Page 114 of One More Chance
The laptop sat open in his trunk, angled like he'd stepped away mid-task, screen glowing faintly. It looked ordinary. Innocent.
I pulled on my black gloves and clicked through desktop folders. It didn't take long. A few clicks, and truth spilled across the screen in flickering images.
Just as Charlie and I suspected, he'd hidden behind a VPN, cloaking his IP address with false countries and shell locations. End-to-end encrypted messaging apps, some banned in half the world, synced directly to his laptop. Layers of protection that made him untouchable.
Until they didn't.
The screen filled with thumbnails. Flickering, grotesque, blurred by speed and pixelation but unmistakable. Kids. Rooms. Chains. Grainy footage captured through webcams or phones. Some couldn't have been more than five or six. Some smiled, like they'd been told this was a game.
Revulsion hit, sharp and choking, followed by an incandescent fury that shredded my brain to ribbons. My vision blurred but I kept breathing as I chanted to myself.In through the nose. Out through the mouth.Eventually, the rage quieted enough to think.
Good fucking god, how I would relish tearing him apart with my bare hands.
Not yet. Not here. I reined myself in. Justice would come on my terms.
With surgical precision, I closed the laptop, leaving behind whatever sickness he believed safely hidden, and turned away, every nerve burning with purpose.
I used his own tools against him; taped his mouth shut, bagged him like trash in the tarp, and left his wallet in the car. There would be neither screams nor words from him, only muffled whimpers whenever consciousness returned.
I had considered killing him there, but I wanted him to see his end; I wanted him to feel the same helpless dread those little boys and girls had felt because of him.
I dragged him back to my truck, dead weight through dirt and underbrush, then slung him in the back. The storm should cover my tracks, the wind and rain washing away any trace we'd been through here. All that would remain of this evening would be my memories of it.
And I planned to bury those, too.
I drove into darkness with my monster tied in the back, the engine humming beneath my hands. For the first time since my previous life, power replaced helplessness.
I am alive. I am saving my daughter this time.
Back at home, the concrete mixer churned slowly; a mechanical growl against a still winter night.
I stood over the barn foundation's skeleton, rebar stretching up like exposed ribs. A cigar burned between my fingers, flaring with each inhale. I'd checked every measurement twice. Ten feet deep. Reinforced. Secure.
At Charlie's request, I'd designed a shelter to go beneath the new barn. Hidden in plain sight, engineered to house two families, stockedwith rations, backup power, clean water filtration, radiation shielding. Everything we'd need if the world cracked open again.
When I presented the idea to Sloane, I expected resistance. Questions. Suspicion. She surprised me, turning the concept over with that quiet, deliberate grace she carried then nodded.
"That's smart," she said. "Just in case."
No interrogation. No probing my motives. No asking why I'd drawn schematics months before Charlie even mentioned a shelter. Her trust was the most precious gift I'd ever earned.
I knew from the very first shovelful of dirt that this shelter would also serve as a tomb. A monument to my vengeance. The only missing piece was the monster I needed to bury in it. Cold concrete pressed into earth like judgment while above, we'd build something else: a home. A haven. A contradiction like my double lives.
But most importantly, a safe place for the one he tried to take from me.
The mixer groaned as I released the hatch, watching thick gray slurry pour into the wooden mold. I turned to my truck, staring at the already-lowered tailgate.
The bundle remained: black tarp, rope, shifting slightly with muffled sounds.
I grabbed it like drywall I'd carried a thousand times, muscles barely registering the weight. Give or take, he was a hundred pounds of dead weight.
Well, he isn't dead yet.
I carried him to the foundation's edge, his moans growing louder before I dropped him with a heavy thud. A muffled yelp sounded through the duct tape, and I fought the urge to kick him to death, to crush his balls beneath my boots and listen to him scream.
I crouched beside the bundle, yanked the tarp enough to reveal his face. Eyes wild, red-rimmed, drowning in panic. Jeremy Rogers, according to the license I'd left in his car. Middle-aged, soft, already sweating through his collar despite the night air.
This pathetic fuck took her from me.
