Page 13

CHAPTER 12

Jeeves sat up in bed, his joints creaking with a groan as he swung his legs over the edge, his feet hitting the worn wooden floor. He perched on the edge of his bed, his elbows dug into his knees, and his head was cradled in his hands, each fingertip digging into his scalp. The room was dim, the only light coming from the streetlamp filtering through the blinds, casting long, moody shadows across the walls.

He let out a ragged breath, the air whistling through his gritted teeth as he ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair, trying to shake off the lingering images of his dreams. He’d had the nightmares, as usual. But then she was there. The things he’d dreamed about her, vivid and intense, were far from the stuff of nightmares. Instead, they filled his head with images so explicit they were practically obscene; the lurid details of which had seared themselves into his memory. And it all stemmed from that near kiss.

“Fuck me,” he muttered, more to the empty room than to himself.

She’d looked up at him with those wide, curious eyes—equal parts daring and unsure. She hadn’t backed away. She hadn’t looked confused or afraid. If anything, she’d leaned in too.

And he’d nearly kissed her.

He, who prided himself on control. Who’d told himself over and over again that she was off-limits. He was too broken. It was too complicated. Too everything . And still, when her lips had parted ever so slightly and the world had gone quiet around them, he’d nearly given in.

He squeezed his eyes shut. The memory of her scent—peaches and spice—still clung to him. He could still feel the ghost of her lips, light and unsullied, but it had set something off inside him. Something he wasn’t ready to admit had been smoldering far too quickly.

“This is bad,” he said aloud, shaking his head. “This is so fucking bad.”

Because the truth was, he hadn’t just wanted to kiss her—he’d wanted to fall headfirst into that kiss, lose himself in it, in her . And that terrified him more than anything.

He stood up suddenly, pacing the floor like he could walk off the temptation. But it clung to him like his frequent nightmares did.

“Next time,” he growled to himself, jaw tight. “Next time, keep your fucking distance.”

Resigned to creating some space between them, the quiet weight of his decision settled as he got ready for his day.

He beat most of his colleagues to the office that morning, arriving before them all, apart from Haley, who was already there. Sometimes he wondered if that woman ever went home. He worked quietly in his office for a few hours, going over schematics of upcoming security instillation jobs that were on the docket. As his phone rang, he quickly checked the caller ID, a knot forming in his stomach before he even answered the call.

“Haley?” He knew she wouldn’t call unless she’d found something; the urgency in her voice confirmed it.

“You’re needed in the conference room,” she said, her voice clipped. “Now.”

A minute later, Jeeves stepped into the room, a scowl already forming. Flint, Eggs, and Haley sat waiting, a palpable tension in the air, as he approached the table. “What is it?”

Haley cut to the chase, saying, “I've uncovered a lot of dirty details about your girl’s father.”

Jeeves huffed out a breath. “Jesus. Not you too. She’s not my girl.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to call her?”

“Her name?”

“Too plebeian,” she said with a wave of her hand. “You’re the one getting to know her. You’re the one making friends with her. Therefore, she’s your girl.”

“Fuck. Whatever,” he spat, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Just tell me what you found.”

“Baker got off to a good start, but I dug deeper.” Haley hit a key on her keyboard and an image of a middle-aged man popped up on the big screen hanging on the wall. “Meet your friendly neighborhood tech god with a god complex.”

The man on the screen was sharp-dressed in tailored charcoal suits, salt-and-pepper hair swept back in practiced perfection, and the kind of smile that said he’d never once heard the word ‘no’ and taken it seriously.

“Gio Piras,” she said. “CEO of Piratek. On the surface? He’s the picture of middle-aged success. Built his company from the ground up, Forbes cover boy, keynote speaker, quote-unquote ‘visionary.’ But when you dig a little deeper . . .”

She tapped the keyboard, and the image shifted—bank transfers, encrypted emails, side-shell companies that didn’t show up on any public records. “This guy doesn’t just innovate in tech. He’s reinvented corruption. He’s in deep with at least two cartels. Money laundering. Trafficking. Both drugs and humans. Selling insider secrets. He turned surveillance capitalism into a weapon . . . and handed it to the cartels who bleed cities dry. To the world, he’s the visionary CEO—the man who revolutionized the microchips we use in almost everything electronic these days. But behind the smooth charm and expensive suits was a man who knew exactly what the cartels needed: untraceable networks, real-time surveillance systems, AI-powered logistics. And he gave it to them.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“When they needed to track law enforcement? His facial recognition software flagged their movements. When a new border route needed testing? His drones flew the path under the guise of agricultural development. Payments? Buried in crypto wallets and funneled through ‘social impact’ start-ups no one dared audit.”

With a few swift clicks of the mouse, she opened up several additional windows on her computer screen. Documents from companies that Jeeves was pretty sure didn’t exist except on paper appeared on the big screen. “He’s created a labyrinth of shell companies. Tax shelters on paper, but underneath? Fronts for laundering money through fake charitable organizations. Kids’ clinics. Domestic abuse shelters. All of it a lie.

“And that’s not all,” Flint stated. How much worse could it get? The man was a trafficker hiding behind a business suit. To Jeeves, he was the epitome of evil, the lowest of the low, a stain on society.

“Yeah. It gets worse. Much worse,” Haley said, her voice rough and strained, clearly shaken by the disturbing details she was unearthing. “There’s evidence of human trafficking. Not just Cammie. Others. Young women pulled from rehab programs he funded. A pipeline hidden under the guise of ‘rescue.’ Real back-alley black market horror show. He ran diagnostics through fake clinics—used his firm’s facial recognition to track vulnerable people. Homeless. Addicts. Women who wouldn’t be missed.”

“Fuck,” Jeeves and Eggs cursed at the same time. Hearing about the abuse inflicted upon the most vulnerable made them both feel a profound sense of anger and helplessness.

Jeeves rubbed his hands over his face like he could scrub the rage off. “Jesus. And he’s still shaking hands and giving TED Talks?”

Haley shot him a wry look. “Oh, he’s good. Polished. Says all the right things. But he’s too smooth. Like a man who knows exactly how many secrets he’s keeping and just how expensive they are.”

“He’s obviously stayed on the cartel’s good side this long by never asking questions,” Flint stated. “Not about the names. Not about the missing girls. Not about what they did with the tools he gave them.

“The moment he opened that back door into his system, he became theirs—and they let him stay rich, powerful, untouchable,” Haley added. A rhythmic beeping emanating from Haley’s laptop alerted her of something Jeeves couldn’t see. With a furious look on her face and a string of curses escaping her lips, her fingers flew across the keyboard as if possessed by some unseen force.

“Haley?” Flint asked, his concern evident.

“He’s in again,” she spat. Jeeves had no idea what she was talking about, but it was obvious Flint knew.

“How?”

“I don’t know,” she cried while still typing furiously. “It’s the Jester. He’s good.”

“Surely not better than you?” Eggs said.

“He just might be. And don’t call me Shirley.” Leave it to Haley not to let that reference to the movie Airplane go untouched, even when she was in crisis mode.

“What’s going on?” Jeeves asked.

“We’re being hacked . . . again,” Haley blurted, obviously not at all pleased someone was poking around in her system.

“A hacker who calls himself the Jester has been testing our system for months now,” Flint said.

“He’s a pest,” Haley declared before muttering to her computer screen. “Not today!” she shouted, each keystroke a sharp, angry tap against the keyboard, the sound amplified in the quiet room.

“What does he want this time?” Flint asked. The air crackled with an unspoken tension, a silent understanding between Flint and Haley that was clearly evident, and highly communicative, to Jeeves. This was obviously not their first rodeo.

“He sent an audio file.”

“Play it.”

Haley hit a key, and the audio file began to play. The speakers crackled to life, then a voice, sharp and commanding, filled the room—the voice of someone used to giving orders. Calm. Cold. Negotiating.

“She’s a little older that the usual, but still a virgin. Brunette. Educated. No real connections. Easy to move.”

Jeeves froze. Were they talking about Cammie?

“When can she be ready?” answered a heavily accented voice. A female voice. Jeeves felt a shocking chill as the blood in his veins turned to ice. It couldn’t be.

“ASAP.”

“Fine. Get it done.”

“I trust this will cover the debt?”

“With her and the others. Yes.”

“You’ll have her within twenty-four hours.”

Haley stopped the recording. “Jester sent a voice recognition report he’d run as well. The man is most definitely Gio Piras.

“And the woman?” Flint asked.

With a barely audible murmur, Jeeves uttered the name “Valeria Hurtado,” struggling to reconcile the reality of it with his own incredulity.

Flint’s gaze, hard as flint itself, locked on to him. “Are you sure?”

“Hundred percent.”

“Wait,” Haley stammered. “Who are we talking about?”

“Valeria Hurtado, aka Daniella, a Colombian national, ran a sophisticated trafficking ring from a quiet, unassuming house in Michigan,” Flint answered coldly, the weight of the information heavy in the air.

“Shit. A woman? Really?” Eggs asked in disbelief.

Haley’s fingers were typing away as she gathered whatever information she could about the woman. Jeeves could give her what the public records couldn’t. How cunning the woman was. How she lured unsuspecting men with lurid promises. How she had completely duped everyone she came into contact with. How she lived rent free in his memories and his nightmares.

Her picture popped up on the big screen and Jeeves flinched. “Jesus. She ran a foster home?” Haley cried incredulously. Then she looked at Jeeves. “She was involved in that case you helped with last year in Lake Haven. The one with the Nighthawks?”

Haley was talking about Tin Man and the search and rescue group he worked for. In Lake Haven, Michigan, the Nighthawks operated a specialized training facility where they provided comprehensive instruction to groups of first responders on a wide range of crucial search and rescue techniques. Initially, their rescue efforts focused on Tin Man’s adolescent sister, a girl who had been placed in Valeria’s foster home and who had, while there, made a startling discovery about a human trafficking operation. Later, their rescue efforts extended to Tin Man’s significant other, Sutton, who’d been captured trying to save Tin Man’s sister on her own.

Although Jeeves had participated in the hunt and the eventual rescue, Valeria had managed to elude capture and remained at large. A fact that still haunted him to this day. Jeeves had a score to settle with the evil woman. One that was three years in the making. She was responsible for his teammates’ death. Countless other deaths were a result of her actions, staining her hands with the blood of her victims.

And now Jeeves had one more reason to want the woman dead. She was responsible for Cammie’s kidnapping and subsequent torture.

Jeeves nodded, a silent affirmation to Haley’s question, his throat too tight to speak. He rose to his feet, a restless energy coursing through him, needing to move. Needing to do . . . something!

“She’s obviously back in play,” Flint stated.

“She didn’t waste any time,” Eggs murmured, sharing his astonishment.

“She’s pure evil,” asserted Jeeves as he paced.

“She’s the one from Colombia?” Eggs, aware of the disastrous mission from three years ago that led to their teammate’s death, inquired. Again, Jeeves nodded, his throat tight, unsure if his voice would cooperate.

He felt an ache in his hands as he looked down to see his fists clenched so tightly, the knuckles were bone-white. However, he kept them in that condition, fearing that unleashing them would result in a tremor that he would be powerless to stop.

Running a hand through his hair, Eggs cursed, “Shit. What isn’t this woman capable of?”

Jeeves had to agree there wasn’t much the woman wasn’t capable of. No deed was too evil for her to commit. She’d betrayed her people. She’d betrayed the numerous girls and women who’d trusted her. She’d betrayed him. She’d betrayed and abused countless girls who were under her care. She exploited. She manipulated. She tortured.

Yeah. She was capable of anything. And that’s what made her so unpredictable and hard to capture.

But just like anybody, eventually, she’d make a mistake. And when she did, he’d be there.

“Okay,” Flint said, bringing them back to the matter at hand. “Thanks to Jester, we’ve got inarguable proof of Piras negotiating the sale of a woman in that audio. As well as all the other misdeeds Haley was able to uncover.”

“Thanks for that, boss,” Haley muttered, her voice tight with barely concealed irritation, the slight lift of her eyebrow a clear signal of her displeasure at not receiving first recognition.

“Your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed and you know it.”

“How did you manage to find all this, anyway?” wondered Eggs. “The guy’s a tech giant. Surely he could hide his tracks better than this.”

“He’s good, but I’m better,” Haley stated. “He’s gotten greedy. Pure and simple. Overextended himself. Got in too deep in debt with the cartel.”

“And his only way out was to sell his daughter?” Eggs asked hardly able to believe a man was capable of such an atrocious act.

“He did it. There’s no doubt about that,” Jeeves stated quietly, his voice a low murmur in the otherwise silent room. The files displayed on Haley’s computer monitors were cold, clinical—just numbers, data, and coordinates, but Jeeves’ stomach twisted as he recognized the truth that had been hidden away behind layers of encryption that Haley had managed to hack through. It was undeniable. The man had sold his daughter, just like he had numerous other girls.

Jeeves took a shaky breath, the tension in his frame vibrating under his skin. “Gio Piras.” Though his voice was a mere whisper, it was thick with a simmering, furious energy. “He . . . he sold her. His own daughter! He sold her for what? Covering a debt?” Ceasing his restless pacing, he abruptly halted his movement and then gripped the back of his chair with a firm, almost desperate hand. He dug his fingers into the smooth, cold back of the chair, his knuckles turning bone-white with the intensity of his grip.

He thought of the little tree sprite who’d been on his mind far too often lately. Her sweet smile. Her tinkling laughter. The way her eyes would light up whenever she encountered something completely new and unfamiliar was truly remarkable, a testament to her boundless curiosity and zest for life. The sheer vibrancy of her spirit was a mystery to him. He couldn't fathom how she could possibly be so full of life after experiencing such unimaginable horrors.

His experiences, though not as intensely personal as hers, had nevertheless led him to retreat into a state of isolation and self-imposed confinement, where he had shut himself off from the world. He had retreated, piece by piece, into a state of isolation and self-imposed confinement. It wasn’t just that he preferred solitude; it was that he’d come to believe it was safer. Simpler. The walls he built weren’t made of brick or steel, but of silence, of days stacked in sameness, of misplaced blame and suffocating guilt.

He’d shut himself off from the world, convincing himself it was a choice—a calculated, necessary decision, not a wound he didn’t know how to cauterize. It was easier to pretend he preferred the quiet, that the loneliness was soothing rather than suffocating. Safer to tell himself he liked the solitude, the long stretches of silence that no one interrupted, rather than admit it had been born from grief, shame, and the slow erosion of trust in himself. He wore detachment like armor, polished and impenetrable. But all it took was her—one look, one laugh, one defiant flash of spirit—and that illusion started to unravel. Suddenly, the silence didn’t feel peaceful anymore. It felt empty.

He could learn a thing or two from her resiliency. Even though he’d previously pledged to distance himself from Cammie, a nagging doubt lingered in his mind regarding the wisdom of that choice. Perhaps it wasn’t her who required his protection and care, but rather, it was he who was in need of her support, comfort, and strength.

“Your girl’s father isn’t just a monster, Jeeves. He’s a trafficker. Look at all of this,” she said, waving to the information on the screens. “He sold her. His own daughter. Who does that? Was he really erasing a debt? Or was it more about tying up loose ends? Hard to tell. Do you think she knows something? Maybe she uncovered something about his dirty dealings.” Haley wondered, and he could hear an underlying tone of heartbreak in her voice. Despite never having met Cammie before, she felt Cammie’s pain with the same certainty that he did. A remarkable empathetic connection, a tangible sense of understanding and compassion, was what Haley was known for. She worked in the background, never out in the field, never meeting the clients she helped, but she felt their pain, deeply.

Jeeves noticed Flint’s worried gaze was locked onto Haley. The depth of her emotional involvement in their cases was so intense that it clearly concerned the boss. If Jeeves had been more clear-headed, he might have been anxious about his friend’s mental health, too.

“Is it possible she knew something?” Eggs asked.

“Baker seemed to think she didn’t know anything,” Flint answered.

“Maybe she was too afraid to talk to him?”

“Maybe.” He rubbed his chin as he stared at the screens. “Any word from Baker?”

“He hasn’t had anything new since he let us know the Piras had sent men to Hawaii.”

“Why he’d do that?” Eggs asked.

“Baker seemed to think Piras got word his daughter had escaped. Through some unknown means, Baker thinks he discovered information about the SEAL’s mission in Colombia; from this, he inferred a possible link to her escape, believing the two events were somehow related.”

“So, what? He thought he could just send men to a Navy base to question a bunch of SEALs about a classified mission?” Eggs asked skeptically.

“He’s panicking,” Flint remarked. “Cammie was never supposed to be found. She escaped his grasp, and now he’s frantically attempting to mitigate the potential ramifications of her disappearance. He’s desperate to protect himself from the fallout. The cartel will retaliate.”

“Maybe we should just let the cartel do their thing and let them take him out for us,” Eggs suggested, the chilling implication hanging heavy in the air.

“That could work,” Haley agreed. “He’s obviously got connections in high places. He’s got power, influence, and enough dirty secrets to bring the powerful down with him. But now that I’m in his system?” She smirked. “I could light a match.” With a subtle glance, she looked at their boss, seeking his permission in a non-verbal request for consent.

With a nearly imperceptible nod from Flint, Haley’s fingers danced nimbly across the keys, a flurry of motion. “Cammie still needs protection,” Flint stated while Haley did her thing. “Valeria’s still out there, and the cartel’s backing makes her a volatile and dangerous,” he added, his voice tight with unease.

“Agreed,” Jeeves replied.

Flint's icy gaze fell upon him, causing a wave of dread to wash over him, filling him with a sense of foreboding. “And she deserves to know the truth.”

Jeeves’ jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists. He knew it was coming and had dreaded it. He would have to initiate a conversation with her, a conversation that would inevitably reveal his awareness of her past. He hoped she would forgive him for his deception. A cold dread, like icy fingers, tightened his gut as he contemplated the outcome. She’d have to forgive him. He couldn’t imagine stepping away from her now that he’d gotten to know her.

If only he could forgive himself.