Chapter 1

A group of anglers organizes a night fishing trip to a mysterious reservoir. The entry fee is 500 dollars per person, with a guarantee of reeling in a massive catch that's at least 100 pounds.

Feeling the lone ten-dollar bill in my pocket, I put on a pitiful act in the group chat.

"My mom keeps me on a tight leash. You guys go get rich."

That night, my social media feed is flooded with their posts. Photos of wild catches that are as big as a grown man's arms, as well as stacks of cold, hard cash from their so-called haul.

Chowing down on cheap street-side tacos, I scoff.

"Even the gods can't make the fish bite at high noon. Careful you don't trade your life for that payday."

Come next morning, a hysterical mob of wives—seven of them in total—descends on my front door, screaming and wailing.

"Was Vince with you last night?"

"They're all gone! The men, their cars, everything—gone! Their last known location was right by your apartment!"

The lead detective slaps the cuffs on me.

As it turns out, that reservoir has been completely dry for the last 30 years.

Chapter 1

Before the morning sun could even hit my window, the battered wooden door to my place was violently kicked open.

"Drew Ferrer, you bastard! Hand my husband over right now!"

Accompanied by shrill screams and sobs, seven women covered in gold and other jewelry burst into my tiny, barely-400-square-foot rental apartment like a pack of crazed animals.

Then came the sensation of ice-cold metal.

A SWAT officer pressed the barrel of his service weapon directly against my forehead.

"Don't move! Hands behind your head!"

I was still standing there with half a toothbrush sticking out of my mouth, completely frozen in confusion.

Sandra Vlachos—the wife of Vince Vlachos, the "Fishing Expedition Team" group chat owner—charged forward and grabbed my collar. Her heavily manicured nails scratched several bloody marks into my neck.

"Officers, it's him! He was the only person in the group chat who didn't go yesterday! He has to be the person behind this! He worked with outsiders to kidnap Vince and the others!"

I was forced against the mold-covered wall, my cheek pressed against the cold plaster.

They turned my entire apartment upside down. Even the coffee table with the broken leg was flipped over, sending my half-eaten sandwich scattering across the floor.

The wives stared at my bare-bones apartment, unable to hide the disgust in their eyes.

"Goodness, how can anyone live in a dump like this?"

"He doesn't even own a decent TV. No wonder he kidnapped Vince and the others. He must've been desperate for money!"

"People at the bottom of society like him really will do anything for money."

The insults hit me like slaps across the face, one after another. But strangely, I wasn't afraid. All I felt was an odd urge to laugh.

The lead detective strode over to me, his eyes sharp.

"Drew Ferrer, explain where you were between 8:00 pm last night and 4:00 am this morning."

I spat out the toothpaste in my mouth and awkwardly fished my cracked phone out of my pocket.

"Officer, check the group chat logs."

I opened the group chat titled "Fishing Expedition Team".

The detective took the phone and tapped on a voice message Vince had sent the night before. He played it through the speaker, and Vince's voice echoed through my cramped apartment, sounding especially harsh.

"Drew's a broke-ass loser who can't even cough up the 500-dollar entry fee. Don't bother bringing him along. He'll ruin the mood! Just let him stay at home and eat his damn tacos," he said, before breaking into raucous laughter.

Dead silence filled the room.

Sandra, who had been so arrogant just moments ago, instantly froze.

I shrugged, trying to look as natural as possible with my hands cuffed.

"Ladies, officers, I wanted to join in on the kidnapping too, honestly. But I couldn't even scrape together enough gas money to get to the reservoir."

I pulled up my account balance in front of everyone.

My bank account had less than ten dollars in it, while my digital wallet showed that I was 70 dollars behind on payments.

A self-deprecating laugh escaped me as my eyes swept over the high-and-mighty ladies who had always looked down on me.

"A guy like me who doesn't even know where tomorrow's breakfast is coming from… is supposed to kidnap your millionaire husbands?"

Just then, a young officer from the tech department rushed in, his expression grim.

"Detective, we've looked into it. Vince Vlachos and the others' location data was tampered with. By the time they sent their location last night, their real signal had already dropped off near the border. And…"

The officer glanced at the group of women and hesitated.

I pointed to the photo on Sandra's phone, the one Vince had sent last night showing off his massive catch. In the picture, Vince was holding a gigantic fish, grinning from ear to ear.

"Sandra, that's tuna. It's a saltwater fish. The reservoir is freshwater, and it dried up 30 years ago. And the burr-covered weeds in the background? Those are from the poppy family. They can't even grow locally."

I picked up the remains of my sandwich and took a bite.

"They weren't going fishing. They were going to their deaths."

In that instant, I saw Sandra's legs buckle. Her earlier arrogance evaporated instantly, replaced by a fear that seemed to come from deep inside her bones. The anger of a woman convinced her husband was cheating had turned into the despair of someone realizing she might soon become a widow.

Just then, the detective's radio crackled, the harsh static sounding like a death knell.

"Detective! We found an unregistered off-road vehicle downstream along the border river. There's blood everywhere, but there's no one around.

"We also found a large number of shell casings at the scene. The preliminary assessment suggests… the worst."

Sandra's eyes rolled back, and she passed out cold.

Chapter 2

It took pinching Sandra's philtrum hard to bring her back to consciousness.

The moment she woke up, she dropped straight to her knees with a loud thud, grabbed the detective's pant leg, and started wailing uncontrollably.

"Detective! Help us! Vince can't die! The company can't survive without him!"

The other wives immediately joined in, sobbing loudly. For a moment, I couldn't tell whether I was in my apartment or a funeral home.

The detective frowned. A case involving an international cross-border crime like this meant that by the time they completed all the necessary procedures, it would likely be too late.

For now, all he could do was calm the family members down, tell them to go home and wait for updates, and assure them that the police would open an official investigation.

Wait for updates? Those scumbags were probably already locked up somewhere underground and drinking dirty water.

The moment the police officers left, Sandra turned toward me like I was her final lifeline. She pulled a thick stack of cash—over 1,000 dollars from the looks of it—from her bag and threw it on my beat-up bed.

"Drew, you're the only guy in that group chat with half a brain! You must know where they went! The stuff you said earlier… You figured it out ages ago, didn't you?

"Please, I'm begging you to tell me—what on earth were they up to?"

I looked at the thick stack of cash. That would be enough to buy me sandwiches for an entire year.

Without any hesitation, I scooped it up and shoved it into my pocket. Poor people couldn't afford pride. Pride couldn't put food on the table.

"Ladies, do you all seriously think they went fishing?"

I pulled out my phone and pointed at the coded slang in the group announcement.

"'Night fishing' is street talk for going to underground casinos. 'Chumming the water' means bringing cash to the table. And a 'big catch' refers to a new dealer or escort service."

I pulled up a private message Gideon Eleniak—another one of the men in the group chat—had sent me and showed it to his wife, Patricia.

"Drew, they've just got some 'fresh pastries' in recently. 18 years old. Fresh and untouched. You'd be missing out if you don't come."

Patricia's face instantly flushed a deep crimson, partly from shame, but mostly from absolute disgust.

The wives who had been comforting and supporting each other just moments ago suddenly looked at each other differently. They finally realized that these upstanding, respectable-looking businessmen were actually involved in such filthy acts behind closed doors.

"That's not even the worst part."

I swiped through their recent messages and continued to break everything down for the women.

"Look at this. For the past two weeks, they've been posting screenshots of their winnings every single day. Vince won 120,000 dollars. Gideon won 60,000 dollars. Even Trevor, the stingiest of the bunch, walked away with 30,000 dollars.

"This is a classic 'fattening the pig' scam. First, they give you a taste of success and let you win. They fatten you up and make your greed grow. And last night was slaughter night."

Sandra trembled as she asked, "What does that mean?"

"It means that they weren't going there to win money last night. They went there to get bled dry. And chances are they lost everything and borrowed from the high-interest loan sharks on standby."

"Check your accounts right now," I reminded them. "See if your family's money is still there or not."

Five minutes later, the room erupted with frantic wails.

Sandra collapsed onto the floor. "The company's three million dollars in liquid funds are all gone!"

Patricia's hands were shaking. "Gideon mortgaged my mother's house!"

Trevor Watkins' wife, Candice, cried the hardest. "That bastard! He took out loans from eight different online lenders!"

Human nature shattered into ugly pieces right then and there. As it turned out, these polished, successful middle-aged men had been bled hollow a long time ago.

They had gone there last night hoping to win back their losses, only to gamble away their lives as well.

Suddenly, Sandra's phone started ringing. It was a video call request from Vince.

Everyone held their breath.

The moment she answered, nothing could be seen on the screen other than pitch-black darkness.

Then came a bloodcurdling, mangled scream.

"Help! Honey, save me!"

The lights suddenly came on. The scene was so intensely brutal that a few of the more timid wives immediately threw up on the spot.

On the screen were seven men stripped down to nothing but their underwear. Like slabs of meat, iron hooks were driven straight through their shoulder blades, suspending them over a pool of filthy water.

Vince's flabby body was covered in whiplashes, his flesh torn wide open. Gideon's glasses were shattered, his face dripping with blood. Trevor, on the other hand, was passed out cold, his condition unknown.

A man wearing a pig mask stepped into view. In his hand was a butcher knife that was still dripping blood. He lazily traced the blade across Vince's stomach.

"Good evening, ladies."

His voice had been altered through a voice changer, making him sound like a demon straight out of hell.

"Your husbands have been spending quite a bit of money here at my establishment. They owe me 750,000 dollars. I want the money within 24 hours, otherwise… I'll harvest their kidneys live on stream for you.

"Oh, and one more thing. Don't call the cops."

The masked man suddenly pushed the camera closer to his face, his eyes staring directly through the eyeholes in the mask and straight into the lens.

"We know your every move. You want your husband back? Send someone who understands the rules of the game to come talk to us."

Chapter

After the video call ended, the room fell into a deathly silence. The only sound to be heard was Candice trying to hold back her sobs.

750,000 dollars. For wealthy women who normally dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a handbag, pulling that kind of money together was completely doable.

But the real question was—who was going to deliver it?

That place was a lawless no-man's-land beyond the border, a hellhole that you could easily walk into, but walking out was a whole other matter. Whoever went was as good as dead.

Sandra was the first to react. She grabbed Patricia's hand.

"Patricia, your younger brother is trained in kickboxing, right? Have him go! I'll pay him 50,000 dollars for his trouble.

Patricia yanked her hand away like she'd been burned. "Have you lost your mind, Sandra? Those people have guns! My brother is only 20 years old, and you want to send him into a death trap?"

"Then send your youngest brother! Isn't he involved with street gangs?" Sandra continued.

"He's already in prison! Besides, who in their right mind would dare to get involved in something like this?"

The group of women who had just been standing shoulder-to-shoulder moments ago instantly turned on each other, pushing the responsibility from one person to another.

They called every friend and family member they could think of, but the second people heard they needed to go to such a place to ransom the hostages, they all hung up quickly. Some of them even blocked the ladies' numbers right then and there.

That was reality.

Though they had plenty of friends who were happy to wine and dine with them, when real disaster struck, not a single soul could be found.

Despair slowly filled the room as the clock ticked down minute by minute.

Suddenly, every single eye in the room locked back onto me, looking at me as if I were a sacrificial lamb ready for the slaughter.

With a loud thud, Sandra dropped to her knees again, though this time, it was directed at me.

She shuffled toward me. "Drew, you don't have a wife or kids. You don't have anyone to worry about… You've always been close with Vince and the others. You understand their street code, and you know how the game works… Please go. I'm begging you!"

I chuckled. I was so pissed off that a chuckle actually escaped me.

I crouched down and stared right into that meticulously maintained face—a face that was currently dripping with calculation.

"Sandra, that didn't sound very nice. Just because I'm broke, I deserve to die? Just because I don't have a family, my life doesn't matter? Just because I understand those scumbags, I'm supposed to take a bullet for them? This is a suicide mission. I'm not going."

I turned around to leave. Whoever wanted to deal with this dumpster fire could do it themselves.

"75,000 dollars!" Sandra shrieked, shoving the Hermes bag stuffed with cash right in front of me. "As long as you go, this 75,000 dollars is yours! And after you bring them back, I'll give you another 300,000 dollars!"

I stopped in my tracks and stared at the stack of hundred-dollar bills. That was the kind of money an honest man would never be able to make, even if he worked for ten lifetimes straight.

But I valued my life more.

"Sandra, money is worthless if I'm not alive to spend it."

Just as I was about to refuse her completely, the kidnappers sent another video. This time, they cut straight to the chase.

In the video, one of Vince's pinky fingers was sliced clean off. The scream that came out of him didn't even sound human.

The kidnapper's voice was cold enough to freeze blood.

"Looks like you folks lack sincerity. Since no one has the guts to come, I'll just have to pick someone myself.

"That broke loser who never says a word in the group chat—Drew Ferrer. Send him. I know he has no money, no connections, and no guts to pull any funny business.

"Have him come alone with the ransom money."

It felt as if every drop of blood in me turned cold. So, the kidnappers had already looked into me. In their eyes, a broke guy like me with no background or assets was the easiest person to control and the safest person to transact with.

Because if I died, nobody would give a damn.

Immediately after, a set of GPS coordinates was sent over, along with one non-negotiable order.

"Send that broke-ass Ferrer guy alone. If the cops come with him, or if someone else takes his place, we'll kill the hostages immediately.

"Remember—you only have three hours."

Chapter 4

The room went so dead quiet that one could hear a pin drop.

The kidnappers had chosen me by name. This was no longer a choice. It was an order.

If I refused to go, these desperate women would definitely just tie me up and deliver me to them just to save their husbands. Even the cops, wanting to ensure the hostages' safety, might turn a blind eye to the plan.

I had become the only solution.

Sandra looked at me with guilt in her eyes. But even more so, there was sheer relief. She was relieved that the unlucky person chosen was me instead of her.

"Drew, this…"

She didn't finish the sentence, but I understood.

The seven women dropped to their knees in a row, wailing at the top of their lungs as their emotional blackmail escalated into claims of a "life-saving debt".

"Drew, if you bring Vince back alive, you'll be our family's hero! Please, I'm begging you! I'll give you five percent of Vince's company's shares!"

I hurled the mug I was holding onto the floor, shattering it into pieces. The sharp crash instantly silenced all the crying in the room.

"Shut up!" I roared.

My eyes burned red. I felt like a lone wolf cornered with nowhere left to run.

"I'll go! But I'm not doing it to save those pieces of trash, nor is it because of all you fake-ass women! I'm doing it because of the money!"

I stared right into Sandra's eyes as I stalked closer to her.

"I want 750,000 dollars in cash transferred to my account right now. That's my hazard pay! If I don't make it back, that money goes to my mother. If I come back alive, it's still mine! One penny less, and you can all prepare to collect their dead bodies!"

I was putting all the pressure on them. If I didn't play greedy right now, it would just look suspicious.

Sandra didn't even hesitate and made the transfer on the spot.

A ding sounded—indicating that the money had arrived—echoing especially loudly in the dead-silent room.

I had the lawyer standing nearby draft an agreement immediately. I forced all the wives to sign and stamp their thumbprints on it, and even recorded everything on video as proof.

This money had to be squeaky clean.

After everything was finished, I took a deep breath.

"I need to use the bathroom."

Once I was inside the bathroom, I locked the door behind me. I quickly pulled the insole out of my shoe and stashed a piece of paper covered with underground street slang inside. Then I grabbed a boning knife from the kitchen, wrapped it tightly with cloth, and tucked it into the small of my back.

When I came back out, the detective was standing at the entrance. He gave me a long, heavy look, but he didn't stop me. Instead, he handed me a tiny button.

"This is a tracker. The newest model. Come back alive, and we'll call it a formal contribution to the case."

I nodded without saying anything.

I picked up the remains of my somewhat-stale sandwich and finished every last morsel. That could very well be my last meal.

I threw on my faded old windbreaker and picked up the heavy black bag filled with ransom money. Most of it was real cash, but the bottom was stuffed with newspaper.

There was no other choice. Time was running out, and they couldn't get enough cash in time.

I opened the door. It was raining outside, and the night was pitch-black. The rain poured down like it was trying to wash away the filth of this world.

An unmarked black van waited at the intersection like a phantom. The side door slid open, looking like the mouth of a monster waiting to swallow someone whole.

I looked back one last time at my brightly lit apartment. That was the world of the living. And where I was headed was hell.

I turned around and got into the van. With a loud bang, the door slammed shut.

Inside sat three masked men holding guns, and the thick stench of tobacco and stale sweat hit me right in the face.

Before I could even settle into my seat, a cold gun barrel was jammed straight into my mouth. The mix of grease and a metallic taste shot straight to my skull.

One of the masked men sneered and patted me on the cheek.

"Mr. Ferrer, I heard you're pretty smart. Let's hope your life is tougher than your mouth."

The engine roared as the van shot into the rain, speeding straight toward the lawless borderlands.

In that exact moment, I knew I was no longer just a bystander. I was officially in the game now.