Chapter 243 245

Chapter 243 245
The next swing snaps his wrist when he tries to block it. He screams in pain, in fury, but shock has him frozen in place instead of diving for me.

“You’re nothing but a whiny, selfish, pathetic excuse for a man,” I continue, swinging after each word to punctuate the unbridled rage now coursing through my veins. “You’re so fucking pathetic, you can’t even find someone your own age. You have to, what—beg your boss for his daughter? Prowl the local high school for your next victim?”

Martin balks. Covered with smeared blood and limp with half a dozen broken bones, it’s almost kind of comical. “I never! It’s only just been you!”

“Oh, please.” I give the crowbar a few test swings. I am really starting to understand why Demyen is who he is. This kind of retribution is cathartic. Therapeutic. “You think you’re the only one who knows how to bug a phone?”

It’s a blatant lie. I don’t know shit about bugging phones. But he doesn’t know that. And the look of shock, then guilt, then horror on his face tells me everything I need to know about just how despicable this “man” really is.

“Clara, please.” He struggles to limp forward, arms outstretched. “Baby, I… It’s not what it looks like. I just… I mentor these girls, and I⁠—”

I cut him off with another swift blow to his back. Something else cracks. His scream is cut off by a wet, sucking breath, his eyes widen, and he looks at me with horror, like he’s actually terrified of me.

Is he?

Is Martin Patterson scared of me?

Good. He should be.

“You’re sick,” I tell him. “Sick, pathetic, and not worth my time.” I drop the crowbar and listen to it clang against the metal floor of the shipping container. “Good luck trying to hide from the feds. I’ll be making sure they always know where to find your ass.”

Martin takes the bait and, teetering between upright and sprawled, awake and unconscious, he lets out an angry roar and charges at me.

I duck beneath his swinging arm and slam myself against his legs.

We both go sprawling.

We both scramble for the crowbar.

I grab it first.

A thousand different things flow through my mind. All of them blind me. All of them fuel me.

My childhood, lost to my father’s abuse and terrorization.

My innocence, tainted and stolen by this sick excuse of a man.

All the other girls he’s just admitted to grooming, stalking, God knows what else.

Most of all, my girl. My sweet little girl. Her terrified, tear-streaked face whenever she endured the man who claimed to be her daddy yelling at her, shouting at her, and beating me in front of her.

I don’t realize I’m swinging. I don’t even feel the cracks and dull thuds against his body.

I’m too far lost in my own pain, my own fear… my own fury.

I’m so fucking sick and tired of his abusive bullshit.

I’m done being afraid.

I swing and swing and swing until my arms burn like hellfire. The only thing that pulls me out of my blinding, rage-filled haze is the silence that fills the storage container. I no longer hear his shouts, or his cries, or his sobbing pleas.

I don’t hear anything.

Martin lies there on the floor in the dim light of the battery lantern. He’s barely recognizable; his chest is caved in and his face barely intact. All the places where the hooked end of the crowbar dug into his flesh are now only bloody, oozing gashes.

I didn’t mean to.

I didn’t mean to kill him.

I didn’t set out to kill him, at least.

The last several moments come boomeranging back into my consciousness, and I fall to my knees in my own shock. And blood.

And mostly his blood.

I just…

I just beat a man to death.

I killed…

I killed Martin Patterson.

Why am I not crying? Or screaming?

Why…

Why do I suddenly feel…

… free?

49

DEMYEN

I jump out of the Hummer and storm around the front, ready to kick down the gates to Raizo’s whole fucking operation.

Tolya grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Patience, little brother. I’d like to not get shot, if it’s all the same to you.”

I hate that he has a point.

I hate that Clara’s in there and I’m out here.

But most of all…

I hate.

Fucking.

Waiting.

Pavel limps his way over to us, leading a group of men who are all armed and ready to storm the depot and end this once and for all. He’s by no means in physical shape to lead the charge, but no amount of negotiating could make him stay at home while Clara’s in danger.

“Recon just reported seeing both Clara and Martin leave the main office,” Pavel quietly confirms. He leans heavily against the front of the Hummer and pulls out his phone. A few taps later, a map of the grounds lights up his screen and he moves it around to show us the maze of shipping containers and walkways. “This is what we’ve been able to grab from surveillance and zoning records. Mako’s team overlaid the current bins on the city’s map of the site so we should be able to get a clear idea of how to navigate this shit.”

I swallow back the bile threatening to creep up my throat. There are hundreds of shipping containers in this depot. Thousands, maybe.

Raizo could hide her literally anywhere.

“They were last seen being escorted into one of the shipping containers here,” he continues as he zooms in on an eastern section of the grounds. “Left alone, too.”

“Then that’s where we go.” I pull out my gun from the holster to check the ammunition. Backup magazines are latched to my belt; I’m tempted to add a few grenades just for the hell of it.

But Pavel stops me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “We have to be careful.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not gonna blow Clara up⁠—”

“There’s more.” His face is grim. “More women. Same quadrant. Looks like he’s loading them up for export.”

Tolya growls beside me. “If we’re going in full force,” he snarls, “we’re leaving with as many of those women as we can.”

I nod. “My thoughts exactly.” I turn to Pavel. “Spread the word. Exercise caution in the eastern quadrant, and have a team go in for the extraction. Keep our eyes above updating us. Wherever we don’t find slaves, blow shit up. No survivors.”

The one survivor I took from the last raid is still rethinking his life choices in the basement of one of my safehouses. He has no idea how lucky he is to be so young and so naive.

We move like ghosts in the night toward the front gates of the depot. The rest of my men sweep the perimeter and position for a simultaneous attack on all sides. I don’t have as many as I’d like for such a broad territory to cover, but it’ll have to do.

I attach a silencer to my handgun and tiptoe around one of the watchtowers for better aim. One shot takes out the first guard; another nails the second. Tolya silently moves to the opposite side of the main gate and does the same to the guards in that watchtower, then climbs up the ladder to find the switch that will open the doors for us.

I wait. The silence feels heavy.

A short alarm sounds once and the gates begin to split. I shoulder through the gap first and take out the initial response team—well, as many as I can spot. Pavel covers my six and downs the ones I miss.