Chapter 193

Draven's pov

River threw up twice before we got to the docks.

“Boss,” he muttered, clutching his rifle like it might disappear. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You can,” I said flatly, checking my ammo one last time. “You will.”

The van creaked as we stopped half a block from Eliza’s Gate. Old warehouse. No signage. No light. But I could hear them inside...handlers, guards, footsteps. Laughter. The muffled cries of girls trying not to be heard.

I felt it in my bones: this place was soaked in evil.

“We go silent until I say otherwise,” I said, flicking off the safety. “If you get a clean shot, take it. No hesitation. No mercy.”

River nodded, pale as ash.

We breached the north door just before midnight. I kicked it in and went in first. The stench of sweat, mold, and bleach hit me like a wall. Two men were playing cards near the door, one of them reached for a pistol.

Too slow.

My silencer spat twice. Both dropped, blood pooling under the poker table.

We moved fast, slicing through the maze of rooms. Girls were locked in cages, literal cages. Some were asleep, others too drugged to react. One stared straight at me, eyes hollow. Thirteen, maybe fourteen. I wanted to torch the building then and there.

But I had work to do.

I cleared the hallway, knifed a handler trying to unlock a safe room, and shot another in the throat before he could call backup. Screams broke out. Alarms too.

Silent went out the window.

“GO LOUD!” I barked, and the room exploded in chaos.

Gunfire. Shouts. Smoke grenades.

River flinched behind me, ducking as a bullet cracked the concrete near his head.

“Draven!” he shouted. “They’ve got ARs in the back room!”

“I’ve got rage,” I growled, and kicked the next door in.

They were waiting. Two of them.

I didn’t wait to die.

I dove behind a steel locker as rounds tore into the wall. I counted their reloads, heart steady. When the click came, I rolled, aimed, and took out the first two with clean shots to the neck. The third lunged, but I slammed my boot into his knee, tackled him, and crushed his skull against the floor.

River stumbled in, blinking through the smoke. “Shit. Shit. I almost pissed myself.”

“You good?”

“No. But I’m alive.”

We found the control room and shut off the electric locks. Doors clanked open throughout the facility. I turned to River.

“Get the girls out. Use the back tunnel. We cleared it.”

He hesitated. “There’s still gunfire.”

“I’ll handle it. Move.”

He nodded and ran.

I headed back into the fire.

Another handler tried to stop me...bald, burly, covered in gang ink. He charged, roaring like a lunatic.

I stepped aside, twisted his arm until I heard it snap, then jammed my blade into his kidney. “You think you’re a monster?” I whispered in his ear as he fell. “I’m worse.”

By the time I reached the docks, the fire was already spreading. I set it before the breach, fuel canisters along the outer walls, ready to torch every trace of this place.

A man was crawling through the smoke, coughing, bloody. One of the lieutenants, from the look of it.

He saw me and laughed. “You’ll die for this,” he wheezed. “Snow will come for you.”

I walked over, crouched beside him, and said nothing.

Then I reached into his mouth and sliced out his tongue.

“Send her,” I whispered. “Tell her I’ll be waiting.”

He screamed until his voice broke.

Outside, River was helping the girls into a truck. Some could barely walk. Some clung to each other like broken dolls. A few were covered in bruises and scratches. One of them, a red-haired girl no older than twelve, reached for my hand. Hell...she didn't even mind that I was covered in blood.

Her fingers trembled.

I bent down, brushing soot from her cheek. “You’re safe now,” I said.

She didn’t answer. Just nodded.

River swallowed. “Draven… there’s twenty-three of them.”

I looked at the inferno behind us. “Not enough.”

He flinched. “You’re not stopping, are you?”

I met his eyes. “No.”

We drove them to the medical unit we’d set up in the hills. Nurses were already waiting...real ones, not the kind that handed out drugs and shut kids in closets. As they were ushered inside, I stepped back and took out my phone.

I recorded the aftermath; the flames, the bodies, the faces of the rescued girls. I didn't speak. I let the footage tell the story.

Then I sent it to Eira.

Seconds passed.

Then her reply came.

Two words: Do more.

I didn’t smile. Didn’t blink.

Just whispered to myself, “I will.”

The fire behind me crackled louder. One by one, I would find every gate, every handler, every filthy operation Snow had her hand in.

And one by one, I’d burn them all to the ground.

Soon enough I headed back again with river. But a blast occured at the top of the hospital. Shit! So fast?

We had them. We had the girls. Twenty-three of them.

Bloodied. Starving. Some couldn’t walk. Others were too drugged to speak. They blinked at us like deer caught in headlights, unsure whether we were the next monsters or their salvation.

"Clear! Room's clear!" I shouted into my comm as I ducked beneath a low beam, dragging a coughing girl in a hospital gown behind me. Her knees buckled twice before I lifted her fully off the ground.

A blast went off upstairs. Gunfire cracked like thunder overhead. My men were still sweeping the west wing. I needed the extraction point secured. Now.

“Bring the girls to the boats!” I barked. “Move, move, move!”

The docks were still smoldering, thick smoke curling into the twilight air like a scream no one would hear. Ash rained down on us as I kicked open the side exit. My boots splashed into oil-slicked water. A line of speedboats waited, borrowed, stolen, who cared? They’d take the girls far from here.

One by one, we loaded them in.

“Hold her steady!” I shouted at a rookie who couldn’t stop shaking. The girl in his arms thrashed like a fish, high on whatever Snow had pumped into her. “She’s not trying to fight you. She doesn’t know where she is!”

A medic rushed in. “We’re out of Narcan...”

“Use mine,” I said, throwing my last dose.

And still, the gunfire didn’t stop.

Behind me, Antonio was hunched over the railing, retching his guts out into the water.

The bastard had been silent the whole mission. He’d followed orders. He’d broken down doors. But now? Now, with the smell of burning flesh and the sound of young girls sobbing behind us, his mask cracked.

He puked again.

I walked up to him slow.

He flinched when I placed a hand on his shoulder. I could hear his breathing...shallow, frantic.

“You good, soldier?” I asked quietly.

He shook his head. “They… they were just kids, Draven. I didn’t think it was this bad. Snow told us they were liabilities. I thought… I didn’t know they were locked in cages.”

“You didn’t think, Antonio. That’s the problem.”

He looked up at me with those haunted eyes. “She’s going to kill me when she finds out I helped you.”

“Yeah,” I said flatly. “She might.”

He winced. His hands were trembling. “You gonna shoot me now?”

I stared at him. My gun was still hot in my hand. Still loaded.

I tilted my head, studying him. “No. I’m not gonna kill you.”

Antonio blinked.

“You’re going to walk out of here. You’re going to run back to your queen, shaking and stained with ash and bile. And you’re going to tell her everything.”

He stiffened. “Why?”

“Because I want her to know what I did here tonight. I want her to feel it. One by one, her empire will burn. Every handler. Every lab. Every corrupted doctor. I want her to wake up screaming knowing her kingdom is dying.”

Antonio swallowed hard.

“Tell her I started with Eliza’s Gate. Tell her I freed the girls. Tell her the last man she trusted died choking on his tongue.”

He nodded slowly, pale as a ghost.

I turned away and called out, “Status?”

“All boats loaded! Two girls unresponsive, we’ve got medics working on ‘em now.”

“Get them out of here!” I shouted.

As the boats sped off into the smoke and sea, I stood on the burning dock, the stench of sulfur and old blood thick in my nose.

Antonio was gone, running into the forest, likely tripping over himself in fear.

Good.

Let her see him shaking.

Let her know I spared him, not out of mercy, but as a message.

I took one last look at the girls fading into the horizon and pulled out my phone. I didn’t say a word. I just sent the footage to Eira, every bloodstained floor, every lock shattered, every girl freed.

Her reply came minutes later.

Two words:

Do more. Again