Contract: Wolf Den

After a chance encounter with the Wolf, Sei believes she is closer than ever to rescuing her daughter, Mui. Sei sets out to attack the Wolf in a surprise move that puts a public spotlight on the feared assassin. 

Not to be outsmarted, the Wolf uses Mui's loyalty to him to turn her against Sei.

With both sides plotting to stay on the offensive, a contingency arises that neither side has thought to plan for—what will Mui’s next move be?

The petite Asian woman lay on her side in a fetal position, whimpering quietly. A thin piece of cloth, damp with her saliva, was tied tightly around her face. Duct tape bound her hands behind her back. Her feet were free, though it didn’t do much to help her situation.

By her estimation, she had been in the trunk of the car for roughly forty-five minutes. She had no idea where she was being taken. She did know they were no longer within the city limits. Hard jolts coupled with a bad suspension suggested they were near the woods. The constant bouncing off of the uncarpeted metal framing of the trunk’s surface made her side tender. It was the least of her worries.

The night hadn’t started off so dire. It was just a few hours ago that she had finished having dinner with a friend. They both worked in the city center of Brussels—she as a financial advisor, her friend as a make-up artist at a department store not far from her office. Mussels and fries were washed down with cold beer, and excellent conversation moved time along swiftly.

At nine p.m. she waved goodbye to her friend and began the fifteen-minute walk to the Simonis metro station. From there it was a twelve-minute train commute to the quiet neighborhood of Essegheim, where the residents were home by nine and usually in bed by ten.

She lived alone in a three-story terraced house, about a seven-minute walk from the station. It was a fixer-upper when she and her husband first bought the place—and a lot of renovations had gone into it since then—but a sudden divorce six months ago had put everything on hold. Since then she struggled as to what to do with the place.

The entrance to her property, a refurbished wrought-iron gate, was a few feet away when a distraught man approached her on the narrow footpath. He held a map in his hand and inquired about his location. She wasn’t aware of a second man until a gloved hand clamped down tightly over her mouth.

It took seconds to duct tape her hands behind her back, gag her, and lift her into the trunk of a car that had pulled up beside them. A muffled scream and a few leg kicks before the hood slammed shut and darkness engulfed her.

She exerted a significant amount of energy trying to scream, to alert anyone, someone, of her situation. Tears flowed as she realized the absurdity of calling for help through the cloth in her mouth. As reality set in, she calmed a bit, and searched for a reason for why this had happened to her.

Mistaken identity?

A sick joke?

A prank TV show perhaps?

A number of possibilities presented themselves, all of them sound and logical. Surely it wasn’t the obvious—kidnapping. She wanted to believe that at any minute the vehicle would come to a stop and her faux nightmare would be over. Sadly, it had only begun.

When the vehicle did stop and the engine cut, she heard two male voices. The latch on the trunk clicked. A few seconds later, the lid opened entirely, and the outline of a man stood in front of her. The moonlight showed enough of his scruffy face and his tanned complexion for her to recognize him as the man with the map. He didn’t look Belgian, and the conversation she heard was neither French nor English.

The man grabbed her by her arm and lifted her out of the trunk like a rag doll. He stood her up, keeping one arm wrapped around her. Her bare feet landed on cool grass. The vehicle headlights lit a field no larger than a couple of acres. She could make out the outline of treetops surrounding the area but not much more.

A second man exited from the back seat of the vehicle and walked around to the front, where the headlights shone upon him. He carried a dark-colored duffle bag. It didn’t seem as though either of the men cared if she could recognize them.

“Move,” the man said with a heavy accent. He nudged her forward, and the three of them walked out into the field. As she passed the vehicle, she noticed a third man in the front passenger seat.

* * *

Jak Berisha sat quietly in the car and watched as his men led the woman into the field. He headed the Albanian mafia in Brussels, a powerful and feared organization. Yet a woman half his size had managed to damage his operations more than any other person. She had walked into his place of business for a forged passport only to walk away leaving four of his men dead, one being his older brother, Girogi.

That woman’s name was Sei.

Berisha was familiar with the field; he and six of his men had visited it exactly five years ago with the sole purpose of avenging his brother’s death. But as luck would have it, Sei had outsmarted them by rigging her cottage with plastic explosives. The explosion had ripped the place apart. Berisha had miraculously survived but not without a reminder.

Burn scars covered nearly seventy percent of his body, including his face. A year following the explosion, he endured a total of six operations. His nose had been reconstructed and the scaring on his face had been reduced. He had no eyebrows or hair on his head to speak of.

Yes, he had survived, but at what price? Life without his brother was a curse, and he resolved to find Sei and make her pay.

He sat quietly watching the three individuals follow the path of the headlights into the field. One of the men forced the girl down on her knees while the other removed a heavy vest from the duffle bag and secured it tightly around her chest.

It surprised Berisha to see no resistance from her, not even a plea to let her go, like the others had done. Perhaps she had lost her resolve. She raised her head enough for her squinted gaze to settle on the vehicle, her mascara-streaked cheeks clearly visible.

A few seconds later, his men returned to the car and got inside. “Whenever you’re ready,” the driver said in Albanian.

Ever since that fateful night, Berisha visited that location every year, on the same day and at the same time of day. He always brought an Asian woman with him that fit Sei’s physical looks. Berisha had actually never laid eyes on Sei, but from what his men told him, the last four women looked like her.

While the woman kneeling in front of him wasn’t Sei, Berisha still found the yearly ritual cathartic. It was a way to appease his desires for revenge, at least until he could lay his hands on the real thing.

He shifted in his seat and made himself comfortable.

In his hand he held a small remote, his thumb slowly circling around a red button, drawing out the anticipation a tiny bit longer. When he was finally ready, he pressed the button. A bright white light from the explosion punched the car, forcing Berisha to squint and turn away. When he looked back, pieces of singed flesh dotted the windshield.