I woke up on a hard clay bed with my wrists and ankles tied so tight the ropes had already burned my skin.
The room was small, smoky, and suffocating.
A rusted stove sat in the middle, throwing off weak heat. Three men were crouched beside it, passing dirty looks back and forth like they were deciding how to carve up dinner.
The first one had a thick beard and a grin that made my stomach turn.
“Well,” he said, licking his lips, “the pretty one’s awake.”
The second man, wearing a faded camouflage jacket, chuckled.
“So? Do whatever you want.”
I let my eyes go wide. Let my breathing shake. Let my voice come out small.
“W-Who are you? What do you want from me?”
The bald one stood up and laughed like this was the funniest thing he’d heard all week.
“What do we want? You really can’t tell?”
He stepped closer.
“If you behave tonight, maybe we’ll sell you to a better family.”
The man in camouflage added, “Try to run, try anything stupid, and we’ll dump you with some sixty-year-old bachelor in the middle of nowhere. You’ll spend the rest of your life chained up like livestock.”
The three of them burst out laughing.
I shrank back against the wall and made myself look terrified.
Inside, I was doing something else.
I was deciding which one should die first.
My name is Sierra Yu.
I became a killer at sixteen, built a reputation by twenty-one, and this year marked ten years in the business.
Half a month ago, a wealthy businessman hired me for a job in the mountains. His daughter had gone missing during a trip to a small northwestern town. According to the last witness, she had been seen getting onto a minibus with an older local woman.
He didn’t want the police.
Not because he trusted me more.
Because he wanted more than a rescue.
He wanted everyone involved found.
Everyone who had trafficked his daughter.
Everyone who had touched her.
Everyone who had laughed while she cried.
And he wanted them erased.
So I let the bait woman find me.
I let her smile and play friendly.
I let her bring me to a scenic stop, then invite me home for “homemade hawthorn juice.”
I drank none of it, of course.
I only pretended to.
I let my body go limp at the table, listened to men come into the room speaking in low local dialect, felt their hands tie me up, felt myself lifted into another vehicle.
And now here I was.
Deep in the mountains.
In a dirt house.
Surrounded by three men who thought they’d caught prey.
What they had actually done… was lock themselves in a room with me.