by Stella Noir
When I heard my brothers voice behind me I turned my head. I didn’t want to look at my father’s dead body that was lying on the dirt road. I was still in shock over everything that had just happened. My brother shooting our father and what my father said right before he died. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
It made sense to me now that he would be able to disown me so easily. That he would have no problem threatening my life and chasing me around the world if I wasn’t really his son. But it only made sense in an abstract way. I didn’t understand how he could treat me this way after having raised me my whole life.
But the words Lucas said to me while we lay in bed together in the dark last night kept playing over and over in my mind. That everything our father had done was an act. An act to gain something he wanted. Everything we believed about him was simply what he wanted us to believe. He manipulated everyone around him, including his own family.
Lucas was right. Our father was a complete sociopath. He put on an act for us, but underneath he was someone neither of us knew at all. This whole thing with Brooklyn seemed like a set up now. And it was starting to feel like he wanted me to find out this way.
“I just want to keep moving, Lucas. Let’s get out of here. Let’s get to that tunnel entrance.”
“Sure, let me talk to my guy.”
Lucas got on his phone and called his inside man, Alek—the one who had worked in the caverns for this Russian mobster. Grady crossed the dirt road over to where I was standing along the tree line. He touched my arm for a moment before he spoke. “You okay, Adrian? I heard what your dad said before Lucas shot him.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just another thing to put on the list of how fucked up my life is right now.”
“I’m sorry, man. You don’t deserve any of this.”
“Thanks, Grady. Thanks for being here for me. Lucas is on the phone right now with Alek and were gonna find out his strategy, then head up to the tunnel as soon as possible. “
“Well, if there’s anything I can do …”
“You’ve already done more for me than I could have ever asked for. You always seem to be at the right place at the right time. I didn’t even think about my dad’s driver. If you hadn’t taken care of him I’d be lying there on the road next to my father.”
“No problem. I had my eye on him the whole time. And I knew it was just a matter of seconds before he came out of the car.”
“Thanks again, Grady. You saved my ass.”
“So, it looks like we’ll be breaking up into two groups,” Lucas said as men got out of the cars we drove up in and gathered behind him. “We’ve got twenty-three men here, and another ten waiting for us outside of the tunnels. When we get to the tunnel entrance we’re going to split up, but for now let’s get over there and get started.”
Alek led us about a mile through a thick forest until we came to a grassy hill. He stopped walking right in front of a mass of bushes, then pulled back a thick layer of ivy, revealing a metal door that had been built into the side of the hill.
The door was ancient and looked like it had been there for over a hundred years. It was rusty and dented, but looked like it would last another hundred years easily. Alek pried up a metal box that was attached to the door by a hinge, then punched some numbers into a keypad that had obviously been installed sometime in the last decade. There was the sound of grinding metal as the internal lock shifted and the door creaked as it slowly opened on its own.
My stomach dropped when the door opened. Just inside was a small platform, and on that platform was a girl with long blonde hair. At first glance I thought it was Brooklyn. I was so out of my mind for a split second I thought maybe he had already used her and thrown her away. That I was too late. That was my biggest fear. That I would be one second too late and by the time I reached Brooklyn she would be dead.
But as I looked at the blonde girl, it slowly sank in that it couldn’t be her. The girl lying curled up in a fetal position on the concrete slab was emaciated. Like she had been living on the edge of starvation for a long time.
“Looks like one of the girls tried to escape.” Alek nudged her body with his foot, and as she rolled onto her back I saw her mouth was sunken in, like she had no teeth.
It made me sick to think at one point in my life I would’ve thought that was a bonus. And I was relieved to realize I didn’t think that way anymore. I was changing. The monster inside of me was disappearing little by little.
“So they took out her teeth? Do they do that with all of the girls?”
“Not all of them. If Syrnyk pays good money for a girl, he won’t do anything to ruin her appearance. He knows which ones he can get an even higher price for and he makes sure they look good. Some of the most beautiful he keeps for himself, of course. He usually keeps them in good shape, but he has no problem making sure they know their place.
“The others, the ones he gets off the streets, he doesn’t care about them. He doesn’t keep track of them like he does the girls he pays for, and he doesn’t provide anything for them other than the thinnest soup. He leaves them down in the caverns, sometimes packed into cells, until his men find a place to sell them.
“If they have too much fight in them, with him or with the other girls, he takes out their teeth and their nails,” he said as he nudged the girl’s hand with his foot. Her arm flopped to the side, revealing bloody scabs where her fingernails had once been.
“The street girls don’t bring as much money, so he has to work with higher numbers. Sometimes twenty or thirty girls will be brought in overnight. They bring them here from all over Europe. Once the girls are trained they disappear and new girls take their place.”
“If they don’t bring much money, why does he keep them?”
“Because he can. Because he enjoys taking girls and breaking them down until they’re nothing. Just a shell of what they once were.”
I turned and looked at Lucas. “Please don’t tell me you’re impressed.”
“Well, he sure as hell has us beat. I mean, the scale of his operation sounds like it’s twenty times the size of ours …”
“It’s not our operation anymore, Lucas. I’m not involved in any of it.” I stared at the dead girl for another moment, then looked back up at Alek. “How did this one get out here?”
“At the other end of this tunnel is another door like this one, with the same keypad system. It was probably a guard taking advantage of his position. I saw it a lot while I was working down there. A girl would beg one of the guards to let her go. She would promise him anything, which was a laugh because we took whatever we wanted from them anyway.
“There was nothing left for them to offer and nothing to bargain with. But they were so desperate they would believe anything the men told them. And some of the guards got off on more than just fucking. Some of them got off on killing too. It was never my thing at all, but the men down there, they know no one’s paying attention. They know they can get away with whatever they want with these girls.
“So they might torture the girls a little here and there. And some they will bring into the tunnel. They’ll tell the girl they’re going to let her go, and they’ll either kill her in the tunnel, then discard her out into the woods or even leave their body down in the caverns to rot. There are plenty of unused cells down there where some of the men dump girls after they’ve used them up and no one ever sees them again. But there are the odd ones who lock girls in the tunnel and let them die while they claw at the doors in the darkness.”
My eyes moved from the girl to the inside of the thick metal door, and like Alek said, it was covered in bloody handprints and streaks that ran down the entire door. It was horrifying. And all I could think about was Brooklyn.
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Lucas said, breaking the silence that had passed over the entire group of men. “We’re splitting into two groups. One group goes in first and clears out all the guards in the caverns. We don’t know how many are down there. From what we know from the
men who have worked with Syrnyk, there could be anywhere from two to ten men down there right now.
“None of the men who worked in the caverns saw much of the main house at all, so we don’t have any info on any surveillance or alarms systems. But we have to assume both are a very real possibility. The key code that is punched into the doors to the tunnel allows anyone to come and go freely, but there may be cameras once we get inside.
“Once the first group has cleared the way, the second group heads in. There is a large open area just after the entrance, with smaller caverns shooting off in different directions. We’ll break up into smaller groups and search through the cells that line the caverns to find the girl. Her name is Brooklyn and you should all have seen a picture of her. When she is found we leave. That’s it. We don’t stick around for any reason. We grab her and get the hell out of there.”
As I listened to Lucas talk I realized I couldn’t do it. If I found Brooklyn and we left with her we would be safe for a few days at the most. If I didn’t kill everyone in the entire building, including Mihai Syrnyk, we would both be right back where we started. On the run.
I would spend the rest of my life having to constantly look behind me, always afraid for Brooklyn’s safety. There was no way I was going to go back to that. If I got her back, there was no way I could ever let this happen to her again.
“I’m gonna go all the way in.”
“What are you talking about?”
I understood the incredulous look in my brother’s eyes, but there was no other option for me. I had no choice but to put an end to all of this. “After the first group goes in and we break up to search the caverns, I’m going to find the entrance to the house and go in there. I’m gonna kill the bastard.”
“Adrian, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. We don’t know anything about what he’s got up there …”
“I don’t care, Lucas. I have to put an end to this. I’m not going to let that jackass ruin my life. I might as well be dead if I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life running from him. We don’t even know for sure she is down there. He might have her up in his house right now. I have to do it, Lucas. I’m not going to let this happen again. I’m going in there and I’m going to find Brooklyn. And then I’m going to kill him.”
“Then I’m going with you. We’ll take five guys with us up there, okay?”
“Okay.”
“All right guys, new plan. The first group will be headed up by Alek and Grady. Five of you will stay with Adrian and me. The rest go in on the first round. After you kill the men in the caverns you will split up and search for the girl.
“The second group, the five that stay back with Adrian and myself, will enter the house. Do we know where the entrance is, Alek?”
“Yes. I’ve only been in the hallway that leads from the side entrance of the house to the elevator, but I know where to get into the house.” Alek looked around for a moment, then picked up a stick and drew a map in the dirt.
“The tunnel opens into this large area here. This is probably where the guards will be. So when we open the door we have to be prepared to shoot immediately. There are six tunnels that shoot off of the main cave. The three on the right and the first two on the left are lined with the locked cells with girls in them. The guards all have keys, so anyone that sees a set of keys, grab them.
“The last tunnel on the left leads to the house. It has the same security system as the other doors, same code and everything, only this door is an elevator door. Once you put in the code the doors open up to an elevator. The first floor is where Syrnyk’s living space is, so I suggest starting there.”
“Let me go in there with you guys. I’ll head in after you and I’ll have your back.”
“No, Grady, I want you to stay down in the caverns. If anything goes wrong we’ll need you down there.”
“Okay, I’ll do whatever you say. But if you don’t come back down after a half hour …”
“Dude, if we’re not down by then you’re all welcome to storm the house,” Lucas said. “Let’s get in there.”
The first group of men went in and I brought up the rear with Lucas and our five men. We descended a long set of metal stairs that took us at least twenty feet underground. The tunnel was narrow and cold, with a dirt floor that was littered with stray rocks and wooden boxes that looked like they were from the first world war.
It took a good fifteen minutes to reach the metal door that led into the main cave, and by the time we got there I was starting to sweat. My hands were clammy and I almost dropped my phone twice when I hit my head on the ceiling of the tunnel. I had never been claustrophobic. but it felt like a tomb in there. The top of the tunnel dipped down in many places so that I was forced to hunch down, then twist sideways to get through. Even with all of us using the flashlights on our phones, it was still pitch black, and with forty men inside it felt like there wasn’t enough air.
I knew we were at the door when we stopped moving. We all wound up pressed in close to each other as we came to a stop. I had a guy right in front of me and right behind me, and my shoulders were touching each side of the tunnel. I felt boxed in and was relieved when I saw the light of the door opening up ahead of us.
Nobody said a word, but we all knew what to do. As soon as the door flew open there was a barrage of gunfire. It was hard as hell to hang back and not take part in it. I could hear semi-automatic rifles going off and I hoped to God that Grady was okay.
Lucas and I moved toward the door, but hung back just outside the sliver of dim light that came in through the open space. As soon as the gunfire came to a stop and we led the group of men into the main cave. There were at least twenty bodies on the ground. I had no idea if they were our men or Syrnyk’s, but we didn’t have time to stop and look.
“This way,” Lucas said as he turned down the last cavern on the left and punched a code into a keypad next to a stainless-steel door. The door slid open and right in front of us was the elevator that Alek had said would be there. We all got on and I hit the button for the first floor. I kept expecting to hear sirens or an alarm, but nothing happened. The doors closed and I could feel the elevator lift us up.
I started holding my breath from the moment the doors closed in front of me. It was probably the longest thirty seconds of my life between then and when the doors opened again. I had no idea what was going to be waiting for me on the other side of the door when it opened, and I had no idea where to begin looking for Brooklyn. Or if she was even up there.
BROOKLYN
I started to feel a panic attack develop as the gravity of the situation I was in hit me. I knew this was bad. I knew my life was over the minute I set foot in this man’s house. But suddenly things seemed to escalate, and I was terrified. This man was far worse than Adrian’s father or brother. He was more sadistic and cruel and cold and psychopathic than even the two of them combined.
Through the jumbled thoughts in my panicked brain it became crystal clear that I would be doomed to a life of pure hell if I didn’t do something drastic immediately. There would be no escape through death if I let myself live long enough to be caged in a cell. He would make sure of that. In a split second an entire lifetime of my ruined body being used as his own personal toy flashed before my eyes.
My entire body shook as he grabbed my head in both of his hands and pulled me closer to his face. His breath filled the air around me and suffocated me with its thickness and foul odor. He smelled like death.
The man stood up and picked me up with him, wrapping his arm around my neck and holding me so close that his cock pressed up against my stomach.
“Let us go to the bed. I would like our first encounter to be pleasant and relaxed, and to take my time with you. I will let the anticipation build and I will make sure you feel every single inch of my fist as I squeeze it into that perfect little asshole of yours.”
My body was shoved forward so hard that I fell onto my hands and knees, my arms making a loud noise as
they smacked down onto the cold tile. I stayed there for a moment with my ass in the air and my head close to the floor while I recovered from the shock and pain when I heard his voice behind me.
“I want to watch you crawl in front of me like a good dog, little girl. I want to see your ass high in the air, and I want to watch it sway back and forth as you make your way over to the bed. Entice me, little girl. Dazzle me with that tight hole of yours.”
I raised myself up on my hands and knees and started to crawl. The bathtub was on my left and just beyond that was a freestanding full-length mirror in an ornate, oval frame. My only chance would be to crawl ahead of him and jump up at the last second. If I could break the mirror and grab a piece quick enough, I could plunge it into my neck before he got to me.
My hands shook uncontrollably as I laid each one down on the floor, one in front of the other. I could feel his presence right behind me, almost on top of me, as I moved across the room.
“Seduce me with that ass, little girl. I won’t tell you again.”
I was a good ten steps away from the mirror and every fiber of my being wanted to jump up and lunge at it, but he felt so close behind me. Too close. I took a couple of quick steps to put some distance between us, but he wouldn’t give it to me.
“Slow down, little girl. What’s the hurry? We have all day, every day, for the rest of your life.”
He drew the last few words out so that they sounded like a hiss coming out of a snake’s mouth. I paused for a moment as the words rolled over me, filling me with the urge to vomit and giving me the strength I needed. I jumped up and ran to the mirror, pushing it over and diving on top of the thousands of broken pieces that spread across the white tile.
The loud crash of glass on tile echoed off the walls of the room and rang in my ears. It felt like pandemonium as I desperately groped the sharp pieces of mirror, cutting the tips of my fingers repeatedly as I tried to find a large enough piece, but they were all too small to do any damage to my throat. The shards ground into my knees and the palms of my hands as I reached to grab one I could see with a perfect, long thin blade.
