Chapter 6 - The Uninvited
From the shadows of the hallway emerged a figure, but it wasn't law enforcement.
It was a man named Silas—the silent, towering landlord who owned the illegal slaughterhouse lease and supplied Marcus with his drugs. Silas was a massive man with scarred knuckles and cold, lifeless grey eyes. In his right hand, he carried a heavy iron crowbar. Behind him, Toby was slumped against the hallway wall, unconscious and bleeding from the temple.
"Silas!" Marcus gasped, dropping his knife slightly. "What are you doing here? I told you not to come until Friday!"
Silas stepped into the room, his heavy work boots crunching on the glass of a broken light bulb. He didn't look at me. He didn't look at Brenda. His eyes were fixed entirely on Marcus.
"My phone started buzzing ten minutes ago, Marcus," Silas said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "My contact in the county dispatcher’s office called me. They just intercepted a high-priority federal warrant trace linked to this property address."
Marcus went pale. "Silas, listen to me, the girl—"
"You brought the feds to my property," Silas cut him off, his voice dead of emotion. "I built this network twenty years ago. I gave you a place to stay, gave you a cut of the operation, and told you one rule: keep it quiet. No traces."
"She hacked the burner!" Marcus yelled, pointing a trembling finger at me. "She used the cloud backup!"
Silas finally turned his cold grey eyes toward me. He looked at the heavy chain locked to the wall anchor, then at my swollen stomach, then down at the toilet in the corner. A faint flicker of disgust crossed his face—not at my condition, but at Marcus’s sloppy, sadism-driven inefficiency.
"You let a chained, starving woman outsmart you," Silas said simply.
Silas swung the crowbar without warning.
The iron bar struck Marcus squarely across the shoulder with a sickening crack. Marcus shrieked in pain, collapsing onto the floor, clutching his broken collarbone.
"Silas! Please!" Marcus sobbed, squirming backward on the floor like a wounded insect.
"You're a liability," Silas said, stepping forward to raise the bar again.
"Wait!" I yelled.
My voice cut through the violence. Silas stopped mid-swing, turning his heavy head to look at me in surprise.
"He has the key," I said, pointing my finger at Marcus’s front pocket. "The key to this chain is in his jacket. You kill him now, you spend five minutes finding it while the police surround the driveway."
Silas stared at me for three long seconds. A cruel, appreciative smirk touched the corner of his lips.
May you like
"Smart girl," Silas muttered.
He lunged down, ripped Marcus’s jacket open, and pulled out a small brass key. Throwing it across the room, it landed with a sharp clink right at my feet.
