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Sobs rack my throat, slobber nearly pouring from my mouth as I cry out, “I didn’t do it.”
Rearing back, she slaps me across the face again, my ears ringing as she continues to mindlessly hit me, over and over until I’m breathless from the onslaught of pain.
“You fucking useless bitch!” she screams. She lifts my head again, but I can no longer see her through the rivers pouring from my eyes. Indiscernible pleas fall past my lips, but even I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.
“You know what happens when you become useless? You end up buried in an unmarked grave somewhere no one will ever find you.”
Finally, she releases me, nearly smacking my head off the wood. Immediately, my body curls in on itself, the foreign object still lodged painfully inside me, but I don’t have it in me to take it out.
Whimpers tear through my throat, so powerful that no noise is capable of slipping through, stealing my breath in the process. Francesca storms out of the room, leaving me violently shaking and bawling from the assault.
A mass comes back down on me, and my body uselessly flails, fists flying but making no contact.
“Shhh,” the voice whispers. The moment it registers that it’s Sydney’s, I fight harder, screaming at her to get off, but she’s too strong for me right now.
She’s completely wrapped around my back, her legs circled tightly around my waist and locked on my stomach while her hand pets my hair.
“Shh, it’s okay,” she whispers. “We’ll be together now.”
The little energy I had left dissipates, and the only thing I am able to do is sob.
Grabbing my hot, reddened face, she tilts my chin up. Just barely, I make out her wide brown eyes and a gentle smile. Almost reverently, she pets my hair and down my cheeks, staring at me as if I’m a prized possession.
“Welcome home,” she whispers.
Chapter 13
The Hunter
“They deal in the black market,” Jay tells me. I’m staring at camera footage of the tattooed man from the video—the one that brought a little girl with a gunshot wound into Dr. Garrison’s shoddy hospital. “Organ traffickers, to be specific.”
“Who is ‘they’?” I ask, carefully watching the man carry the injured child out of the hospital, gently set her in the backseat of a red Camaro, and then speed off. Whether he didn’t care to avoid the one camera on the front of the building, or wasn’t aware of it, doesn’t actually matter. I got his license plate number.
Jay pulls up a photo. It’s of the tattooed man with three other men. Based on their body language, they appear very comfortable with each other.
“Them. They call themselves the Basilisk Brotherhood. Widely known in the black market for trading in human organs. Ryker, Daire, Kace, and Slade. No one knows their real last names.”
I close my eyes, reining in my temper. I have little control over it these days.
“Before you get growly and go on a killing spree, Tony the Tiger, there’s been some talk that they are not actually as bad as they’re making themselves out to be.”
I shoot Jay a look, but he ignores me. I’m scarier than Tony the Tiger, and he knows it.
“Why do you say that?”
“Just some comments on forums that I’ve come across on a few deep websites,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know what it is, but I have a feeling those rumors are true.”
We’ll see.
“Regardless, they would have knowledge on the comings and goings of the skin trade,” I surmise.
Jay meets my heavy stare, a mutual agreement passing between us silently.
If Addie is traded or auctioned off, they might be able to track it, which means that I need to have a chat with the Basilisk Brotherhood.
“Give me a second, and I’ll get in contact with them,” I say, straightening and motioning for Jay to move aside. He grumbles something about this being his computer, but I don’t pay him any mind.
Jay’s great at what he does—amazing, even.
