Page 39 of Broken Empire
“Yes. All done,” Freya said, walking out of the bathroom.
“What’s going on?” I asked, eyes widening as I followed Freya into the main space. “I thought you said…”
The rest of my sentence dried up in my mouth as I saw two men in black standing at the door. Both of them had guns strapped to their hips.
“Freya,” I whispered, stepping closer to her. “What is this?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her gaze to the floor.
My stomach dropped as the truth sank in. This woman never intended to help me. She only pretended she was going to so I would stop guilt-tripping her and let her do her job. The story about the men arriving in four hours was part of the deception; a way to calm me down and make me feel as if I still had enough time to make my great escape.
“How could you?” I said, staring at her as the two men stepped toward me.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated in a low murmur. “I have to think about my family.”
With that, she slipped out of the room, head hanging low.
One of the men grabbed me and clamped a hand over my mouth as the other pulled out a syringe filled with pale yellow fluid. He flicked off the end and jammed it in my right arm.
The drugs took effect immediately, making my limbs weak as dark spots appeared in my vision. The last thing I was conscious of before I blacked out was one of the men speaking to me in a low voice.
“Time to go, doll.”
13
Killian
“I’ve got it.”Leah turned and looked at me with reddened, sleep-deprived eyes. “I found a way onto the site’s sale page.”
I swallowed my mouthful of coffee and sat up straight. “How?”
She waved a hand. “Too long to explain. But this should help, right?”
“Yes.” I peered at the screen. “If we can find the transaction for Shay’s sale, we can find the payment information.”
“And that should lead us to PyotrTwoDelta, whoever he is. Or she,” Leah finished for me. She scrolled through the list for a few seconds, and then her eyes widened. “Here we go. These are all the sales from November 26th. That’s the date she went missing, right?”
“Yes.” I pointed to the bottom section of the list. “There it is. User PyotrTwoDelta. $2.6 million.”
“These people are seriously fucking depraved,” Leah muttered as she clicked on the sales link. “Imagine how much good you could do for the world with three million bucks. Instead these sick fucks are wasting it just to get their rocks off. By killing women, no less.”
My jaw hardened. “Yeah, I know. It’s fucked up,” I said. “Anyway, what can you tell from the transaction details?”
Leah scanned the page. “I hate to tell you this, but it isn’t traceable.”
“How is that possible?”
“He uses Monero. It’s that cryptocurrency I told you about earlier.”
“Surely there’ssomeway to trace it.”
She shook her head. “That’s the whole appeal of Monero. Completely untraceable, unlike other currencies. Like Bitcoin, for example. That’s hard to trace, but it’s still doable. Monero… nope. Impossible.”
I slammed my hand down on the table. “Fuck,” I gritted out.
“Sorry.” Leah’s shoulders slumped as tears shimmered in her bleary eyes. “I’m out of ideas. I really don’t know what to do.”
“It’s not your fault,” I muttered, laying a hand on her back as my mind whirred. I raised my brows a second later. “I might have an idea.”
