Page 122 of The Ripper

“What if they want to cut her open and sell her organs, James? What if they want to drug her and turn her into a prostitute?” I pushed the spikes deeper into his flesh. “Would you have slept soundlessly at night? Would you have kissed your children knowing you sold someone? Would you have hugged your wife knowing that you have killed mine?” I cut out one of his nipples and shoved it in his mouth, but he spat it out.

“Please, I didn’t know what their plans were. They just told me that my debt would be paid if I fired her.” Blood came out of his nose, mixed with mucus.

“Please what, you piece of shit?” I clenched my jaw. “You swore an oath to do no harm and broke it because you’re too much of a coward to face the consequences of your own actions. How much did you owe those fuckers, huh?”

“Two hundred thousand,” he cried.

“Two hundred…” I rubbed my temples, hitting the side of my head a few times, trying to regain my composure after hearing the number.

~ Too late.

“You sold my heart for two hundred?” I screamed, grabbing the back of his neck as I sneaked my hand under his skin, grabbing his intestines before pulling them out as I stepped back.

I paced the room as he cried and I smoked several blood-stained cigarettes. I completely ignored his begging, doing my best not to put a bullet in his head.

He lasted ten minutes.

“Colombians,” he whispered, coughing out blood. “They were Colombian. It’s all I know, I swear.”

I nodded and took a step towards him, then shoved my hand through the opening of his belly, pushing under his ribs until I gripped his heart in my hand.

My heart pounded in my chest as I considered the fact that the flight she arrived on nine years ago wasn’t because she was coming back from a trip to Colombia, but because she was from there. It was true that she didn’t have the physical features typical of a Latina woman, but the director just admitted that one of the guys had blonde hair, so maybe Hannibal and I were wrong to assume that she wasn’t a Colombian woman just because she didn’t have the skin tone and hair to match.

I used my free hand to grab his face, forcing him to look me in the eye so I could watch the life draining out of him as I ripped his heart out, throwing it on the floor.

His body went limp.

I screamed in desperation, frustrated that I hadn’t found out anything of real value, because the motherfucker really didn’t know more, and I kicked his chest with my boot, so hard his hand ripped out of the hooks, and his cadaver fell over the grate.

*

“We have to find out who she is,” Midnight told Hannibal when we went back up.

“I don’t have enough information to go on. I searched through every database there is, I ran her face through all facial recognition software, I even hacked into WITSEC, and those fuckers are really good at inscription. I still couldn’t find her,” Hannibal turned to her.

I felt myself growing more desperate by the second. The hope that Midnight’s arrival had pumped into me started to slither away and Arella’s absence broke me to the core of my being.

“We know she’s from Colombia…”

I lit a cigarette and threw myself in a chair, bumping my head on the edge of the table. I was running out of patience, and the director burning in the incinerator hadn’t given us any more than we already knew. I was on the verge of leaving and turning all of Colombia upside down until I found her. House by fucking house, door by fucking door.

“Yes,” Hannibal replied with a frown.

“And we know there were others chasing her before, also connected to the cartels, right?”

“Yes,” I gritted my teeth, bumping my head against the table once more.

“So, it’s clear that the ones who took her are associated with the Narcos.”

“Yeah, but she’s not a fucking drug dealer,” I yelled, exasperated. “I can’t see any connection between my woman and the fucking Narcos,” I slammed my fist on the table.

I hated how every answer posed ten more questions.

“What if she’s the daughter of one, have you thought of that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

No.

The answer pierced through me like an arrow.

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