Page 57 of Doxed
ELEVEN YEARS LATER
“Hey babe.” Briar peeks into my office, her rich brown hair in rollers atop her head and her face shiny from her hour long skin care routine. “Can you take Calla and Aster out to do something while the guys set up the blow ups?”
Nodding, I close out of the email I was typing and lock my computer. The last thing Briar and I want is either of our kids getting onto my computer and accidentally seeing the sickening, horrendous things on here.
They think mommy and daddy help find missing people, which we do, but they don’t need to know that we rescue them from piss filled basements where they’re chained up, raped, and beaten within inches of their lives, or penthouse apartments where they’re drugged out of their minds and brutalized.
My hard drive is filled with pictures, videos, and voice recordings of acts that would give anyone nightmares.
But they’re all things that I use to find the abused and get them help.
Well, things that our company, Briargate, use to find missing people.
Briar and I don't do much of the investigative or undercover work anymore now that the company has grown and we have a family.
We take on every case we can, every lead, every inkling that something may be a trafficking ring.
And we work with and lend our resources to law enforcement agencies.
Briar is the face and voice of Briargate—hence the name—she tells her story in interviews to get us publicity.
She leaves out the part about me selling her into sex slavery, and also about my involvement in extremely illegal hacking practices; like hacking into our local police station several times, the multiple times I’ve gotten into federal street cams, or that time I hacked into a senator’s home surveillance camera and found his wife getting bent over their kitchen counter and fucked by someone who was not her husband—that one was messy.
Nope, she only tells them that I’m a self taught coder, who, after rescuing my girl from traffickers, not once, but twice—actually three times, but one of those times I was also the one who sold her—created a platform and eventually software that could help find missing and abducted people.
She talks about the guilt that she carried for a long time over the women she never found—we still haven’t—and how she had to do something to help others.
My wife is strong and beautiful when she tells her story, and she’s inspired many people to apply for jobs with us, spread awareness, even private investors to help take the company to global heights.
Of course, I vetted the fuck out the few investors we took on.
I wasn't going to take money from someone who had ties to the world we were trying to demolish.
Which leads me back to my computer. Sometimes I still look into cases that are trickier, or I need evidence to train my software with.
That sounds gross. My patented software can analyze photos, any photo.
A dark, grungy still shot from a bar surveillance cam, a high school yearbook photo from fifteen years ago, a photo on Karen’s Facebook where she took a picture of the zoo where she took her kids that day and my subject is in the background, half out of the frame.
And then the software runs the images through the normal web and dark web and finds anything with that person in it. It took years to build.
It’s hard work a lot of the time. We hired a full team of therapists to be on call for any of our researchers and coders if they ever stumble into something that messes with them a little more than the usual.
But it’s extremely fulfilling work as well. I can’t express the peace that falls over me every time I see a found confirmation from law enforcement or a reunited email from a researcher. It’s why we started Briargate.
I leave my office, making sure to lock the door behind me and pull Briar into my arms. My beautiful wife.
“They’re already waiting for you in the car.
” She smiles, wrapping her arms around my neck, and we sway together in the morning sunlight that’s beaming through the windows in the ground floor hallway.
We still live in the same house that I brought Briar back to all those years ago.
The only difference is that now she’s made this a home.
One full of laughter and love. I'm so grateful to her for loving me when she should have stayed in Maine.
For giving me a second chance and a shot at being a husband and a father.
I vowed to her that I would never make her regret that decision.
“What should I do with them? How much time do you need?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not long.”
I kiss her plush pink lips, her sweetness still the same. “Okay. I’ll take them to have breakfast with my parents.”
Her smile is watery, her eyes glazing over before she blinks it away. “I think that sounds like a great idea.”
I lean into the backseat and give a seven-year-old Calla and five-year-old Aster a kiss before getting behind the wheel.
We stop by their favorite breakfast diner and I order an omelet for myself.
The birthday girl, Calla, gets a stack of pancakes with blueberry syrup and whipped cream, and Aster gets French toast. The hostess that’s always here when we come in added sprinkles to Calla’s pancakes when she said it was her birthday.
I’ll stop by Briar’s favorite coffee shop and get her something on the way back.
She’s been up since early this morning getting things together for Calla’s party.
All the Outlaws and their families are coming, along with some girls Briar used to work with at La Lujuria, and of course, my wife's retired crime lord bestie, Carlos.
I pull the family Porsche over. The gravel crunching under the tires and let out the kids. Calla takes the picnic blanket from my hand before racing after her brother across the deep green grass. Two heads of brown hair bounce toward the grey headstone with my parent’s names on it.
I grab the food from the front seat and follow after them.
“It’s my birthday today, grandma and grandpa.
Mama said you got me a gift last night. I can't wait to open it today,” she rambles on, facing the gravestone while Aster nods along with her, stuffing his face and dripping syrup onto the blanket.
“I wish you could come to my party today. It’s gonna be huge! ”
Calla turns to the side, half facing us again, and the kids take turns catching their grandparents up on what they’ve been doing during their summer break.
Aster lists off shark facts to us, and we finish our breakfast. When we’re done, they each say goodbye and leave kisses on the stone, and then it’s my turn.
“I miss you both so much and not a day goes by where I don't wish you were here with us. I love you. I'll talk to you again soon.” My throat threatens to close, but I hold it back. We’ve never wanted these experiences to be sad for the kids, only happy. And because of that, they’re always very excited to come and talk to their grandparents.
We’ve gone to Briar’s mom’s grave a few times, but never her dad.
Neither of us wants to. We haven’t told the kids why yet, but eventually we’ll have to.
I place my hand on top of the smooth surface and rub it back and forth.
I swallow the lump in my throat and lift my hand.
But there Calla is, smiling up at me and takes my hand, leading me back to the car.
My daughter is the best mix of Briar and I.
She’s sweet and attentive like Briar, and so curious about technology like me.
We don’t know where Aster got his energy from since both Briar and I are calm people, and Calla was calm too.
He’s probably just like every other five-year-old boy.
He’s always wanting to play, and he loves to be outside in the trees.
He and his mom both love to be chased through them. Each having their different endings.
When we finally make it home, Calla presses her face against the back window. “Daddy, look!” she says in awe.
“I know, honey. Look at what mama did for your party.” I smile to myself as I pass the giant blow ups, the tables with pink, purple, and white table clothes, the curved balloon arch and all the matching ones tied to the trees.
Briar always manages to go all out for the kid’s birthdays and holidays, and it never ceases to amaze them, or me.
By the time Briar and I wrangle Calla and Aster into their outfits for the party, which was a feat considering they both wanted to run outside so badly, cars are starting to pull in. I left the gates open so we wouldn’t have to unlock them every time, but
I'm still the same paranoid man I was eleven years ago, maybe worse now that I have a wife and two young kids in the house, so I have the alerts set to extra sensitive and I’m watching as each car pulls through to make sure it’s one of our invited guests.
Saint, Allie, and Mason pull through first and join the party. Mason hops in the bounce house with Aster while Allie teases Calla about what they got her.
Calla loves the attention, but I can tell she’s waiting for her best friend, Harlow.
More families arrive in close succession: Callum and Reese, Finn and Huntley and their mini football team, their rival football team, Leo and Reyna, Carlos, and lastly, after everyone else has arrived, Jack and Sam park their car and join us.
The yard is full of kids and parents, aunts and uncles.
Calla and Harlow are joined in the bounce house by Charlotte and Collins, while Forrest, Olive, Maddox, Valen, Crew, and Kasen compete with Mason and Finn in the blow up obstacle course.
Aster is sitting on Kiernan’s lap and Lark is on her uncle Leo’s while they get just as much ice cream on their cheeks as in their mouth.
Carlos, Saint, and Callum stand at the end of the obstacle course, chatting and waiting to see who wins.
Tell, Maya, and a few others have texted that they’re running late but are on their way, and I catch my wife from behind on her way to the table where all the wives are sitting. I wrap my arms around her and we watch all our friends and their kids enjoy the warm weather and each other.
“Look at this beautiful life that you gave me. One where you bring me coffee in just my shirts.” I kiss her blushing cheek gently as she leans back into my chest. “A house full of our children’s giggles and your sweet voice as you tell them good morning and read them to sleep.
Their hurried footsteps as they bang around the house, having fun and only knowing what it's like to be loved and cherished. You’ve filled our home with so much love it’s suffocated me and I’ve never been happier.
” She turns around with tears in her eyes.
“I love you so much, Briar. More than I ever thought was humanly possible.”
A few tears slip down her cheeks and I brush them away, kissing her so she can feel how much I love her. “I love you too, Miles,” she whispers against my lips, before kissing me again and showing me that she loves me just as much.
The End
This story will continue in Jack’s book, The Devil Always Wins.
Interested in learning more about Mason and the Outlaws? Check out This Mess.
Want to know what Reyna’s been up to this entire time? Read on for an excerpt of Outlaws Never Die.