Chapter 8: MANCINI

After Jace left, I had a few minutes downtime before I had to be on the move again. Always before walking into one of these things I cleared my head, using an ancient technique an old master had taught me long ago. It called for total concentration and nothing more, just focus on releasing everything from my thoughts one at a time, until the mind and psyche were clear of all white noise.

Then replacing each parcel piece by piece. It was almost like washing the brain before restoring it with clean Intel. I couldn't afford to fuck up in this meeting, these guys had to buy what I was selling, hook line and sinker. Anything goes wrong and months of hard work goes down the drain. Though it was pretty much in the bag and things had already started moving, there was always that element of surprise. In this business, things changed from one moment to the next without warning, so it was never a good idea to take anything for granted.

Thoughts of Cierra flitted through my mind sporadically throughout the day, but each time I steadfastly banked them down; what was going on there was not something I could deal with right now, that was another minefield that had to be treaded carefully. One thing that had me just a little worried though, is the fact that she's already occupying so much of my thoughts and we hadn't even met as yet, what would meeting her in the flesh be like?

Jaxx had said she wasn't here yet and what little spying I'd had time to do hadn't shown exactly when she would be in my domain, but for some strange reason that escaped me, I felt strongly, that if she was watching me right now I would know. I didn't bother to study why I was so sure of that, I just sensed that I would be able to tell the difference if her eyes were on me.

When my business was done, and before she showed up on my doorstep, I'm going to have to sit down and analyze just what this all meant. This was no place for thoughts of the beauty though, not when I was about to meet with filth in a few hours, and that in and of itself was telling; I never gave a fuck before.

The Chinese delegates sat around the table as we discussed their next strategic move; the lying fuck interpreter rattled off his bullshit lies to me, while I bobbed my head like the shit he was saying made all the sense in the world. I listened in with my keen understanding of their language, as they gave orders to carry out their sadistic schemes, and it took everything in me not to jump up from my chair and chop all their fucking heads off.

Instead, I remained still with a look of unconcern on my face; these fucking demons were going to die, but not yet.

In all my years of doing this, the thing that I hated most out of all the evil that I came into contact with, was the harm to children; give me undeniable proof of an injustice done against a child, any child, and I will execute the perpetrator without a second thought; it was my only hard limit. Children are the innocents, to be protected and guarded against the darkness. What these fucks and others like them did to them was deserving of the harshest punishments imaginable.

The FBI and Interpol, along with some of the world's other leading investigative agencies have been hunting me for over a decade; they suspect me of criminal dealings, if they only knew, those fucks only wish they could do what I do. I've done more to eradicate evil in the relatively short time in my career, than they've all done collectively since their inception. That's because they're all headed by a den of serpents who has fooled the world for generations into believing that they're the protectors of mankind; that their only interest is in the betterment of the human condition; bullshit.

Corruption reached to the highest echelons of every major player in the field, money that great divider, made suckers out of the best of us. The leading law enforcement agencies were supposed to be protectors of our safety, people forgot that the men and women who headed said agencies were just human like them; prone to the same shortcomings as they were, just as capable of committing atrocities.

Put them in a position of power and worse yet, arm them, and you not only had a criminal on your hand, you had one who was now protected by bureaucracy and sanctioned by their host governments. I should know, I've dispatched enough of the scum to be aware that the evil that exists, reaches higher than the average person would even think to look. The thing was though, that you cut off one head and another grew back almost overnight, it's a vicious never-ending cycle.

The men I'm currently surrounded by today are under the misguided belief that I'm an expert in the trafficking of human flesh, along with many other sordid things. My portfolio, or at least the one serving this particular purpose, claims that I always get the job done: no losses, no repercussions. They were paying me millions to carry out their dirty work. Three million in fact, for the swift and undetected transport of ten teenaged Asian girls, who had been hand picked by a handful of wealthy elitist twisted fucks, who in turn, were willing to pay ten times that or more for the procurement of what would amount to sex slaves.

My part in that is the hardest, herding these girls together on a ship in China and hiding them through customs, until they disembarked off the shores of America. Then if all goes well according to their agenda, one of their henchmen will take possession of the merchandise and be in the wind, the young victims never to be seen or heard from again, at least not by anyone from their past.

This particular run has been in the works for two months; believe it or not, the selling of human beings is easier than the world has been led to believe; the acquiring of human flesh for all manner of despicable services is big business. It's my estimation, that some men and women, once they've amassed astronomical sums of money, lose their fucking minds and anything resembling a conscience. These beings then become so bored, that they throw each other little secret parties where they concoct some of the sickest shit your mind could ever imagine and then some.

This scheme is the brainchild of one such demon; he somehow convinced nine of his cohorts that this was the next best thing to do. These highly esteemed douche bags, some of whom were even now joking about the demise of these children, has made this into an art form.

By day they're the supposed law-abiding, upstanding citizens representing their respective nations on foreign soil; by night they're every child's worst nightmare.

Both factions were led by one common denominator, money; one had too much and so turned to using it for evil purposes, while the other for their own love and greed of it, were willing to do anything up to and including selling their souls to attain it. The delegates saw nothing wrong with selling their countrymen and women into all manner of horrific situations, their consciences were clear, because these particular children were from families of lower class, and hey, the place was over populated anyway right? Fucking assholes.

"So we're set gentlemen yeah?" I needed to get the fuck out of there quick, before I said fuck it and offed every last man in the room, couldn't rush my hand, their time will come.

"You will let us know how everything goes with the merchandise immediately yes, our clients are very anxious to accept delivery." Yeah and then I'll snap your fucking neck you pig.