Chapter One

I am now eleven years old. I have been told I look closer to a sixteen year old. I guess I have my large stature to thank for that. The years of exercise are finally showing their results. I have now been helping my dad, Richard Ellsworth, for the last year. He always tells me to call him Richard, but I prefer the name Dick. Thanks to him I have been to some real shitholes and have met with some of the worst humanity has to offer. I am frightened to say I fit right in. They got my humor and some of them I even considered family. The only issue with our line of work is that people have a very high mortality rate. The few people with whom I became close with all died not even a month later. Human trafficking is not a business anyone can take lightly.

My father is someone who understands this concept very well. His business model consists of two very clear objectives. If someone has something you want, take it. If someone pisses you off, make sure they do not live to see the next day. These are the two business ideals I have been following for the last year. I have learned that stealing people is a lot more difficult than simply killing someone. Killing is simple, one bullet to the head and move on. Stealing is much more complex. I have to make sure that I successfully infiltrate and extract the product with minimal casualties. I have decided that doing so without anyone dying is impossible. A firefight is inevitable in those situations and someone always gets hit. It can’t be helped.

 My mother has yet to return from her trip to Italy. She left three months ago on “Important business”. I still have no idea what she does. Luckily, my life is about to change. I can finally go to school. My dad enrolled me in a local private high school, Sacred Hearts. Of course with our line of work my actual name could not be used. I was sent to get fake documents to help me get in. This was another way for my father to test the information network I had slowly been growing the past year. He was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. I got the documents within three days and if you know anything about illegal documents that is an impressive amount of time. I am now Jacob Smith, fourteen year old high school freshman. The name sucks, but it will work for the time being. Of course I am well beyond what any high school can teach me, but I am going purely for the social aspect it will bring. I have not had any normal interactions with anyone close to my age in my life so far. I do not count any interactions with slaves I have handled since the interactions with them are hard to call ordinary. I just hope I can learn a bit more on how someone my age normally acts.

My schooling actually begins next week. I would not say I am excited, that rarely happens anymore. I am more at a minimally intrigued. I am just interested in this new aspect of life I have yet to experience. “Hurry up and get the hell down here!” this gruff voice was none other than Dicks, his voice always has a way of forcing me to snap back to reality. His impatience is very obvious by the tone of his voice. It's never good to keep a Dick waiting.

 I have a job tonight which will bring in millions if done correctly. I rush over to my closet and hit a panel on the side of my room. The closet swings open revealing the hidden wall of illegal gear. I am not expecting this job to be very difficult. I will be performing a simple assassination. I reach out and grab my M24 along with its silencer. This along with my array of knives would be all I bring for tonight. I shove it all into my black duffel bag and rush down the stairs. The sight of my father’s six foot tall figure is an imposing one. His face is always cleanly shaven and perfectly smooth aside from the scar that now runs across his right eye.

“What took so long?” he grunts at me. Now that I think about it, his voice does not match his facial features.

“I had to finish packing, let’s head out. The target will be there in an hour.” I reply in an easygoing manner, which only seems to piss off Dick even further.

“We could have had even more time if you had just hurried the fuck up!” He yells this as we leave the mansion and stepped into the black Toyota Camry waiting outside the house. A car that will draw the least amount of attention is always the best choice. With our job, standing out means either death or jail.

“We still have time, just calm down. It only takes me a few minutes to set up.” I give my reply while thinking about what I should have for dinner. A chicken dish sounds really good.

“We cannot fuck this one up! This shipment will be for the Russian mafia and they don’t react nicely when they fail to get what they want.” My father is always so stressed out. We have yet to fail a mission and I do not plan on making this the first. My only part in this job is to kill the freelance black market worker, John Hemsworth. It is nothing personal, we just need the twenty slaves he has in his warehouse. I believe one of them is a high priority target, but that is Dick’s ordeal not mine.

“I have yet to fail once and this will not be my first time.” With that our brief conversation is over. Arriving a block away from our target’s meeting location. I quickly run over to the building directly adjacent to where the meeting will take place. It is a little cliché, but a parking garage offers great cover and a quick getaway if trouble appears. I quickly set up my sniper rifle. Slowly screwing on the silencer as time slowly drifts past. Twenty minutes are remaining before the meeting time so I begin to search the nearby area for any potential threats. After quickly looking around through my scope I notice an odd glint in a nearby window. Zooming in I see a sniper rifle aiming straight back at me. I quickly fire off a shot while almost simultaneously ducking down. Pieces of cement shot out from only centimeters above my head where the shooter’s bullet was now lodged. I now only have fifteen minutes before the meeting time and the completion of my job was uncertain. The sniper rifle was now gone from the window, but that does not mean the opponent is dead.

I am running out of time. Blood slowly trickles down my cheek from where cement had become lodged within, only agitating me further. I need a quick way to take out this fucking sniper. I grab my knives from my belt and quickly run across the road. The sniper was on the fourth floor and that is my current destination. I quickly make my way up the building and arrive at the room only to find it empty. A sense of foreboding washes over me. Something isn’t right. I quickly swing the knife in my right hand behind me only to be greeted with the clang of steel on steel. I turn around to see a woman I have never met, but her beauty is stunning. Her tight, black nylon outfit only manages to enrapture me further although it appears very impractical and uncomfortable. Her short, black hair swishes back and forth as we exchange a few more blows with our knives. I am left with a deep gash in my right forearm from the exchange. I am now fed up. There is very little time left. She needs to die. I rush at her with my knives swinging the right one up to block her incoming attack aimed at my neck, the second I aim at her abdomen only to be blocked once more. A gunshot then rang throughout the room. We both stop in our tracks. I give her a small grin as she falls to the floor in a pool of her own blood. I always keep a small handgun strapped onto the side of my boot. It is only seconds until the meeting time and I quickly rush over to the window she was aiming out of. I hate using apartment buildings as my spot for sniping. It’s too impractical. Sadly my target is already making his way towards the danger zone. Imagine I sang that last part.

 My target was careful and probably thought he had planned for everything, but not everything can be planned for. I quickly take aim with the foreign sniper rifle and let loose one bullet. I watch as it hits him perfectly in his temple and blood decorates the concrete behind him with a dark red hue. My role in this operation has finished. I start to head out, but once I reach the car I notice Dick hasn’t come back yet from capturing the already captured slaves. In this line of work, helping others is almost looked down upon. Live and let die is the motto of most of the underworld, but this man was still my father. I can’t help it, I decide to simply drive by the warehouse to see if everything is progressing smoothly.

As I pull up, smoke begins billowing out of the partially open iron doors of the warehouse. Something isn’t right. I rush in with my pistol in hand, searching for my father. I hurriedly run through empty rooms until I start running into corpses, most already engulfed in flames. I keep running forward covering my mouth with my sleeve. My father has been a total asshole to me for most of my life, but he has still helped me out of many situations that should have killed me. I owe him multiple lives that I do not have to give. I make it to the basement steps. As I am about to start heading down I see a young girl making her way to the ladder through the flames. Her eyes seem to be made of fire themselves and her golden crimson hair is whipping wildly around her as she slowly walks towards me. Her clothes are long gone, but her skin appears to be unaffected by the flames surrounding her. She begins climbing the ladder, takes one look at me standing at the top and says three words, “He’s not here.”