Kiros and his thug had an eyebrow raised. “Operation Milk Joe?”

“Yes. Operation Milk Joe,” Nathan asserted, that same old annoying smirk on his face. “I like coming up with funny names for assignments like this. Operations where I get more money. Gives me a tingle of excitement.”

Kiros stared at him for a moment, then turned away, resisting the urge to shake his head. This man was certainly one weird, eccentric character he would not be missing anytime soon. Giving silly names to your ambitions of becoming richer? Strange little man.

And in addition to that, that phrase ‘tingle of excitement’ conjured up some mental images he’d prefer never come up again. He really had no idea why, but he’d rather not hear such a term again.

Moyo also looked highly unimpressed with that quote.

“Oh goodness, this fucker is an embarrassment,” he muttered to himself as he lifted the albino onto his shoulder. “Of all the lame ass dumb ass slogans to come up with…”

He stopped as his ears picked up weird sounds coming from outside the room.

What the hell was that? It sounded a bit like the sound of many feet, which was odd. The henchmen weren’t up to ten in the premises.

He wasn’t the only one to hear something like that. Kiros also looked around, puzzled. “What’s that?”

Nathan, who was busily pressing his phone, looked up, seeming unperturbed. “What’s what? I don’t hear anything.”

Kiros looked at Moyo, then peered outside the window to see nothing, then turned back to his servant. “You heard something, right?”

Moyo nodded, that puzzled look still on his face.

The two then turned to Nathan, who had gone back to busily fidgeting with his phone. Kiros narrowed his eyes, as did Moyo.

There seemed something rather fishy about him, all of a sudden. The way he was happily typing stuff on his phone. His claim that he heard nothing. The fact that such sounds were popping up with his presence…

Was he orchestrating something on his phone?

“Mr. Nathan, please hand over your phone,” Kiros suddenly ordered, a straight look on his face. Moyo had placed the unconscious victim back on the floor and was glaring in his direction.

Nathan looked up at them, an annoyed expression on his face. “Excuse me?”

“The phone, Mr. Nathan. Hand it over. Now.”

Nathan scowled. “What? Are you serious?”

“Yes, Mr. Nathan. Hand over the phone now before my servant uses force,” Kiros ordered.

“Ah, what is the meaning of this?”

“Mr. Nathan, I will not repeat myself. Hand over that phone now!”

“I will not hand over my phone! How dare you insult me?” Nathan snapped angrily. “Such nonsense! Do you think I gave you this money to insult my intelligence? Foolishness!”

“Mr. Nathan, you leave me no choice. Moyo, take the phone from him!”

Moyo menacingly moved towards Nathan, ever ready to use force if necessary.

Nathan sprung to his feet. “If you even dare to touch me, you miserable man, I swear to God I will-“

He was cut off by another sound. A sound nobody could deny hearing.

The sound of the door kicked in, as a plethora of armed SWAT officers swarmed in, armed to the teeth.

“FREEZE! HANDS UP! DON’T MOVE!”

As the officers invaded the room, Moyo, who had whipped out his dagger to strike, had his hands up. Kiros also had his hands up. If they had taken a look outside the door, they would have seen Keti cold on the floor, knocked out by a taser.

“B-b-b-but how did this h-h-happen? How did you know about this?” Kiros hysterically asked, terrified at the sight of those guns pointed directly at him.

As one of them walked over to him and cuffed him as they recited the regular rhetoric, he noticed that none of the officers went over to Nathan to cuff. The guy didn’t even have his hands up.

How did he not realize this was a set-up from the very beginning?

Nathan suddenly raised his voice. “Well, fellow forces, this is the place. Kiros Villa. The place where greed and wickedness rules. The place where that people as callous and evil as him,” pointing to Kiros, “happily shed innocent blood just because of some stupid beliefs that don’t even exist.”

Still incredulous at the reality that he had fallen victim to an undercover operation, Kiros’ jaw hung open. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…” the officer behind him continued as he struggled for words.

“Take him and his servants away. Pick up the young man and let’s move him to the hospital. ASAP!” Nathan ordered some of the officers.

Kiros finally found his voice as the officer started to lead him away, spitting ire at Nathan. “How dare you set me up! How dare you! You stupid son of a bitch! You’ll regret this, I swear you will!”

“Shut the hell up, you murderer!” the officer leading him snapped.

Nathan was hardly paying him any attention, anyways; his focus was on the young man on the floor. As the head of this albino trafficking ring and his goon were taken outside, with the other servants already cuffed and in the waiting car, others carried the unresponsive young man off.

***

As he opened his eyes, Joe did not expect to find himself where he was.

He sat up and looked around, confused for a moment. He was not in that horrid dungeon of death.

Looking down, he realized he was on a hospital bed.

“He’s up!”

He turned in the direction of the voice and saw the person behind that voice. A gentleman in a white shirt and trousers.

“Uh… wh-wh-what’s going on?” he asked. “Wh-why am I here?”

The gentleman reached into his pocket and flashed a badge at him. “Agent Nathan Dixon. Amela SWAT Team. A raid was carried out this morning at Kiros Villa, and we found you unconscious and brought you here to the Jabass Hospital. It appears you were sedated with some drug before we found you.”

Joe sat back, shaking his head as he looked up to the ceiling, tears in his eyes. He hadn’t believed he would get out of this alive. Especially not after seeing that Dani guy get slaughtered like a chicken the previous night. From the moment those two monsters placed that cloth over his face, he had convinced himself that that was it.

So to find himself there, and discovering that the police had come to rescue him… it was like cold water to a thirsty soul.

Nonetheless, he felt shattered that Dani had not been rescued. That sight of the bastard cutting his throat and blood gushing out was one traumatic memory that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

As his head came back down, the tears flowed. “Oh, thank God,” he whispered, sobbing.

Nathan approached him slowly. “It’s alright, sir. Those beasts are in custody now. They won’t hurt you.”

Wiping his tears, Joe nodded silently. “I’m just tired. Tired of all this…”

“Mmmm, I can only imagine, Mister…”

“Joe. Just call me Joe.”

“Right. I can only imagine, Mister Joe. I can only imagine how tiring it feels, living in fear of being used for some senseless sacrifice. Waking up each day and worrying that some idiot will try and use you for sacrifice to get some extra money or whatever bullshit beliefs they hold on to. But that’s why we’re here. We’re not taking these issues lightly anymore. You guys are just as human as I am, and you don’t deserve this. This is the start of a major clampdown, and we’re not resting till we make this albino sacrifice thing too dangerous to continue with. The time to take action against these atrocities starts now.”

Joe cracked a little smile. Agent Nathan certainly spoke with a lot of passion, and those were the words he wanted to hear. Amela’s authorities had ignored the injustices toward his kind way too long. Just cute PR and empty speeches with no actions to back them up.

But this… this was a good start. If they had infiltrated a trafficking and sacrifice center like Kiros Villa, then there was hope for the future.

He nodded. “Yes. The time is now.”

THE END

Nice! So Nathan was an undercover agent all along. Good to see Joe got rescued, and Kiros and his men arrested. There’s absolutely no reason why people with albinism suffer such cruel treatment in some parts of the world. Their lack of melanin certainly doesn’t make them less human.

So, thank you for reading, and as always, continue to enjoy yourself around the State!