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“And the next time anyone tries to tie you up, don’t just liethere. Fight like they’re going to set you on fire because what they’ll do to you will be worse.”
Her breath quickens, and she rolls to the side, her chest rising and falling beneath the silk camisole. “Alright. What’s next?”
I rise to my feet and walk around my delectable little ghost. “You know what to do. Break free.”
She gazes up at me, her eyes widening. “But?—”
“If you don’t figure it out, you will be punished.”
SEVENTY-EIGHT
XERO
As expected, Amethyst failed at escaping a hogtie. Most civilians would, considering it took us an entire lesson at the academy to free ourselves from this form of bondage.
The trick to it is starting with simpler restraints and building up from there, but I needed to impress upon her the seriousness of her situation. When I took her down to the basement, she cringed at the sight of her attackers, even knowing that they were sent to make her the victim of a snuff movie.
Every woman I know would fly into a murderous rage, shove me aside, and slash at those men until she got all the answers. Amethyst stood in the corner with her back turned.
Being in the clutches of an assassin is like tiptoeing through a graveyard compared to this shit. If getting attacked by four men wasn’t enough to sharpen her resolve, then feeling helpless while hogtied might make her come to her senses.
After leaving her whining in the green room, I gather a small team in the kitchen. Jynxson to take the lead, Tyler for his hacking skills, and the Spring brothers, fraternal twins I recruited from the first graduation run I raided, for backup.
They are the best people I know for making themselves inconspicuous. Their talents have allowed us to infiltrate any organization and get the lowdown on their inner workings.
After updating Tyler and Jynxson on the situation, I take the twins down to the basement, where we continue the interrogation. When Paul stopped being talkative, he joined Dale on the pile of bodies. Between the next two men, we extracted more information about X-Cite Media’s operations, including the name and phone number of a talent scout.
I untie Amethyst for brunch and check on her throughout the day, dishing out basic instructions on how to tie knots and untie them, along with the tips and tricks required to break free from numerous bindings. By the time I’m ready to meet the X-Cite Media scout, I take her upstairs and leave her in a hogtie.
Number 13 is heavily guarded. We’ve changed the doors, reinforced the locks, and have people stationed in the basement, in cars parked on Parisii Drive, and in her backyard. Anyone trying to get to Amethyst will be captured and interrogated. The hunch that someone connected to Father is behind the snuff movies is too impossible to resist.
After sundown, I drive to a less salubrious neighborhood within Beaumont City, where the townhouses that aren’t owned by slum landlords are run by pimps. This red-light district is so shitty that no one bothers to change the streetlights, and the only illumination comes from headlights.
Hookers march the sidewalks, dodging addicts that shuffle past like the walking dead. As I park outside the address Paul gave up, I can’t help but wonder what kind of corruption allows an entire section of town to fall to such ruin.
“I’m in place,” I say into my earpiece.
“We’ve stopped around the corner,” Jynxson replies.
We’ve come in separate vehicles because any organization that can lose five enforcers is large enough to have people watching their recruiter. The twins are already scoping out the out-of-town studio with a view to infiltrate the operation.
The purpose of tonight’s meeting is to get close enough to meet their leader, who may or may not be Father. Failing that, I want to learn more about its business operations, including how they obtain the women they murder on camera.
I step out of the car and walk up the stairs of the only townhouse with boarded-up windows from its basement level to theroof. It’s sandwiched between two crumbling buildings, yet security lights flare to life, illuminating an unusually sturdy-looking front door.
“Who’s there?” a voice asks through the intercom.
“Xavier Wetwang,” I mutter, wanting to throttle Tyler for choosing that name.
He snickers. “Come through.”
According to my hacker, the male talent working for X-Cite Media give themselves stage names like Long Dong Netherthong, Hugh Cockermouth, and Doug Fingringhoe. Tyler looked up the last names, and they’re all places in England. According to him, Wetwang is a village in Yorkshire.
The door buzzes, and I step into a darkened mailroom with security cameras on all four corners of the ceiling. Mail lockers fill the walls on the left and right, and another door stands straight ahead.
“Close the door behind you,” says the voice.
I pull it shut.
