Page 4 of Born of Vengeance

No windows. One door. Peeling walls. A broken fan spun lazily overhead, doing more to move dust than air.

Rafael entered through the back, locked three bolts behind him, and pulled the shade down over the single bulb. The room lit up in dim orange.

He peeled off the jacket, gloves, and shirt, tossing them into a metal bin in the corner. Blood had splattered across his forearm—small, barely visible droplets. Still, he doused himself with rubbing alcohol, wiped clean with a rag, and dumped the evidence into the bin.

He lit a match. The fire hissed to life, orange flames licking up the fabric and the memories.

Clean.

He turned toward the wall.

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It was covered in chaos—at least to anyone else.

To Rafael, it was order.

Dozens of photographs, names, hand-sketched maps, route diagrams, and torn receipts were pinned to a corkboard salvaged from a university dumpster. Red thread wove connections across countries. Venezuela. Colombia. Panama. Brazil. Ecuador. All marked with pins, ink circles, and numbered codes. Some photos were crossed out. Some were still blank.

He stepped closer and picked up a marker.

At the bottom corner of the board, a low-resolution photo of the man from the warehouse was pinned with a thumbtack. No name—just “Runner-12.”

Rafael drew a thick red “X” across it and stepped back.

Another one gone.

Still, the wall barely changed. The network remained. Alive. Evolving.

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He opened a drawer and pulled out a small, dented notebook. No digital trail. No cloud. Just ink and paper. Inside, he recorded:

Runner-12

Name: Unconfirmed

Linked to: port operation (east dock), Santiago (Customs), “El Juez” (alias)

Extracted: 02:16

Confirmed: dead

He paused. Tapped the pen against the paper.

Then added one more word.

Whisper: Valderrama

He underlined it.

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Valderrama.

A name spoken through bloodied lips. No first name. No context. Just one word—whispered like a curse.

Rafael underlined it. Noted it. Another thread in the web.

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