Leave Me Alone, Big Brothers! [BL]-Chapter 77: The Hunt

⚠️ Dark content ahead: violence, torture, coercion, and psychological abuse.

"Shit!"

"Damn!"

Zimmer cursed each time he bumped into someone.

The amber haze of cheap scotch had been a mistake. It didn’t numb the terror, it only sharpened it into a jagged, pulsing rhythm behind Zimmer Hans’s eyes. As he stumbled out of the neon-lit pub into the biting January air, the world felt tilted.

He walked with his chin tucked into his collar, his breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. He kept looking for the black cars, afraid they might find him. He felt like a mouse scurrying across an open field with a hawk circling overhead.

He knew he was a dead man walking the moment he had seen the look in Lucas’s eyes at the annex. He was sure Salazar had sent someone to kill him, or do something to him.

He was too scared. He tried to call Nael, but the boy’s cell phone was unreachable. Only that boy could save him.

He knew, everyone knew, how cruel Salazar was. He didn’t want to die. He had asked for help, anyone, but every security agent quickly refused his request when he mentioned Salazar’s name.

All he could do now was hide. His only hope was to grab his passport, documents, the hidden stack of cash, and vanish from the city.

He had to hurry!

By the time he reached the door of his apartment complex, his shirt under his coat was plastered to his back with cold, sour sweat.

"Shit!" He failed to insert his keys, the metal clinking against the lock with a frantic, rhythmic sound. He then realized the door wasn’t locked.

What?

He stepped inside with trembling legs. He didn’t flip the light switch. He stood in the foyer, listening to the silence.

He flicked the switch, and immediately his eyes widened at the state of his apartment.

It was a mess!

The bookshelves were toppled, the floor a sea of shredded paper. His mattress was sliced open, the stuffing spilling out like white entrails. But the center of the room held the true horror. His desk had been pulled into the middle of the floor. His PC was open, its internal guts spilled out.

He was not only anxious about the state of his apartment, but also afraid that his fears had come true.

Salazar was already here!

He no longer wanted his documents or passport at this point. He just wanted to survive until morning and report to the police!

He had to run!

"Don’t rush, Mr. Hans."

A voice like grinding stones emerged from one of the rooms. Zimmer spun around, his knees buckling. A man, tall, heavy with muscle, wearing an expensive suit beneath a black coat, stood there.

Zimmer stepped back, trembling.

But his step stopped short when two big men came in from outside.

Zimmer was cornered. He suddenly shivered. "Who are you?!"

Steven, who stood in the apartment, walked to the messy sofa, tidied up a corner, and sat down calmly. "You will not go anywhere. Go sit down."

Zimmer was too scared, he knelt in the middle of the room. "Please spare me. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t hurt Nael! I swear!"

Steven smiled. "Well, you are smart enough to know the reason why I’m here."

He flashed a USB drive in his hand. "But I have many interesting things here."

Zimmer swallowed hard.

Steven looked around the apartment. "This apartment is big. Is this how you live? You should live better, though."

Zimmer trembled. "Please, I will disappear from here. You don’t need to worry. I won’t see Nael again. I promise!"

Steven nodded. "That’s what I’m thinking. You should disappear. But I prefer to help you. Come here."

Zimmer looked at Steven, shaking his head.

Steven signaled something to the two men behind Zimmer. Quickly, they grabbed his arms and pushed him roughly onto the sofa in front of Steven.

Zimmer screamed in surprise, afraid he would be executed there. But they let him go. He looked at the three of them with a frightened face.

Steven handed him two pieces of paper. "Sign your resignation letter to X Starling. And a letter for your wife. Tell her that you found a better woman in another country and will live with her."

Zimmer’s eyes widened. Aside from the letters, he was terrified by how they knew about his wife.

Steven grinned. "I know you don’t have parents anymore, such a pity. But you have a wife and a son. What will you do if I do the same to your son as you did to your victims?"

Zimmer was shocked. "No! Please... They have nothing to do with this. I beg you, don’t do anything to them!"

Steven tapped the letters in front of him. "Then sign these."

Through tears and frantic gasps for air, Zimmer stared at the letters. The image of his young son filled his mind. It was enough to make him cry. He had tried to hide their identities so that if anything happened to him, they would be safe.

But he had just touched a devil’s son. He signed away his life with trembling hands.

"Good," Steven whispered. He pulled the letters away with gloved hands and put them in his briefcase.

Zimmer was shaking. "Please don’t touch my family. I will disappear. I promise!"

Steven stood up. "Come with me. Your son’s life is still in your hands."

Zimmer was tossed into the back of a van. The drive was silent and terrifying.

When the doors finally opened, the air hit him like a physical blow. It was sub-zero, the kind of cold that crystallized the moisture in your nostrils.

They were at an old summer camp sixty miles from civilization. In July, it was a place of laughter. But in winter, it was a graveyard of pine and ice.

Zimmer was shaking and trembling from the cold. He collapsed onto the snow. He stared at several men around him, who seemed to be chatting casually with rifles in their hands.

Steven motioned to two men from the van to bring Zimmer to follow him. He stepped closer to the others, who bowed respectfully.

"Is he ready?" one of them asked.

"Soon, soon," Steven replied.

Zimmer groaned as the two men shoved him again, causing him to fall into the snow. He looked up to find Steven standing beside him.

"Listen. You see them? They will shoot you if you annoy us. So we will make it fast and easy. Understand?"

Zimmer didn’t understand. He was too scared.

"Take off your clothes," Steven gave the order.

Zimmer was too shocked to respond. "What? No—"

Steven grinned. "We won’t rape you. Don’t worry. You’re really not my type."

Zimmer remained frozen.

Impatient, Steven’s men stripped him.

"NO!! PLEASE DON’T!" Zimmer screamed and struggled.

They weren’t gentle. They tore the clothes from his shivering frame until he knelt naked in knee-deep snow, his skin turning a mottled, sickly blue.

Zimmer hugged himself, shaking violently, staring at the grinning faces around him.

"We’re going to play a hunting game. The rules are simple," Steven said, lighting a cigarette. "The lake is two miles east. The highway is five miles west across the forest. You have a three-minute head start. If you hit the asphalt, you live."

"Please!" Zimmer shrieked. "I’ll die! It’s freezing!"

"Two minutes and forty seconds," Steven replied, preparing his hunting rifle.

"Shit!" Zimmer turned and ran.

The snow was a nightmare. The frozen crust broke under his weight, jagged ice slicing into his bare feet. Every step was fresh agony. He ran into the treeline, branches whipping against his bare chest, leaving long red welts. Every breath felt like inhaling shattered glass.

At some point, Leo’s high-definition thermal cameras hummed. In a secure room miles away, Leo watched the bright white heat signature of the "prey" stumbling through the deep blue of the forest.

"He’s slowing down," Leo’s voice crackled through Steven’s earpiece. "He’s heading toward the ravine. Push him toward the old hut, Steven. The lighting is perfect there."

Steven and his men moved with the rhythmic, terrifying efficiency of wolves. They stayed fifty yards back, occasionally firing a silenced round into the trees near Zimmer’s head to keep him moving toward the center of the trap.

Zimmer reached the old hut, his body shaking so violently he could barely stand. He tried to hide beneath the porch, but a boot slammed into his ribs, throwing him back into the open. He fell to his knees, white plumes of breath tearing from his lungs.

Steven stepped out of the shadows. He didn’t raise the rifle yet. He watched Zimmer crawl, the predator’s eyes cold and unblinking.

"Nael was just a teenager," Steven said, his voice a low growl. "He looked up to you. And you saw a price tag." Steven rested the rifle against his chest.

"No! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! I promise!"

"You liked to watch them, didn’t you?" Steven asked. "You liked to see them break. Let’s see how you look when the roles are reversed."

Steven grinned, releasing the man to run.

A shot rang out. "I got him!"

Zimmer’s scream was high and thin, swallowed whole by the forest.

"That’s for the trust fund," Steven growled.

Another shot rang out, followed by another scream. "And that’s for the boys who didn’t have a Salazar to protect them."

In the distance, the red lights of the cameras continued to blink, documenting every moment of the predator’s long, agonizing erasure. The Salazar family didn’t just kill, they made sure the world forgot you ever existed, leaving only blood on the ice to be buried by the morning snow.

They never found Zimmer’s body.