[3 days later] [1 AM]
The waste disposal plant looked exactly like the kind of place people chose when they wanted to disappear for a few minutes without being noticed. The air smelled like damp metal, oil, and something rotten. Trucks sat lined up around the area. Every now and then, one or two trucks came in and went out.
Ray sat in his car across the street. The parking lot around him was full of other cars, the majority of which belonged to the workers. He blended in perfectly, just another worker catching a break or someone waiting on a late shift to end.
His phone rested in his hand, screen dimmed. The bug's audio came through one earbud.
The two idiots in the minivan were still talking, mostly complaining now. They were hungry and bored, making jokes that weren't funny enough to keep the noise going.
Ray ignored them.
They were irrelevant.
He had already mapped their route over the past three nights, noting the repetition that never varied, the follow, the check-in, the wait, and then the drop, always at the same place, at the same hour, and a new guy to handle the money every time. What makes tonight special is that they finally called off the surveillance on Ray, and instead of paying a couple of thousand that they were paying those two for the last two days, the boss decided to pay them the rest of the money.
Ray's target was the drop guy.
Another fifteen minutes passed...
A black SUV rolled into the lot from the far entrance.
The SUV was parked near the fence, away from the main building, and the engine remained running.
'Finally,' Ray thought.
A man stepped out of the vehicle, mid-forties perhaps, with a clean haircut and a dark jacket. The first thing he did was look around the area for a few minutes. Then he leaned back against the hood and pulled out his phone.
The minivan arrived less than a minute later.
"Finally," one of the men muttered, his irritation thinly masked. "We're going to get paid full today."
They parked near the SUV, doors opening as footsteps crunched across the gravel.
Ray took this chance to use his spy bug-fly edition. He tapped his watch, and the fly flew up. He controlled it and placed it in the SUV.
The man from the SUV did not greet them, choosing instead to open the rear door, where a duffel bag waited inside. "No funny business," he said, his voice calm and flat. "You did what you were paid to do. This is your cut. Now, disappear."
"You ain't gotta worry about that," the first man replied, a laugh creeping into his voice as he checked the cash. "That's some shitload of cheese for some stalking."
"All good?"
"Yeah."
The man zipped the bag closed and handed it over. "Do not spend it all at once."
Ray snapped a couple of pictures using his high-res spy cam.
The man did not look like muscle but like logistics, clean and disposable, the sort of person who never met Skinner face to face. But one thing that Ray learned in his life is that looks can be deceiving.
The men from the minivan started to leave, one of them clapping the handler on the shoulder with the false warmth of someone who mistook proximity for familiarity.
"Pleasure doing business," he said.
The man did not respond.
They drove off.
The man remained where he was. He took out his phone and called someone.
"Yes," he said. "Drop completed."
A pause followed.
"No issues."
Another pause, longer this time.
"Yes. He is still unaware."
Ray smiled faintly.
The call ended, and the man returned to the SUV and drove off.
Ray waited for a few minutes. He was looking at the blinking icon on his phone, the live location already moving north. When the SUV was far enough, he started to follow the bug.
"Got you," he said quietly.
Ray followed at a steady distance—far enough to avoid attention, close enough to keep the signal clear. The SUV stayed off main roads. The driver knew the city well enough to take the shortcuts that digital maps generally don't show.
The first stop was Chinatown.
The SUV slowed, turned twice, and stopped beside a narrow storefront between a closed herbal shop and a noodle place. The lights were off, but the door opened. Two men came out carrying small packages wrapped in brown plastic and tape. They loaded the SUV and went back inside.
Ten seconds later, the SUV moved again.
The next stop was a closed laundromat a few blocks north. The sign flickered weakly. The door was already open. More packages came out. This time, they were larger and heavier. Still no talking.
The SUV headed west after that. Traffic lights blinked yellow over empty streets. After another 15 minutes of driving, the SUV slowed before a meat-processing factory. As far as Ray knows, this place was shut down three weeks ago for some kind of safety violations.
Two teenage boys were already at the entrance. They looked about sixteen or seventeen years old. They wore hoodies with the hoods up, and their hands were in their pockets.
As soon as the SUV stopped...
The boys moved immediately. They opened the door and started to lift the packages and carry them inside through a side door that closed behind them every time. In and out. They didn't talk or check the content.
Ray watched from the side lane, his car tucked between a sedan and a dumpster. From here, he could see everything without being seen himself. He waited for voices, for orders, for anything useful to float through the bug's audio feed. But he got nothing.
After the packages were moved, one of the boys walked up to the guy in the car. "The boss wants to meet you."
The guy got out and walked inside.
Ray quickly controlled the fly bug and carefully placed it on the guy's left shoe. He activated the camera mode. 'Let's go.'
He watched the feed on his phone.
The first floor looked busy. The tables were covered in cash. Counting machines are running nonstop. Men are moving money from one place to another without talking much. It was clean and organized. Just another money laundering setup.
Then they went upstairs.
The camera angle shifted as the man climbed the stairs. The image shook slightly with each step. The lighting changed. The hallway was narrow, poorly lit, and lined with metal cages bolted into the walls.
Ray stared at the screen. 'Fucking hell!'
There were people in cages. There were old men, women, teenagers, and children. Some sat on the floor. Some held onto the bars. A few looked straight at the camera as the handler passed by, as if they were used to seeing strangers walk by and do nothing.
The handler slowed near the end of the hallway and stopped in front of a reinforced door.
He knocked twice.
The door opened, and the man stepped inside.
Ray leaned closer to the screen.
The room was brightly lit. A man was tied to a chair in the center, his arms and legs were tied. His head moved weakly, and he was barely conscious. The floor was covered with blood, skin, piss and shit.
Standing in front of him was the Skinner.
He looked ordinary, which somehow made it worse. Middle-aged, calm posture, sleeves rolled up like he was working in a garage.
Ray's fingers curled so tightly around the steering wheel that the leather creaked. He could never forget that face... that monster who killed his sister.
Ray shut his eyes for a brief second, just long enough to steady himself. He felt the heat in his chest, the pressure behind his eyes, the old memory clawing its way forward. Alicia screaming. Him arriving too late. The smell of blood that never really left him.
When he opened his eyes again, they were clear.
He leaned down and flipped the side of the seat back. The hidden compartment opened with a soft click. Inside, everything was laid out neatly. The ghost skull mask, the knives, two handguns with spare magazines already loaded.
Ray picked up the mask and turned it over once in his hands.
"Time to hunt, my old friend..." He put on the mask.
---
AN: I won't be dragging this. Next chapter will end this.
---
[POWERSTONES AND REVIEWS PLS]
Support link: www.patr eon.com/UnknownMaster
[24 advance chs] + [Early access to Reborn in Castle]
[No double-billing.]