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“He’s been watching us,” Alaric says. “He’s been tracking our movements. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he always seems to be one step ahead.”

Emma and I weren’t even together when I made that trip to New Orleans. And when I returned to Ravenwood, that’s when he tried to get me out of the picture. He showed up again in Chicago. I still remember the icy deadness in his eyes as he watched Emma and the kids on the skating rink.

He’s not going to give up until he gets what he wants. This is a man with too much time on his hands.

Sadly for him, I won’t let him even breathe the same air as her.

My body vibrates with fury. This guy has been a threat to Emma for far too long. I can’t wait to kill him with my own hands.

“Do we have his location?” I ask.

“He’s constantly moving,” Alaric says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we learned that he lives in an RV.”

“What else do we know about him?”

“He shows traits of narcissism and sociopathy,” he says. “We’re dealing with a highly intelligent criminal who’s good with technology.”

“So how do we draw him out?”

My hands ball into fists. I want to solve this problemtonight. This man is a cockroach that has been allowed to exist for far too long.

“Even if we were to find his location, I can’t let you kill him,” Alaric says.

“Why the fuck not?”

“He’s not just after Emma,” Alaric says. “We accessed some of his accounts and found that he’s been talking to multiple minors. He forms relationships with them and gets them to trust him before meeting them in person. I suspect that Emma was the first girl he tried this on, so he formed a weird attachment to her. But she was only the beginning.”

“What are you saying?” I ask.

He clears his throat. “We found some sick pornography on his computer, Klaus. This man is a pervert.”

My eyebrows draw together as the dots connect in my head. It feels like too big of a coincidence, but it’s not impossible.

“Do you think he’s a part of the dark web ring?” I ask.

“That’s what all the evidence points toward,” he says. “These children aren’t just being picked up out of the streets. They’re being lured in by predators who are pretending to be online friends. And once they’re in that situation, they’re trapped by guilt and shame.”

“What does this mean for us?” I ask.

“It means we need to be methodical about this,” he says. “We need to outsmart him and get him to reveal what he knows about the organization.”

“How many victims does he have?” I ask.

“Dozens,” Alaric says. “This is a full-time job for this man.”

“How many?”

“He’s spoken to ninety-five teenage girls over the past few years,” he says. “And a large percentage of these girls have gone missing. We need to do everything in our power to save further children from being exploited.”

The Resistance deals with vile human beings all the time, but nothing’s ever impacted me like this. I was always able to approach things rationally, but I’m feeling too much right now.

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Alaric says.

“No, I’m glad you told me,” I say.

We sit in silence for a few minutes. Alaric picks at his meal as I digest everything he just shared with me.

Emma once shared that she tried to go to the police to file a complaint against her stalker. That was when he tried to poison her grandmother. We can’t rule out the possibility that he still has friends in the police force who provide him with resources and information.