks official, but it’s all theater.
“He wasn’t the police,” I say quietly. “He bought the police. That’s the cop who tried to shoot me in the hallway. Brooke killed him. He wasn’t following orders, he was the order.”
Next to Grant stands another man. Taller, younger, but unmistakably connected. Same sharp cheekbones, same dead stare, same snake-coiled stillness.
Connor smirks through bloodied teeth. “And that… is Elliot. Grant’s brother. He runs the manor.”
Travis clicks again.
The screen lights up with another file, this time, interior surveillance footage. A concrete basement, chains dangling from steel beams, stained floors. One frame shows a woman hanging upside down by her ankles, her skin mottled and bruised. Another shows a man split open from groin to chest, ribcage cracked wide. In the corner, someone kneels with their teeth removed, hands bolted to the floor by nails driven through their wrists.
I look away. Not because I can’t stomach gore. I’ve seen worse. I’ve done worse. But because I can’t bear the thought that Brooke might be in a place like that. Right now. Alone.
Travis keeps scrolling. His face drains of color, the light from the monitors painting him a sickly gray. “These are victim logs. There’s a schedule: rotations, feeding times, torture intervals. Jesus Christ, Seth…”
My grip tightens.
Another click. A video opens without warning. It's Elliot again, grinning like a game show host, holding a blood-slicked blade over a woman’s face while she screams. The camera shakes as someone laughs behind it.
Travis gags. “Fuck. Fuck, I can’t…”
I say nothing. My shoulder throbs, pulse hammering through every stitch. But all I can see is Brooke. Somewhere in the dark, near that hell.
“Who’s that?” I ask, pointing to the last unfamiliar face in the surveillance footage.
Dark hair, gold chain, lazy grin. He looks like a man who doesn’t get his hands dirty unless it amuses him.
Connor snorts through blood. “Dante Valero. He’s their supplier. Cocaine, Fentanyl, girls, weapons. Whatever they want, he brings it. He’s the only outsider Elliot allows inside the manor.”
Travis is already typing, keys clicking fast. “Got something. He’s based in Oregon.”
He zooms in on a shipping manifest and an encrypted delivery log. “City called Blackridge. Real rural. Looks like he’s got a property on the outskirts.”
Colorado.
Fresno.
Silicon Valley.
Now Oregon.
We are chasing ghosts across three states while Brooke is locked in a torture palace with monsters who see her as entertainment.
I take a step closer to Connor, my voice low. “Anything else you need to tell us? Anything useful I can actually fucking use?”
Connor leans back in the chair, bleeding, lips curling into that smug, tech-prick smirk he wears like armor.
“How about you go fu—”
I shoot him before he finishes.
The silenced round blows through his temple. His body snaps sideways, collapsing onto the floor in a heap. Blood sprays across the monitor in an arc. The chair rolls back into the glass dining table with a soft bump.
Travis recoils so hard he nearly falls over. “Seth! Jesus fuck!”
“He had nothing else useful to say,” I say coldly.
Beau crouches beside the body, nudging Connor’s shoulder. “Welp. He’s very fucking dead.”
