“Alright, let’s go,” Bronte clapped his hands together.
“Wait,” Tom held up his hand to stop him. “Now, I hope you know we don’t just take anyone through here.”
“I bet,” Kara said, “but we’re grateful.”
“Are you, though?” Kelvin asked.
“What do you mean?” Kara asked him.
“Well,” Tom said, sighing, “it’s just that the last time we took a cop through here, he didn’t take it so well.”
Salvi, Kara and Bronte paused.
“What?” Salvi asked.
Movement behind them made them turn around. Another man, around the same age, stepped out from around the corner in the tunnel, holding some kind of taser-like handgun, which he swiftly aimed right at Bronte.
“Whoa!” Bronte said, holding his hands up. “Something wrong here?”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “You think we’re dumb enough to take three cops to our secret club? Meet Ellis.”
Salvi and Kara were shoved toward Bronte as the men surrounded them. Salvi stared at the man with the gun. There was something about him…
The pieces fell into place and recognition washed over her.
It was the man who had been erased from Barker’s photo of the women. The half-face. It had to be.
“You’re the ghost,” she said to him.
Ellis looked at her. “I’m the what?”
“You’re the ghost,” she said. “You’re the one everyone’s so afraid of.”
His face crumpled with laughter. “The ghost?” The others joined him in their laughter. Salvi turned around and looked at each of the men in turn. All laughing, all encircling them, their voices echoing around the tunnel walls.
And then she heard Myki Natashi’s voice echo in her mind.
They’re everywhere…
Salvi’s heart leapt into her throat as the realization hit her.
“You’re all the ghost!”
“What?” Kara said as she and Bronte looked nervously around at them.
“They’re the ghost. Every single one of them. That’s why people are scared, because it’s not just one man. It’s many.” She turned to Tom again. “Your sick little billionaire boys club wields this much power?”
He gave her that smug smile. “Money and blackmail wield limitless power, sweetheart. Empires aren’t built on just one man, they’re built on the backs of many. Clubs, institutions, favors.” His eyes turned dark. “Generations.”
“So you are a trust fund boy,” she said acidly. “I knew it.”
His eyes turned darker for a moment, before his face lightened with smugness. “We owned Chaney, and we owned his lawyer.” He laughed. “So, meet your ghosts,” he motioned to Kelvin. “Kelvin’s the money man. Edward, he’s our tech guy. Travis, he takes care of our security needs. Ellis, there, well, he does whatever is required of him. And me? Well, I’m the people person. I handle client negotiations.”
“You think you can make three cops disappear like you did Caine?” She said, her face and body hardening. “They know you were our target here tonight, Tom. They’ll know who to come looking for.”
“So let them come.” He held his arms up, righteous. “You think it’s just us five? We started this, sure, but we have a lot of important backers, honey. Any judge you try and put me in front of, we’ll buy or they’ll die.”
Salvi nodded. “Bored little rich kids, used to getting what they want.”
“And we’ve just found three new recruits,” Travis said, spreading his shoulders.
“Recruits?” Kara said.
“Yeah,” Kelvin said, looking at the three of them. “We’re always looking for fresh product in our club, and we’ll find good work for each of you. You’ll earn your keep.”
“What?” Salvi said. “You think you can buy us?”
“Oh, we’ve already bought you,” Kelvin said. “You’re not going back to the streets, you’re going to stay underground and work for us now.”
“You can’t make three cops disappear,” Bronte said. “Ain’t gonna happen, man.”
“Tell that to the Chief of Police,” Tom said. “If he can’t stop us taking his daughter, no one can.”
Ellis suddenly lunged and slammed something into the side of Bronte’s neck. Bronte didn’t have a chance to react. He gave a sharp yell of pain, his body locked up and he swiftly collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
“No!” Kara tried to fight her way through Kelvin and Travis, but they grabbed her and drove something against her neck as well. Salvi quickly assessed her options but paused when Tom pulled a taser from his pocket too. He walked toward her as Kara’s unconscious body was placed on the ground.
“Why so worried, cop?” he said. “This is what you wanted, right? So, welcome to the big leagues, honey. It’s time to introduce you to MasterSlave.”
“MasterSlave?” she asked, still glancing around at her options.
“Yeah,” he smiled a toothy white smile. “That’s the name of our club, where you will never see the light of day again.”
Edward plunged something sharp into Salvi’s neck and an intense pain shot through her into every fiber of muscle. She stiffened, her body paralyzed, and then everything went black.
15: MASTERSLAVE
Salvi’s aching body brought her to the surface of consciousness. She heard a digital beeping, a humming in the background. Air conditioning? A generator?
She blinked her eyes open and saw she was in a room she didn’t recognize. Facing her was a wall of glass looking into a plain white corridor. The room around her also glowed white. She closed her eyes again. Her head was aching badly, like the sides of her head had been placed into a vice. She groaned.
A noise to her left made her open her eyes again. She turned her pained head and saw a figure moving around beside her. A woman, with her back turned, clothed in a uniform akin to a nurse’s, albeit in a dark shade of red. Was she in a
hospital?
She tried to sit up, but realized her wrists were strapped to the bed, her ankles too.
Then she remembered the tunnel, and Tom, and someone driving a sharp object into her neck.
Panic rose within and she tugged at her bindings, before she realized that beneath the sheet covering her, she was naked.
Her eyes darted around the room for her
