Chapter 1: The Night in the Trunk

After graduation, I became my boss’s driver.

At twenty-four, with a fresh master’s in computer science and a mountain of student loans, I never imagined I’d end up shuttling around a corporate exec in a battered 2012 navy blue Chevy Malibu. The cracked vinyl on the steering wheel was sticky in the summer, and every pothole rattled the old suspension. Sometimes, I’d let my hand drift over the dashboard, feeling the hum of the city through the engine as I merged onto Lake Shore Drive. That’s how it went—sometimes, you don’t get to pick your starting line. In Chicago, you take the work you can get, and I was grateful for the steady paycheck, even if it meant endless hours in traffic, the scent of stale coffee lingering in the air, sports radio droning, and my boss’s voice always in the background, barking deals into his Bluetooth.

One day, he asked me to write a program for him. His request was simple: whenever a certain password was entered, all files on the E drive would be instantly and permanently erased.

He didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask. The fluorescent lights in his office buzzed overhead, and his tone was flat, businesslike—no room for questions. That’s the kind of job where you learn to keep your head down and your mouth shut. I remembered my dad’s warning before I started: “Don’t get too curious, Eddie. Curiosity gets you canned.” Still, the request was weird—straight out of a spy movie. But with my background, it was a walk in the park. I wrote a compact program, disguised it as a Word document, and set it so that if someone opened it and entered the code 1234567890123, the E drive would be wiped clean—no chance of recovery.

I even added a little message that flashed, “Nothing lasts forever,” before the files vanished. It was a dark joke, and as I handed over the flash drive, a cold sweat broke out on my neck. The boss never saw it—he just wanted results. He took it from me, lips curling in a grin that made my skin crawl. I felt a knot in my stomach—was this pride, or was I just creeped out by how happy he looked?

That little job earned me his trust, and soon I was running all sorts of errands for him. A weird mix of pride and dread settled in my chest—like I’d crossed some invisible line and there was no going back.

It started small—picking up dry cleaning, dropping off envelopes downtown, making bank deposits. But before long, I was the guy he called for anything that needed to be off the books. He’d hand me a burner phone and a wad of cash, and I knew better than to ask questions. In his world, trust was currency, and I was earning it, one shady favor at a time. I felt myself slipping deeper, but the money was good, and I told myself I was just doing what I had to do.

Once, my boss called me in the middle of the night. He wanted me to use my own car to pick something up for him—no one else could see what it was.

I’d been dozing in front of the TV, half-watching reruns, the glow of the screen flickering on the cracked plaster walls, when my phone buzzed. “Eddie, I need you. Bring your car. Don’t tell anyone.” His voice was low, urgent—there was a tension there that made my pulse spike. I pulled on jeans and a hoodie, grabbed my keys, and stepped out into the biting Chicago night. The air smelled like exhaust and old snow, and the city felt different after midnight—emptier, the distant rumble of the L train echoing off the buildings, everything feeling just a little more dangerous.

I drove to the designated spot, turned on my hazard lights, and popped the trunk. After a few minutes, someone loaded something heavy into it.

The street was deserted, just the buzz of a flickering streetlamp overhead and the distant wail of a siren threading through the silence. I stayed in the car, hands gripping the wheel so tightly my knuckles ached, heart pounding in my ears. The trunk thudded shut, and whoever loaded it melted back into the shadows. I never saw their face—just a whisper of movement, like a ghost.

On my way to deliver it to my boss’s house, curiosity got the better of me. I pulled over to check what I was transporting.

I parked under an overpass, engine idling, the smell of damp concrete and oil filling my nose. I crept around to the back, the chill in the air biting through my hoodie. When I opened the trunk, the smell hit me first—a mix of cheap perfume, sweat, and raw, animal fear. Inside the box was a young girl.