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I takemy laptop and go to my bedroom, locking the door behind me.
Several people knock on the door but leave once they realize I won’t answer.
And I won’t, not until I have answers.
Locking myself up for a day is something folks around here are used to. However, on a day like today, I’m sure I’ll be looked for. Nothing I can do about the botched contracts now, though. Those deals are lost. May as well find out what the fuck happened with them and who is fucking with me. This cannot happen again.
If we even get another chance.
I get a voicemail from my contact within the Dutch government, an uptight bastard named Levi who had promised me proper government contracts once I proved I could pull this off. I only listen to a second or two of the shouting before closing my phone and turning it off.
Until I know what happened, who is responsible for this mess, I have nothing for him.
My eyes feel gritty as I read through reports, watching bits of footage as they become available. Despite my suspicions, I can’t see anything that stands out.
Hours and hours of footage, reports, anything I can find. Some indication of how something so well planned failed so horribly.
I doubt I’ll get another chance at this. For years, we’ve provided acquisitions for various reasons varying from the standard trade of bodies and sex to providing victims for killers and everything in between. I wanted so badly to make the change to organs, and though profits were a major consideration, I can’t deny that there’s a small part that has to do with ethics.
I don’t have a problem with what we do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish our acquisitions weren’t so … wasted. At least with organ transplants….
Sighing, I start the current video over, watching closely. No point in thinking about what could have been. It helps nothing.
It’s not great quality, being from some gas station footage across the street from one of the failed acquisitions. I look over at my list and confirm this was one Hannah and I had deemed an easy pickup. Young schoolteacher with a rare blood type who lived alone. The gas station is the only business around, and the street itself is quiet at the late hour.
I watch as several bodies dressed in black pile out of the nondescript CASH-ULTY van. One of them at the front turns to the rest and says something, and I realize it’s Kris. I’m not sure if I’m grateful or not that his van wasn’t one of the ones completely annihilated. We lost a dozen good men today. Kris is not a good man, but he is my brother.
My brother who snuck into my room that night to touch me. My brother who I suspect let me get taken by traffickers as a child. My brother who….
There’s another knock at the door and I glance at it briefly but turn my attention back to the screen. A moment later, I hear the telltale sign of the lock being picked. A shiver runs up my spine as I reach over and pull out the pistol from my drawer, pulling back the safety and pointing it at the locked door.
It clicks, the door pushes open, and Kris walks in, shutting it behind him. He turns to me and looks at the gun in my hand, a complete lack of concern in his expression.
“Locked doors usually mean fuck off,” I tell him, and he actually smiles at me, striding straight into the room. I sigh and lower the weapon.
“Seriously, can you go away?” I plead, clicking the safety off and placing the gun on the desk beside me but not taking my hand off of it. I watch the swagger of his step as Kris walks around the desk, shifting my head and eyeing him suspiciously.
“What’s going on?”
Coming up beside me, he looks at the screen I’m watching then down to the papers and tablets sprawled out in front of me.
“What’d you figure out?” he asks, ignoring my question. His proximity is bothersome, but I try to push the discomfort aside.
“Should you be telling me?” I accuse, standing and moving toward the bar. I feel his eyes on me as I move.
“We planned this thing perfectly, so what the fuck happened?” I keep my back to him as I prepare a drink, not asking if he wants one. I bring the glass up to my mouth and inhale deeply before taking a large sip.
“I have something to tell you.”
Gone is any hint of mockery or arrogance in his voice. I turn to Kris and take in his severe expression.
“What?” I snap. The groove between his brows deepens as he steps forward, the look of worry on his face making me more than a little uneasy. Grasping my elbow, he leads me over to the bed.
“Sit,” he tells me. I exhale through my nose before taking a seat. He kneels in front of me on the floor, looking into my face.
“Before I tell you, I want you to know that I’m here for you, and we’ll get through this,” he says. Panic rises in me at his words.
“Fucking tell me already.”
