Page 6 of The Vagabond

“Frank Falcone,” he said. “I’m a friend of Mia’s.”

He said her name like it was a test. I said nothing. That was the moment I realized her name could kill me. That all of this—the vans, the hands, the silence—was because someone wanted to get to her. Or maybe all of us.

He asked where she was. I kept my mouth shut. No good would come of them having control over the three of us.

They dragged me down a red-lit hallway, the floors sticky, laughter muffled behind closed doors. I was shoved into a room. A prison of sorts. Tied to a chair. The ropes cut into my wrists like punishment for disobedience. Then the camera came out.Click. Click. Click.Flashbulbs like gunshots, photographing my humiliation like I was merchandise.

My shirt was torn open. No words were spoken. Just angles, lighting—like I was being prepped for auction. Then they untied me. Let me walk around the small, confined space like I should be grateful. They didn’t need restraints anymore. The fear was doing that job just fine. I didn’t know what day it was. Time blurred. Hours stretched. No Sophia. No Mia. No escape.

They drugged me before the next phase. There was a burn in my arm, then cotton flooding my brain, the way my limbs betrayed me. The world grew soft around the edges. Slippery. Unreal. But what came next was very real.

The cargo ship. Metal groaning beneath my feet. Salt in the air. Girls—dozens of them—lined up like cattle. Some younger than me. Some older. All empty. All silent. Some cried. Some didn’t even blink. Just stared down at the floor like they'd already left their bodies behind.

Below deck, there was only darkness. The stench of seaweed, decay, and sweat. We were packed in like freight. Everyone was silent. There was just fear. So much fear. And in that darkness, I remembered what Sophia had said back in the halfway house.

“That’s one way to meet a billionaire.”

I almost laughed. Almost screamed. Instead, I vomited. Because she was right. I was about to meet one. But not at a gala. Not in a penthouse. Not in some modern-day fairy tale.

No. I met him drugged, shackled, and sold. His name was Altin Kadri. He didn’t greet me or give me his voice. He just looked at me like I was an investment. A thing.

They took me to his castle—yes, a fucking castle—perched high on a cold, foreign cliff. With stone walls and iron gates. Towers like jagged teeth.

The air smelled like old books and money and blood. I stumbled up the stairs. Half-conscious. Half-aware. My wrists still raw. My skin crawling with the weight of hands that touched me like I didn’t matter.

And in the haze of that descent into hell, I thought of Mia’s eyes—cold and clear and always watching. I thought of Sophia. Her laugh. Her pout. Her dreams of a life we would never have. And something inside me broke. Because this? This was the kind of billionaire Sophia had never imagined. And I realized—brutally, irrevocably—that there was no saving me now.

4

SAXON - TWO YEARS AGO

There’s a photograph buried beneath the weight of my case files.

Old. Warped. Fading at the corners like it’s trying to disappear the way she did. The ink has started to smudge, the paper curling inward like it's too tired to hold the memory anymore.

But her smile? It’s still intact. Bright. The way I will always remember her. Still fucking haunting.

Sienna North. Sixteen years old. Cheekbones like our mother. Eyes like mine. And a laugh that used to echo through the house like music we didn’t know we’d miss until it was gone.

She didn’t run away. She didn’t overdose. She didn’t vanish because she wanted to start over. She was taken. No note. No last call. No “be safe” or “I love you.” Just absence. Sharp. Clean. Merciless.

I spent months chasing shadows—through alleys, across borders, into backrooms that smelled of fury. I broke down doors with a badge in one hand and vengeance in the other. I threatened. I bribed. I begged. And when the answers came?They didn’t come wrapped in justice. They came soaked in something so dark, I was throwing up for days.

Human trafficking.

That’s what they call it on the reports. In the briefings. In the interviews I’ve been trained to deliver without flinching. But what I found wasn’t trafficking. It was farming. Girls—children—ripped from sidewalks and bedrooms and bus stops, processed like livestock. Tagged. Catalogued. Auctioned off to the highest bidder. If they were lucky, they were used. If they weren’t, they were stripped of organs. Of their dignity and existence.

They didn’t even get graves.

And when I finally clawed my way through the bureaucratic maze, dug deep enough, bled long enough, cracked enough encrypted files and eviscerated enough syndicates to reach the source?

One name sat at the top of that pyramid of suffering.

Polished. Untouched. Protected by layers of wealth and blood and silence.

Altin Kadri.

A man with a reputation so clean, the media called him a philanthropist. A man whose charities received government grants and whose hands orchestrated the loss of my sister—and thousands more.

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