Page 117 of The Enemy Protector
“Where?”
I give her the address. “Twenty minutes. Can you do it?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Help is coming,” I say to the people. “Stay. Or go.”
None of them move.
“We need to check for more,” I tell Kirill.
We move through the warehouse. The refrigeration units Nelson told me about are humming. I don’t open them. I don’t want to see what’s inside.
There’s a clipboard with scribbled writing. Ages. Blood types. Market values.
Market values.
The people buying these organs have no idea where they’re coming from. Those are not healthy people in those cages.
There’s no one else in the warehouse which tells me this operation is not widely known within the Baranov organization.
Kirill is staring at one of the bodies. I’ve never seen him look horrified. When I stand beside him, I understand why. The chest is open. The fucking heart is gone along with what I assume are the rest of the organs.
“They took the fucking eyes,” Kirill hisses.
“Let’s go,” I tell him.
I’ve never felt such disgust.
“What about them?”
“She’ll find them.”
We leave the warehouse and walk back to my car without a word. We’ve seen and done some pretty violent shit in our lives, but that scene will haunt me. There’s something different about carving up innocent people. I’ll rip the heart from a rival any day of the week, but not that.
That’s just wrong.
“Want a cleanup?” Kirill asks, sliding into the passenger seat.
It’s not my property. There are rules.
But death isn’t enough for those monsters.
“Order it.”
I need to talk to Sofia.
But not tonight.
She’s already reeling from discovering the operation exists. If I tell her what I just witnessed—the systematic butchering, the cages, the people waiting to be harvested—it will break her. And I need her sharp right now.
I’ll tell her. Soon. Just not tonight.
Kirill and I don’t speak during the drive. There’s nothing to say. We both saw the same nightmare.
One of my guys is there to take the car. Kirill gets out without a word and walks to his car parked up the street. I watch him go, knowing he’ll drink himself to sleep tonight. I don’t blame him.
I walk into the house and immediately go to my room. My shirt is torn away. The clothes smell like death and antiseptic. I ball them up and toss them in the corner.
