Ballistic (A Vigilantes Novel)

by Keri Lake

  Standing on the precipice, the layer of stone thinned to fragile porcelain, I waited for that one single push over the edge.

  To shatter and break me for the last time.

  Through the diminishing veil of my high, I stared up at the man looming over me. His sunken, beady eyes and wrinkled skin served as a sickening reminder that he was three times my age, and the scent of sex clinging to his skin failed to erase the joy he’d taken in exploiting my youth. My captor, whose name apparently made hardened criminals piss their pants, yet I couldn’t summon more than hatred and a small bit of vomit at the back of my throat for the many times he’d forced me to scream it.

  Tesarik.

  Ugh. The very thought shot acids into my sinuses.

  “This is the last time I keep you to myself, Nicoleta,” he said, zipping his slacks as he rose up from the bed to which I’d been strapped down like a death row inmate, awaiting lethal injection. “You’re no longer under my protection. You’ll no longer stay in my home. Instead, you’ll be treated like the whore you are. This is what your betrayal has brought upon you.” His voice, colored by a thick Slovak accent, scraped across my spine like ground glass, threatening to breach what little haze still remained from my pills.

  I rolled my head on the pillow and snickered, uncontrollably of course. Nothing about what he’d said was funny, but that was the beauty of the drugs. Nothing was as it seemed, either.

  Besides that, other things pulled my attention from his words. The sudden hunger in my stomach. The ache between my thighs. The unrelenting desire to watch his face smash into a brick wall and explode into a fountain of blood.

  My hips ground into the bed, muscles weak. Needing. Always needing. I tipped my head back into the pillow, the soft cotton brushing against my shaved skull—a reminder of what they’d taken from me. My fingers dug into the leather restraints that strapped me to what looked like a hospital bed. A tugging from somewhere inside begged for more of something. A craving I couldn’t pinpoint, let alone feed. The drugs were waning, and whatever it was clawed at my flesh, desperate to crawl out of my skin and set it free. A monster tearing through its confines.

  Or perhaps it was my innocence, driving itself from the horrors of what it’d been forced to endure the past few months. Seeking a means of escape in my fast-approaching lucidity.

  I’d seen the other girls. I knew what it meant to fall outside of his protection. How quickly those vibrant young things became lifeless weathered props, too far gone to be saved. I’d seen all of the ugly things and felt nothing for them, because feelings had become such tragic luxuries, and I wouldn’t be pulled under like the others. I’d stay high above it all—higher than the clouds, if I had to.

  “Give me my pills.” The bruising, swollen split to my lip slurred my words. As if having to sleep every night in a cold storage unit with no light and a distant awareness of mice scavenging for food wasn’t enough, I’d also had to face Tesarik’s juvenile anger, the apparent hurt he’d felt from my betrayal. The memory still stinging my lips.

  “You know what your problem is, child? You fail to recognize when you’re in deep shit.” Hot breath fanned across my neck, the thick scent of liquor like smelling salts that slowly peeled me back into reality. “Do you know how much one of my productions goes for? How many have commissioned you already?” His finger skated down my temple, the smell of my body still clinging to his skin, and I breathed hard through my nose to hold back the rage, the urge to chew it from his hands and spit it onto the floor. “Every dinner party, every smile that greeted you, every hand that brushed your innocent flesh was a solicitation for your suffering.”

  In the months since my capture, I’d learned Tesarik’s most lucrative business involved abusing mostly females on camera. He and some bigwig had purchased an old slaughterhouse that’d been shut down years ago and turned it into a production studio for hardcore porn—the kind that catered to a particular audience. And for a price, some really depraved shit. Even murder. Buyers from all over the world would commission the productions at a cost of millions.

  And the lives of innocents.

  A terrifying network of power and corruption that’d become my fate for having betrayed him, one that should’ve had me begging him for some measure of mercy. Yet, the only thing I feared in that moment was the thought that I’d soon be sober. That I might absorb his words into my flesh and allow them to vibrate inside my bones. To wake me from the slumber of the last few weeks, during which I’d been sent to endure life in solitary, while he fed me the only drug in existence that made a person crave touch like air, or food.

  Hedonic.

  A sex drug, more addictive than heroine with twice the potency of ecstasy. Had she still been alive, my insanely religious mother would’ve called it the devil’s poison. She’d have mistaken the intense craving for sex as the devil’s hand, stroking a desire to sin.

  A thought that made me want to laugh right then. Oh, if only she could’ve seen me. Seen how quickly I’d have sold my own soul to have Satan’s poison pumping through my veins again.

  I hadn’t even known what it was, how intoxicating, when Tesarik first placed those pretty pink pills on my tongue, but for more hours than I could count, it’d become the most powerful means of torture. That I could beg him for sex the way I had, when he’d walked into the room, just to secure my next dose shot another round of bile up my throat, and I turned my head in time to let it splash onto the concrete floor below.

  Ignoring it, Tesarik stepped around the bed to the other side, closer to the door. “I gave you sanctuary, Nicoleta, on the basis of your good behavior.” Tipping his head as he gripped the foot of the bed, he wore the kind of grin I wanted to smack right off his face. “Look at you now. Your fearless bodyguard can’t save you. He’s too busy having his limbs removed. But I’ll give you the opportunity to say your goodbyes.”

  Aleksey. No.

  “Give me the pills.” I breathed hard through my nose, wrists burning in the cuffs. I needed the distraction. The pills. I had to have the pills, or everything would crash in on me. Destroy me from the inside out.

  The need and craving slithered through my belly and under my skin like venomous snakes frantically trying to escape. Any moment, they’d chew through my skin, and I’d be left twitching in pain, sobbing for my long-time friend, who probably lay begging for death.

  Tesarik’s cruel and mocking chuckle bounced off the walls of the small storage unit where I’d been kept for I didn’t even know how long. Maybe a month already. There were others who came and went, too, because I’d heard them sometimes, screaming. Begging. All of us enslaved to the pills the guards liked to withhold for fun.

  “Okay. I’ll gift you what you need. But only because, in spite of everything, your betrayal, your lies, your manipulation, I cannot bring myself to hate you.” He rubbed his hand over my thigh, and as much as I wanted to feel sick because of it, I surrendered for the sake of my pills. “What is it you Americans say? I’m pussy-whipped! Ha!” His fingers dug harder, bruising the inner part of my thigh.

  He did hate me, because giving me another dose meant more torment. More craving. More sleepless nights and needing. Yet, without the pills, I faced the kind of withdrawals that made me beg for my own death.

  I was in a cycle of needing the pills to survive and surviving for the pills. Somewhere in between, I’d lost my purpose, the very reason I’d ended up on Tesarik’s radar.

  “I’ll have Vinco bring another dose.”

  My muscles shrank under the weight of his words. Vinco, the bastard guard who patrolled the facility, enjoyed the torment of feeding me the pills. Would often taunt me to perform favors in exchange for them. Things that filled my head with the kind of shame powerful enough to leave me weeping facedown into the mattress as he carried out his twisted amusements.

  I couldn’t let those nightmarish images invade my headspace. Not now.

  “Please.” The tight clench of my jaw tamped down the plea burning i
nside my chest.

  With a tsk, he shook his head and reached inside his pocket. The sight of the small, blue bottle set my heart alight with some disgusting measure of joy I couldn’t bear to think about too much.

  “This will be your last, which is a shame. Perhaps it’s only coincidence there’ve been no incidents in our operations since I’ve taken you in.” He dumped one of the pills into his palm and set it on my anxiously awaiting tongue. “Tonight you’ll be transported to a new location. One I think you’ll find most unsettling.”

  The moment it began to dissolve on my tongue, the room softened, the fluorescent light above dulling to an ambient glow. White fuzz settled over my brain, sabotaging the thoughts from just moments before. My muscles warmed, like sitting by a cozy fireplace, and everything felt safe, numb. Blissfully numb.

  What is your purpose? The familiar voice of a girl I couldn’t bear to think about right then chimed inside my head, too distant to sober me. One whose tone stirred a somber note in my chest, but failed to pull me out of the clouds. Please remember.

  The room flipped to blackness for two seconds, before the door lifted to reveal floodlights outside, nothing but bright orbs whose radiant beams blurred behind the two men standing guard—Tesarik’s personal bodyguards—and, behind them, Vinco.

  Remember.

  Tesarik sidled up alongside the bed, staring down at me, blocking out most of the light. “My clients don’t pay good money to watch you smile. They pay to hear your screams. Enjoy, Nicoleta. Tonight you will know true suffering. And you can thank your father for that.”

  I focused on the skinny ray of light slicing across the shadows of his face, tears tickling my temples as they slid from my eyes. Through a slow blink, I watched his form fade into the blackness, like falling deeper into the ocean while the surface got farther away. And I remembered the time my mother told me that if I ever felt like I was drowning, to learn how to breathe underwater.

  So I did.

  And I swore I’d never resurface again.

  3

  Dax

  Two hours later …

  I ducked low into the row of prickly bushes that made up a shallow forest, across from the dilapidated storage facility whose lack of floodlights and cracked pavement, overgrown with weeds, gave it an abandoned appearance. To any passerby, it probably looked to be a long-forgotten business, like most of the deserted buildings scattered throughout the city. I knew better.

  The place happened to be Tesarik’s main hub for storing and moving cargo. Human cargo. And one of those storage units might’ve housed the girl I’d spent months searching for—the one with amber eyes and blonde hair who’d haunted my dreams damn near every night since I’d first laid eyes on her. The one I’d watched drive off with Tesarik without a prayer of ever being found again.

  As I understood it, the girls didn’t stay long in the storage units, maybe a month, max, so it was possible we were too late, but I’d be damned if I’d let another opportunity pass. Even if the shithole was crawling with Tesarik’s men, it’d be worth ridding my head of the guilt and frustration that gnawed me every time I thought about how close I’d come to saving her that day.

  While I’d hoped to track down the weasely piece of shit, Tesarik, too, the singular panel van parked out front seemed a bit anemic for the entourage he typically traveled with.

  “Why don’t we call the cops again?” The voice arrived from my left, where Evander, a friend of mine who’d grown up with me on the streets, sat casually smoking his cigarette. Chatty bastard, but he was built like a freight train and fought like a pit bull. Good guy to have around when shit went down.

  “Last time the cops showed up, they got away. I’m not taking any chances.” I’d waited too long to track down Tesarik’s operations, to find the girl who’d slipped right through my hands. A victim, auctioned off like cattle, to be used and abused by the men who made up a tight ring known as Seventh Circle. An underground society of perverts who got off on some pretty depraved shit.

  Not just criminals, either. It was a whole network that operated off the grid, comprised of corrupt cops, politicians, counselors, hell, even schoolteachers and religious figures. They were known to have ties to cartels, which made them virtually untouchable.

  Until I’d gotten a tip on their temporary holding spot, where they kept the girls stored away.

  “How many of those you think have girls in ‘em?” As if Evander could read my mind right then.

  “No idea. He doesn’t keep them here for long. For him, it’s like throwing money away, just having them sit there.”

  “I say we bankrupt the bastard and clear out every unit. Torch the place and watch them scatter like ants.”

  “I have no idea what we’re up against here. If it’s the one girl, a dozen girls, or a bunch of empty fucking storage units. I’m not playing superhero tonight. I’m sticking to the plan, until we know who’s down there.” My buddy Rhys and another friend of ours had left to take position on the south end of the property, and the plan was to trap the handlers and, hopefully, Tesarik inside, round them up in the center like sheep for the slaughter.

  “You’ve lost your adventurous streak, man. Won’t be long before you’re drinkin’ prunes and beggin’ the hot young nurses to change your shitty diapers.” Evander’s snickering laugh got cut short by his wheezing cough, and I flipped him off without bothering to look at him.

  “Ah, just pissin’ with you. ‘Time is it?”

  Tugging back the sleeve of my black coat, I checked my watch. “After nine,” I said, pushing the sleeve back down my arm.

  “Whoa. ‘The fuck’s that?”

  “What?” I asked, already knowing what’d caught his eye.

  Evander shoved the cigarette into his mouth and nabbed my arm. Yanking the sleeve back again, he pointed to the ink on my wrist.

  Not quite new, as I’d had it a couple months, but the circle seven tattooed there wasn’t something I cared to show off. It was a calling card, a pass to get into some of the most debase and twisted places in the underbelly. Places no cop could ever penetrate, because the tattoo only meant something to the members, and anyone who didn’t have one was likely denied entry, or killed on the spot. In fact, the group didn’t take new clients unless they came recommended by a club member, making them completely impenetrable.

  The extent I’d been willing to go just to find the girl.

  I wrenched my arm out of his grip and covered it up again. “It’s nothing.”

  “You’re not getting into some devil-worshipping bullshit, are you? What’s that thing all the goth people masturbate around? A penta something.”

  “Pentagram?”

  “Yeah, but it’s upside, or some shit.”

  “No. It’s not a pentagram. It’s clearly a seven. And no, I’m not a devil worshiper.”

  The group it represented wasn’t far off, though. Bunch of rotten bastards that could all burn and make the world a better place.

  “Good. That shit freaks me out. Sacrificing animals, and fucking virgins in the woods.”

  I stole a moment to frown back at him, and returned my attention toward the storage facility.

  “That part wouldn’t be so bad, though. I mean, as long as the virgin was down with it. I’d have her ride me, so she didn’t end up with a stick up her ass, or something. First time is important, ya know? She has to be comfortable with it.”

  “Can you shut the fuck up now? I’m trying to stay focused.”

  “Who gave you the tip, anyway?”

  “A friend.”

  “I’ve known you a long time, Dax. Long ass time. So what the fuck kind of shady friends have ties with these bastards?” He gave a quick nod toward the facility. “I say we grab our guns and just start shooting every motherfucker we see.”

  Much as I’d have loved to do the same thing, the plan came down to timing. I couldn’t afford to lose them again. I’d gotten word that Tesarik had holed up deep inside the city to lay low, but the gir
l had been held in the abandoned storage units. Holding cells, until she’d likely be transported out to buyers, or thrown into some sickening production to be uploaded to the dark net.

  “That’s why you’re not in charge.” I nodded toward where a camera panned the front entrance. “They’ll see us coming. We wait for the signal from Rhys.”

  “What’s the deal with this girl, man? Lots of girls need saving. What makes this one so special?”

  A quick glance over my shoulder, and I shook my head. “Wish I knew.”

  Except, I did. From the time she’d been kidnapped, she was all I could think about. Even right then, the memories of that day stirred a cold hollow somewhere inside of me.

  “She doesn’t belong to you.”

  Tesarik’s eye twitched, and my mind scrambled to keep track of every moment. Every flinch. Ready to pull the trigger.

  “Freeze!” The shouts came to the right of us.

  I dared a quick glance toward where two police officers advanced, about two hundred yards away.

  Tesarik’s eyes shifted, as if a million scenarios flashed behind them and he tried to choose one. “Expect me,” he said.

  “I will,” I gritted out.

  As Tesarik spun away, I dove forward and wriggled the door of the SUV. Locked. With the butt of the gun, I slammed it into the back window of the vehicle, busting out the glass, and caught a glimpse of the girl. From where she lay on the floor in front of the SUV’s backseat, the most beautiful topaz-colored eyes I’d ever seen stared back at me, set beneath upturned brows. I’d only just popped the lock, when the SUV jerked forward, knocking my elbow into the frame, the gun from my hand, and I yanked it out as Tesarik hit the gas.

  Tires squealed as Tesarik hammered out of the parking lot with one of the officers firing at the wheels. The other took off for the patrol car.

  I jogged after the SUV, mentally noting the license plate number, but knew better. The car would be dumped by the end of the day.

  The girl? Not long after that.