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Inside, was a lab he used for his “screenings” and custom cages. They were empty. Relieved, I carried my prisoner over to the metal table and prepped him.

When he woke, he was strapped in place, naked and I had pulled on the hazmat suit I’d brought with me for just this occasion. It wasn’t air sealed, but it would keep the blood off my clothes. I’d also gotten some tools from upstairs.

Weiss began to bellow in German.

“No sprechen zie deutsche,” I informed him as I checked the meat cleaver from his kitchen. It was definitely sharp enough. Someone had taken care of his blades.

“Who are you?” Spittle flew out with his question.

“You bought people,” I told him calmly. “You bought a lot of people. It’s time to pay your debt.”

“I have no debt—I paid for them.”

“Just call me the repo man,” I told him. Maybe he didn’t get the joke. He would. It took a while, particularly while he squirmed and screamed. Butchering was gruesome work. His mind gave out long before his body did. Survival instincts and all that.

When I was done, there wasn’t much of him left—just scraps, bone, and a red smear where a man used to be.

Cleanup took longer than I liked. Bastard had more servers than I expected. I pulled every drive, stuffed them into my bag.

“Went to Austria and all I brought back were these computer parts,” I muttered.

Grace would want a souvenir. I glanced back at what remained of Weiss.

Yeah… definitely something nicer. She liked chocolate. Switzerland wasn’t far.

I drenched the lab in chemicals—walls, floors, equipment. Nothing Weiss built, studied, or tortured into existence deserved to survive.

Back at the hotel, I dropped the full report into the draft folder.

Job complete.

VOODOO

SINGAPORE

Slipping into the penthouse like a shadow, I paused to listen and pressed a gloved hand to the wall. The guards maintained a strict patrol schedule. This time of night, only two were on duty. They traded off sweeping the place intermittently.

Right on cue, guard number one walked around the corner. I fired one shot, right between the eyes. The man still wore a puzzled expression as he stared at me. It took time for his body to catch up with reality. Then he dropped.

The silencer kept the sound from traveling too far.

Cold certainty accompanied me as I stepped over the guard.

The problem with “randomly” scheduling their patrols, nothing was truly random.

Most people thrived on order, on precision, and they even “randomized” on schedule.

Shifting five minutes forward, each day of the week until they started at the top of the hour again.

Not hard to figure out.

The second guard was in the kitchen, a television on low, with some show I couldn’t make out. It wasn’t important. The man had his back to the door, and he was drinking milk from a carton when I slipped the door inward, then fired.

This time, the shot went through the back of his head. It made a hell of a mess in the kitchen. Fortunately, it wasn’t Lunchbox’s kitchen, so I didn’t have to worry about it. Verifying there were only two as per usual took all of five extra minutes.

Assured that we were alone, I headed up the stairs to Emil Zhang’s bedroom. He was the spider behind the routes— a mover. He built invisible cages, and took care of transporting across the world. They had others, but Zhang was at the center.

The bedroom door was unlocked, the room was dark save for a light by the bed.

A girl sat on the floor next to the bed, a shackle on her ankle and a miserable look on her face.

She jerked her head up, eyes wide as I came in.

I pressed a finger to my lips. She looked wildly toward the open bathroom door. Humming carried from inside.

With her delicate build and Asian features, the girl chained there gave my heart a vicious tug. I crossed to where she was, checked the shackle without laying a finger on her. I mimed “key” and hoped like hell that it translated.

Though I was dressed in black from head to foot, some of the terror drained from her expression. Course, when one lived with a monster, what was one more?

She looked at the bathroom, almost pointedly.

Got it.

I held up a finger for her to wait. Then I walked to the bathroom and cleared my throat. Zhang whirled around and I fired a single round into his knee. His scream was particularly pitiful.

Around his neck was a chain. I yanked it off and didn’t care much if it tore skin with it. Then I seized him by the back of the neck and dragged him into the room. His prisoner flinched back, hugging herself. Then I held up the key and something painful crept into her empty eyes.

Hope.

I motioned to her hands and she held one out.

I dropped the key in it. Probably better for her if I kept my distance.

She fumbled with the lock, but the shackle came off and she shuddered.

The poor thing was definitely shaky and the dark, raw circle around where the shackle had been told me everything about her treatment.

On shaky feet, she rose and then walked over to the dresser. Each step, she cast me a look, then took another. I hadn’t missed the cutlery that was there on the tray with food. Zhang was begging, but I ignored him.

When she seized the knife I wasn’t particularly surprised. I’d had a plan for Zhang, but she deserved to do it her way. She gripped the knife tightly then looked at me, wide-eyed and wary.

Fair enough, I holstered the gun, then wrenched Zhang’s arms behind him.

“Go for it,” I offered.

Whether she understood the words or the positioning. She didn’t hesitate. She flew across the room and started stabbing him. She didn’t have the strength to sink the knife in deep. But death from a thousand cuts worked for me…

I waited until she’d exhausted herself, then finished the job. Zhang’s funds would be drained, but I found the safe he kept and used the code for it. Inside was more than enough to fill a bag and give it to the girl he’d held. She stared at it and then at me.

When she kept repeating the same phrase over and over, I dug out my phone and the translation app.

“Thank you, dark angel. Thank you.”

It took a little convincing, but she left with me. I found a shelter and drove her straight there. She burst into tears all over again but she took the bag and fled inside. I waited to yank off the mask until she was gone.

I sent a message to the draft folder.

Another one bites the dust.

BONES

OSAKA, JAPAN

I got into the underground club from the kitchen. No backup, no warning. The lights strobed inside and the dancers froze when they saw me. The guards really didn’t have time to react. I already knew where they were. I didn’t waste any ammo, each shot clean, efficient and unforgiving.

I found Renji Takeda, black market buyer and entertainer, in his private lounge, mid-toast.

“You,” Takeda said, a rising shock reflected on his face. “You’re real.”

“I am,” I said. “But you won’t be for long.” The two men with him were in the way. One shot. Then another. And we were alone.

I had a knife. I wouldn’t need it.

Takeda had been the one who arranged Grace’s initial kidnapping. He’d been the one who put her on the road to the hell she’d suffered. Didn’t matter that he was fulfilling an order. Didn’t matter that he hadn't actually targeted her personally.

No, he’d hurt her.

Now I was going to hurt him.

Takeda didn’t scream. His broken jaw didn’t let him. That was fine, I didn’t need him to hear his suffering. There were two hundred and six bones in the human body.

I planned to break every single one of his.