Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Two
They didn’t stop to rest.
Dawn was only just beginning to thin the night when the vans pulled away from the first compound, the sky bruised with pale grey and the promise of morning that felt undeserved. Dust clung to the tires. Blood clung to everything else and no one spoke. What they had done back there didn’t ask for words, and this morning wasn’t about recognition or command. It was about erasing the rot Marco had established in their world.
Ahmet leaned forward in his seat, elbows braced against his knees, gaze fixed on the road as if it were a map only he could read. The bandage beneath his shirt had shifted again. He felt it with every bump, the slow, sticky warmth spreading where Asli’s bullet had torn through him hours earlier. He didn’t acknowledge it. Pain had never been a warning to him only background noise.
Markus looked at him once, long enough to confirm what he already knew, then faced forward again. Saying anything would have been pointless. When Ahmet moved like this, there was no argument that could reach him.
The second warehouse appeared just as the light began to change. No noise spilled from it. No careless silhouettes loitered near the gates like the first one. From afar, it looked almost legitimate; lights dimmed but steady, fencing intact, and guards positioned with enough discipline to convince an outsider everything was under control.
Ahmet felt the lie in it immediately.
"Here," he said, quiet and firm. The vehicle slowed and stopped. The engine cut, and the morning air crept in, cool and sharp.
They went on foot, keeping to the edges, letting the weak light work for them instead of against them. From behind the fencing, the truth showed itself in fragments. Trucks packed too tightly. Men moving with restless purpose instead of boredom. Doors opening and closing far too often for a place that claimed to be clean. This wasn’t relaxed. They were just existing.
Good.
They waited. Not because time softened them, but because Ahmet knew the difference between striking at the right moment and rushing in just to make noise.
A side door finally opened. Two men stepped out, voices low, one already striking a lighter while the other scrolled through his phone, irritation written into the slope of his shoulders. Neither of them had time to register the sound behind them. The cigarette hit the ground still burning. Their bodies were gone before the door could swing shut again.
One of the men eased it open wider, keeping the bodies close, using their weight to stop the mechanism from locking again. Markus and Ahmet slipped through first, their shoulders squared, guns low but ready... Always ready. The others followed in a tight line, pulling the door shut behind them without making a sound.
Music thumped through the building immediately. It was too loud, too steady, the kind meant to drown thought as much as noise. The bass vibrated through the floor, through their boots, and through down their bones.
The smell hit first. Sweat. Chemicals. Old fear that had soaked into concrete and never left.
They moved deeper, boots quiet despite the music, shoulders brushing past stacked crates and partitioned walls. The walls did little to block the sound; their laughter layered wrong over the beat, voices raised in command, and not pleasure.
And then, cutting through it all, they heard it.
Crying.
Not loud. Not hysterical. The kind that had learned it was safer to stay small.
Ahmet stopped.
The sound threaded through the space ahead of them, breaking and catching, followed by a sharp male voice and the dull slap of something heavy against flesh. Markus felt it in his jaw before he realized he had clenched it.
They rounded the corner.
Women lined the far wall, chains looped cruelly around their necks, metal collars bolted tight enough to leave red grooves in skin already bruised and raw. Some were barefoot. Some couldn’t have been older than girls. Men shoved them forward in short, violent motions, barking orders like they were handling livestock instead of human beings.
Then it dawned on them: each woman was tethered just close enough to be dragged forward, just loose enough to be paraded, assessed, passed between hands that treated them as inventory. Doors opened and closed along the walls, men pulling women away and shoving others forward to take their place, the exchange quick, practiced, and utterly devoid of shame. This wasn’t containment. This was a market.
One woman stumbled and a man yanked her chain hard enough to snap her head back, laughing as she gasped for breath.
Something inside Ahmet went quiet.
He stepped forward.
The first man never saw it coming. Ahmet didn’t raise his weapon. He closed the distance in three strides and drove his elbow into the man’s throat, hard and precise. Bone cracked. The man dropped without a sound, choking on nothing.
The room erupted.
Markus was already moving, gun coming up as he barked orders sharp enough to cut through panic. "Take the sides. Get them away from the women."
The men followed instinctively. This wasn’t training anymore. This was muscle memory and fury.
Gunfire snapped through the space, controlled and deliberate. Not wild. Not reckless. Ahmet’s men knew better than to spray bullets where hostages stood. Some of the traffickers rushed forward, knives flashing, desperation making them stupid. Markus met one head-on, blocking the blade with his forearm and driving his fist into the man’s face so hard teeth skittered across the floor.

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