Director Surasak leaned back in his office chair, a thin smile crossing his weathered features as he processed what his son-in-law had just told him. Finding the lead this quickly—Somchai had real talent. Sharp instincts, methodical thinking. If the young detective hadn't possessed genuine ability, he never would have earned approval to marry Ploy in the first place.
"Somchai, find whoever uploaded that IP address and take them into protective custody immediately." His voice carried the weight of three decades in law enforcement. "Also, you and Tak need to be extremely careful. If someone discovered that video and deleted it, they already have the uploader's information."
He paused, letting the implication sink in. "The enemy may be moving against them right now. Be prepared for violence. Protect yourself first—I can't tell Ploy her husband got killed playing hero."
"I understand, sir." Somchai's voice was steady, professional.
The line went dead. Director Surasak set his phone down and stared at the ceiling, running calculations. The pieces were moving faster than anticipated.
In the car, Tak swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. His hands gripped the steering wheel tight enough to make the leather creak. "Somchai... I didn't hear anything I shouldn't have, right?"
Somchai turned to face his colleague fully, studying him. Tak had been on the force for eight years. Honest, if not particularly ambitious. The kind of cop who showed up, did his job, and went home to his family. No complaints, no scandals, no suspicious bank deposits.
"Tak, I trust you." The words came out quiet but firm. "There's a corrupt cop in our department. Maybe more than one. This time, we're going to catch them."
Tak's jaw set, his expression hardening from nervous to determined. He knew Somchai's father-in-law was the Director—this wasn't some rogue investigation. This was sanctioned. "I've got nothing to hide. Corrupt cops make all of us look like criminals." He accelerated through a yellow light, weaving between tuk-tuks and motorcycles. "Whatever you need, I'm in."
The Brotherhood safehouse smelled of old wood and incense, a thin veneer of respectability masking the violence that occasionally occurred within its walls.
When the two Fraternity operatives dragged Detective Abin through the door, Li Zhongzhi's world narrowed to a single point of focus. The corrupt cop who'd stolen his daughter. Right there. Breathing. Alive.
Something primal surged through Li's chest—rage so pure it burned away every civilized restraint he'd built over forty-seven years of life.
He lunged.
His fist connected with Abin's jaw before the operatives had even let go. The impact sent jolts of pain through Li's knuckles, but he didn't care. He hit him again. And again.
Abin stumbled backward, hands rising too late to protect his face. Li's next punch split the detective's lip, blood spraying across both of them. The metallic scent filled the air.
"Why did you kidnap my daughter?" Li's voice cracked, oscillating between fury and anguish. His fist crashed into Abin's cheekbone. "Why? Why her?"
Abin's head snapped to the side. He tried to raise his arms defensively, but Li was beyond reason. Another punch, this one catching the corrupt cop's nose with a wet crunch. Blood poured down Abin's face, dripping onto the polished wood floor.
"Do you have children?" Li seized Abin by the collar, shaking him like a ragdoll. "Do you have a family? Do you understand what you've done?"
Abin's eyes were already swelling shut, his face transforming into a grotesque mask of purple and red. But his mouth remained stubbornly closed.
"Say something!" Li screamed, spittle flying. He drew back for another punch, knuckles already bruising and split. "Where is she? Where did you take her?"
But Abin knew better than to speak. The man's survival instinct overrode even the pain. If he talked, he was dead immediately. If he stayed silent, maybe—maybe—he'd find an opening. Some chance at escape or mercy.
So he said nothing.
Selene materialized beside them like a ghost, her presence dropping the temperature in the room. "That's enough. Let me handle this."
Li Zhongzhi stepped back, chest heaving, his shirt speckled with Abin's blood. His hands trembled—from exertion or emotion, he couldn't tell.
Selene moved with inhuman grace, crouching before the battered detective. She reached out with one pale finger, collecting blood from the gash above his eyebrow. The crimson liquid seemed to glow against her porcelain skin as she raised it to her lips.
Her tongue darted out, tasting.
Li watched, confusion and horror warring on his face. What was she—
Selene's eyes rolled back, pupils disappearing into white. Her body went rigid.
The memories hit her like a freight train.
Abin's perspective, fractured and sickening:
Money. Always money. The trafficking boss, a Thai-Chinese businessman named Krit, sliding an envelope across the table. "Just pick up packages. Drive them where we say. No questions."
Fifty thousand baht. More money than three months of police salary.
The first "package"—a Cambodian girl, maybe fifteen, drugged unconscious. Loading her into the trunk. The way her head lolled, lifeless but still breathing. The compound in the suburbs. The screams from inside. Walking away, trying not to think about it.
Six months later. Easier now. The guilt had calcified into cold pragmatism. Another girl. This one Chinese, visiting Bangkok with friends. Separated from the group. He'd shown his badge, said there was an emergency. She'd trusted him.
Li Zhongzhi's daughter. Recent. Three days ago. Tourist district, late evening. She'd been taking photos of the street market. Pretty girl, early twenties. Perfect age, healthy organs. Krit had been specific: "We need a heart. Young, healthy donor. Female, blood type O-positive. Find one."
The database search. Tourist visas cross-referenced with hospital records from border medical checks. Li's daughter matched. Perfect match.
Approaching her with the badge, the uniform. "Miss, there's been an incident. Your father asked me to bring you to the station." She'd been nervous but compliant at first. When she'd started to resist, he'd grabbed her arm, forced her toward the car. The T-junction near the warehouses. Shoving her into the back seat, her head bouncing off the roof with a hollow thunk. The way she'd cried, begging in Cantonese he couldn't understand.
The cabin. Locking her in the cellar. The injection—ketamine, just enough to keep her docile. Krit's promise: "The mayor's chief of staff is paying premium. One million baht for the heart alone."
One million baht. Enough to pay off the gambling debts. Enough to—
Selene's eyes snapped open, irises blazing crimson. She stood abruptly, her jaw clenched so tight her fangs were visible.
"He took your daughter to a cabin in the Klong Toei district." Her voice was arctic. "She's being sold to an organ trafficking network. They're harvesting her heart for a buyer—someone with money and political protection."
Li Zhongzhi's world tilted. His daughter. Organs. Heart. The words didn't connect properly in his brain.
"I know the exact address." Selene's gaze fixed on Abin's bloodied, swollen face with open contempt. "Let's move. Now."
She turned on her heel and strode toward the door, her coat billowing behind her. The message was clear: Follow or get left behind.
Li scrambled after her, mind reeling. How had she known all that? Some kind of supernatural ability? He'd heard rumors about the Brotherhood's "special" operatives, but seeing it firsthand was different. Terrifying.
But if it saved his daughter, he didn't care if Selene was a demon.
Wesley, John, and Eddie rose from their positions around the room. As Eddie passed Abin's crumpled form, black tendrils erupted from his body. Venom's massive head materialized, jaws unhinging impossibly wide.
There was a wet crunch.
When Eddie straightened, Abin's head was gone. The body slumped sideways, blood pooling across the floor in an expanding crimson lake.
Eddie's face re-emerged from the symbiote, expression neutral. "Waste of space," Venom's gravelly voice rumbled from somewhere in Eddie's chest. "Should've taken longer."
"Later," Eddie muttered. "We've got work to do."
They filed out, leaving the corpse behind. Cleanup crews would handle it. They always did.
Director Surasak's phone buzzed again. Somchai's name on the screen. He answered immediately.
"Dad." His son-in-law's voice was strained, rougher than before. "We found the uploader. But... we ran into the enemy. They were waiting."
Ice crystallized in Surasak's gut. "What happened?"
"Tak... Tak's dead." The words came out hollow. "We were on a rooftop, protecting a family—the uploader had his kids with him. Three gunmen showed up. Military-grade weapons. Tak held them off while I got the family out, but..." A shuddering breath. "They cornered him on the roof access. He went over the edge. Seven stories."
Surasak closed his eyes, grief and rage intermingling. Tak. Good man. Loyal. He had two daughters. Elementary school age.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Get the family somewhere safe. Then come back to the station. We're moving on this tonight."
"Understood."
After hanging up, Surasak sat in silence for thirty seconds, allowing himself that moment of mourning. Then he compartmentalized. Buried it. He'd grieve properly later.
He dialed Yuan Ming's number.
The Brotherhood director answered on the first ring. "Director Surasak."
"We've found concrete intelligence regarding Li Zhongzhi's daughter." Surasak kept his voice level, professional. "Cost us a good detective to get it. Heavy loss."
He outlined what Somchai had discovered before Tak's death—the surveillance footage, the organ trafficking connection, the suburban facility masquerading as a pig slaughterhouse. Ostensibly a meat processing plant, but in reality, a surgical theater for harvesting human organs.
"To ensure Mr. Li's daughter's safety, I suggest immediate action on your end," Surasak continued. "I'm requisitioning tactical units to raid the facility, but you know how it works here. The paperwork, the authorization chain—it'll take hours. You'll be faster."
"Send me the address. We're already moving." Yuan Ming's voice was crisp, militarily efficient.
Surasak's phone chimed as he sent the location data. "It's on its way."
"Appreciated." A pause. "By the way, the traitor in your department was Detective Abin. We extracted intelligence from him. Unfortunately, we can't return him to you—he resisted extraction."
The euphemism was clear. Abin was dead.
"Understood," Surasak replied. "One less problem."
The line went dead.
Surasak leaned back, exhaling slowly. Phase one complete. He'd provided timely intelligence, demonstrated competence, and aligned himself with the Brotherhood before the mayor's conspiracy came to light.
Now to see how much influence he could leverage. The tactical unit request would go through channels—slowly, deliberately. Enough delay to let the Brotherhood handle the dirty work while Bangkok Metropolitan Police could claim credit for "coordination and support."
Perfect deniability. Maximum political capital.
He picked up his desk phone and began making calls.
Chatchai sat in his Mercedes, hands trembling on the steering wheel. The trunk felt impossibly heavy, even though he knew the girl back there weighed maybe fifty kilograms.
Li's daughter. The heart donor. Alive and sedated in his vehicle.
He'd made the decision an hour ago: move the surgery up. Tonight. No more waiting, no more risks. The Brotherhood was sniffing around, the police were compromised, and delay meant exposure.
The mayor needed that heart transplant now, while the window of opportunity remained open.
Chatchai had driven to the cabin personally, ignoring the usual protocols. His hands had shaken as he'd injected the ketamine—not his first time administering sedatives, but usually, he delegated the actual dirty work. This time, the stakes were too high.
Li Yongzhi—he'd learned her name from the tourist visa database—had been conscious when he arrived. Bound hand and foot in the cellar, eyes wide with terror above the gag. She'd thrashed when she saw him, trying to scream through the cloth.
The injection had taken effect quickly. Her struggles had weakened, eyes rolling back, body going limp.
Loading her into the trunk had been harder than expected. Dead weight was awkward, and he'd nearly dropped her twice. But eventually, he'd managed, slamming the trunk closed with a hollow thunk.
Now he drove through Bangkok's nighttime traffic, heading for the suburban slaughterhouse controlled by the mercenary Krit. The facility was perfect for their needs—isolated, soundproofed, equipped with stolen medical equipment that rivaled some private hospitals.
Krit's organization provided funding to the mayor's office. Millions of baht annually, funneled through shell companies and offshore accounts. In exchange, Bangkok Metropolitan Police looked the other way when shipments came through the port. When trafficking victims disappeared. When bodies turned up missing organs.
It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. The mayor got money and political support. Krit got protection and access.
And when someone important needed an organ transplant—like the mayor requiring a heart—Krit delivered.
Usually, Chatchai didn't involve himself this directly. But a living heart only remained viable for six hours after extraction. He needed to witness the surgery, ensure the organ's quality, then transport it immediately to the private clinic where the mayor's transplant team waited.
No middlemen. No risks. Personal oversight from procurement to implantation.
His phone buzzed. Text message from the surgical team: Ready. Waiting for package.
Chatchai accelerated, weaving between slower vehicles. The slaughterhouse was fifteen minutes away. Surgery would take thirty minutes—the "donor" wouldn't survive more than five, given the anesthesia-free extraction method Krit's people used.
Then a helicopter ride back to central Bangkok. The mayor on the operating table by midnight.
By dawn, this entire nightmare would be over.
The Mercedes' engine hummed. In the trunk, Li's daughter remained unconscious, unaware that her heart was already spoken for.
Selene's Rolls-Royce pulled up to the cabin just after sunset, gravel crunching under the tires. The structure was dilapidated—rotting wood siding, cracked windows, the kind of place that screamed "crime scene" to anyone with functioning eyes.
Li Zhongzhi was out of the car before it fully stopped, sprinting for the door. Wesley and John flanked him professionally, weapons drawn. Eddie brought up the rear, Venom's presence rippling just beneath his skin.
Selene moved like liquid shadow, overtaking them all. She hit the door with her shoulder, and the lock shattered like it was made of paper.
Inside, the cabin reeked of mildew and fear. Stained mattress in the corner. Bucket in lieu of bathroom. Empty food containers scattered across the floor.
Li's eyes swept the room frantically. "Where is she? You said—"
"There." Selene pointed to the floor.
A wooden plank, slightly askew. The gap revealing darkness beneath.
Li dropped to his knees, fingers scrabbling at the board. It came up easily—too easily. Hinges on the underside, designed to open.
A cellar.
Stone steps descended into pitch blackness. The smell hit them immediately—sweat, urine, fear. The scent of captivity.
Li Zhongzhi stared into the darkness, hope and dread warring in his chest.