Katelyn, her brow furrowed in concentration, continued scrolling. With each flick of the screen, the scenes grew bloodier, leaving Alfy pale and trembling, her lips quivering as the horror sank in.
When Katelyn’s mouse suddenly paused over one particular listing, Alfy could no longer hold herself together. She bolted into the bathroom and began to retch.
The screen displayed an entire human skin, carefully peeled off, the agony of its victim still etched into the folds.
Katelyn clenched her jaw, forcing herself to confront the monstrous reality. Even with all she’d seen during her search for Zoey, this surpassed anything she had imagined. Those had been mere live broadcasts of abuse and rape, but this was something far worse—real lives being stripped in horrifying ways.
Katelyn found it impossible to wrap her mind around the depths of evil fueling these black market operations.
Taking a steadying breath, she regained her composure. Suddenly, a new line of text blinked across the screen.
“You have been marked. Remove the mark within ten minutes, or we will come to enforce punishment ourselves.”
Vincent’s brows knitted as he studied the text on the screen. His voice remained even as he remarked, “This is likely one of their defensive mechanisms, designed to deter official tracking.”
A delay in purchasing any of the listed items could trigger the mark.
Katelyn nodded slightly in agreement.
“That does seem plausible.” Otherwise, an organization operating in such darkness wouldn’t have survived for so long. Their influence clearly ran deep. Though Katelyn despised them, she couldn’t ignore the reality of their power.
But fear of being marked wasn’t her concern—it was their failure to confront her that unsettled her more. Her fingers danced over the keyboard again, but the ominous alert was already gone.
She swiftly activated a firewall, erasing all traces of her presence before diving back into her investigation. Then she froze. Her eyes widened as she turned to Vincent.
“Their IP address traces back to Yata.” Vincent looked just as shocked. Could these individuals be linked to the Yata network? So what role did Sophia play in their operations?
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Katelyn attempted to dig further, but the shopping platform’s entire interface suddenly collapsed. No matter how quickly she worked to restore it, the system’s collapse was relentless.
Her fingers blurred across the keyboard, her face a mask of icy composure as she searched for signs of external interference. It turned out the website was programmed to self-destruct at set intervals, erasing all evidence, including its main site. In time, it would reappear online, but tracing their precise location in Yata would remain nearly impossible. Their firewall wasn’t just highly advanced; it was fortified with robust anti-theft protocols. It was no surprise they had managed to evade capture for so long.
Katelyn’s fingers raced across the keyboard until the screen abruptly turned pitch black. Every trace had vanished. She leaned back in her chair, releasing a frustrated sigh.
Vincent gently took the laptop from her lap. His tone was soft but firm.
“Don’t push yourself too hard. With their level of sophistication, cracking it in one go was never going to happen.”
Katelyn nodded, fully aware of the truth. The information had been right before her, yet she had been powerless to stop it from slipping away. The feeling of helplessness gnawed at her, leaving her unsettled. The system hadn’t even noticed her intrusion; its self-destruct protocol had anticipated her every move. That alone made all her efforts seem pointless.
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