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I can’t help but re-evaluate my reasoning for taking this assignment in the first place. If I feel like I have to prove something to my boss of five years, it’s time to move to a different company. The fact that I put myself here makes it even worse. I didn’t notify anyone before I chose to come and spy on a dangerous crime syndicate that had been kidnapping girls and selling them into slavery.
Why would I put myself in danger like that? I’m the perfect target for them!
I’m dragged out the door and into a dark hallway, anticipating a flight of stairs to be pushed down until I’ve reached the core of the earth. That would make a hell of a lot of sense to me right now, seeing just where all the world’s most evil men are birthed from. At least then I could return and firebomb the hell of out the place like a spider’s nest, ridding the world of the source of its evil.
I’m disappointed to be pulled through the hallway into the main room of the warehouse where I see a group of men seated in the middle, all of them unimpressed and staring coldly at me.
“This is the last one,” mutters the large man, jerking me along until he’s forcing me to stand on a platform like a prized hog at the state fair. I’m already humiliated to a degree that I never knew possible, and suddenly the man is tearing at my clothes to see what will come off the easiest.
I’m in the middle of my worst nightmare.
All the stories I’ve heard about these kinds of situations have proven to be true so far. I have no more patience to watch myself be treated like cattle any longer. If I die, so be it. I was fighting for my right to live.
With my instinct in full force, I headbutt him as hard as I can, sending him reeling in the other direction before he winds his arm up and backhands me across the face. Had I still had the ability to consider consequences, I wouldn’t have attacked him to begin with. My regret is immeasurable as I’m sent to the concrete floor from a three-foot drop. My face smacks against the pavement, sending blood shooting from my inner cheek across the floor.
“Damn, this one is spirited. Where the hell did you find her? The others seem dead inside,” says one of the men, leaning over a backwards chair as he rips my clothes off with his eyes.
“This one was spying on us from outside. I think she’s a journalist. So her rate will be higher,” states the large man, lifting me back up to my feet as my head spins.
“What?! You can’t just increase the price because she’s a journalist. That isn’t how this shit works,” replies one of the men, drunk and agitated.
My vision is hazy and disjointed, but I can still see the large man shrug as he crosses his arms. “She also wasn’t even a part of the original sale, so you should be grateful that you have the opportunity to walk away with a fresh one.”
Afresh one?
The drunken man in front of me takes a long drink from a bottle and tosses it in my general direction. I’m barely able to avoid it before it connects with my left knee.
I yelp out loud, and I’m promptly slapped on the back of the head for daring to react.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you half price for her. That way, you don’t need to worry about destroying her and the disposal of her body. It’s really me who is giving you an opportunity by taking her,” the drunk man replies with a grim, joyless smile.
“I’ll blow your fucking dick off if you want to challenge me in my own warehouse, you fucking roach,” says the large man as he pulls a cartoonishly large handgun out of his pocket.
I brace myself for the gunfire, and three rounds are discharged as I close my eyes. I scream from the shock of it, unable to even hear myself as the sound ricochets off the walls and concrete floor.
When I open my eyes, I hear another round of shots fired off, but now three men are dead instead of one. What the fuck? Only one man had a weapon drawn!
Both the large man and the drunk man collapse to the floor in a graceless pile before I realize that the man to the left of the drunk man has sustained a gunshot as well. He glances up at me before the pain hits, perhaps realizing that I’ll be the only empathetic presence to witness his death as he fades away.
But who shot him?
The second that a third round of shots is fired, I realize that I have the opportunity to at least get down from the platform before I get hit. It would be stupid of me to remain paralyzed up here if I no longer have a keeper to force me in place. My terrified brain is working at a million miles an hour, tripping over itself and causing lapses in judgment that might result in my untimely death. What a stupid evolutionary quality.
Right before I jump from the platform, the room is flooded with men dressed head to toe in black holding machine guns to their shoulders as they scope out the room. I’m conflicted with the possibility of getting shot at if they think I’m a threat, but what if they’re here to save me? Are they the feds? Could I be in the midst of one of the biggest human trafficking busts in the country?
I’m captured by the strange performance of it all as the men run to what I can only assume are assigned positions. This raid must have been planned meticulously. How did I get both so lucky and so unlucky to have been a part of this on the single occasion where I would be rescued? Is this a lesson from the universe?
Then I see him.
He couldn’t look like more of a leader if he tried. Instead of being dressed like a SWAT soldier, he’s wearing a professionally fitted suit that retains a deluge of blood as he fires repeat shots into the heads of these monsters. His eyes are furious, like he needs to get up close and personal with them to see the fear in their faces. He could shoot them from a longer range, I’m sure of that. But he needs the thrill of their terror.
This man isn’t a cop at all.
So who is he?
When he approaches me as I’m frozen to the platform, I realize that I recognize him from one of the interviews I did with the documentary company. I hadn’t interviewed him, of course, but he was a close associate of the man I’d been interfacing with.
Matteo Vitale.
