59. Kian

59

KIAN

K ian's home office was mostly dark, with only his desk lamp and his laptop screen providing illumination. He could have turned the lights on, there had been no reason not to, but it somehow felt fitting to watch this filth in the dark.

In fact, he regretted getting out of bed and going to his office to check on the progress of the intelligence team instead of waiting until tomorrow. Even just letting the recordings of these horrors play tarnished the sanctity of his home.

Once the human prisoners had awakened and had provided the passwords to the file with a little motivation from the Guardians, the team had cracked the encrypted files with ease.

Now, he sat surrounded by evidence of depravity that made his blood boil.

The surveillance feeds from the keep's cells showed their newest occupants. The Doomers lay unconscious, heavily sedated on Julian's orders. The other prisoners—the guests or rather clients—were in separate cells, and most of them were awake and terrified.

Good. They should be.

Kian had memorized each of their faces. Wealthy men. Respected men. Monsters hiding behind expensive suits and carefully crafted public personas.

He clicked through another folder of files. A senator he'd seen on a televised event. A studio executive who'd given inspired speeches on social issues. A federal judge whose reputation for harsh sentences against child traffickers now seemed like the darkest form of irony.

The videos were worse than the photos. He wished he could believe they were computer-generated fakes, but the timestamp data and background verification proved their authenticity. His fangs had extended involuntarily, and his nails were scoring grooves in his desk as he forced himself to watch everything.

How many more were out there? How many children still suffered while these creatures walked free? The network appeared vast, with tendrils reaching into every level of society, but mostly the elite, the powerful, and the influential, who had gotten bored with every other form of depravity before selling the last piece of their souls to the devil.

Kian didn't even believe in the devil.

Perhaps he should.

It seemed like the devil not only existed but also rewarded his minions with extraordinary wealth and health. Some of these creatures were so well past their prime that they should have been residents of retirement homes and dementia centers.

Kian switched back to the live feed from the cells. The Doomers were the key. He had no doubt of that. The sickening operations would have existed without their involvement, but they facilitated the spread into an international operation because they didn't limit themselves to the ruin of just one country. They wanted to bring all of humanity to its knees so they could take over and enslave it.

He clicked through more files. Financial records showed massive payments flowing through shell companies, but the money trail disappeared into cryptocurrency transactions the team couldn't trace.

As with everything else, crypto was a tool that could be used for good or for evil, so blaming it for these crimes was like blaming safe deposit boxes in banks. The people who hid their blood money were the perpetrators of evil, not the vehicles they used.

As the door burst open, startling him from his dark thoughts, he lifted his head and looked at his wife who was standing in the doorway wild-eyed and pale, clutching her robe around her.

"Syssi?" He rose immediately, concern replacing rage, and rushed to her. "What's wrong?"

"I had a dream or a vision. I'm not sure what it was, but I saw Kyra again. Or rather, for the first time. She didn't have a scarf on, and I heard her name spoken, so I knew it was her without a doubt."

He wrapped his arm around her and led her to the couch. "What did you see?"

Syssi opened her mouth to speak, then suddenly went rigid, her eyes glazing over, which indicated another vision was taking hold.

"Syssi?"

Her hand clutched his arm with bruising force. "Oh, dear Fates," she whispered. "The poor woman. We have to help her."