Page 5 of Freeing Camila (Condor’s Overwatch #1)

CHAPTER 4

Jeeves arrived first at the Condor’s Overwatch conference room, which surprised him considering the morning he’d had. Cammie. The quiet hum of the air conditioner for their office building did little to distract him from the image of the little sprite dancing in his thoughts.

She wasn’t his normal type. Tall. Leggy. Blonde. Despite a lull in activity in that arena, that was what usually appealed to him, his typical preference.

But Cammie was the polar opposite. Petite. She was so petite that she could easily fit nestled snugly beneath his chin, a perfect miniature complement to his larger frame. With long brown hair that contained teasingly enticing caramel tones, it was enough to tempt any man’s fingers to run through her enticing locks. He pictured himself doing just that, the scent of her hair filling his senses as she nestled close, his chin resting on the crown of those soft tresses.

“Hey, man. What’s up?” Cormac “Hoot” Shibley said, startling Jeeves out of his inappropriate musings.

A little too quickly, he blurted out, “Nothing,” a response that didn’t escape Hoot’s sharp, owl-like gaze, drawing his attention immediately.

Sawyer “Voodoo” Graves entered the room next. “What’s going on?” he greeted.

“Apparently, nothing,” Hoot answered.

“What’s nothing?” Duncan “Sparks” Breckenridge asked, setting a steaming mug of coffee on the table before slumping into a chair.

“What’s up with Jeeves,” Hoot replied.

“Huh?” Spark asked as all the eyes in the room settled on Jeeves.

“What’d Jeeves do now?” Ansel “Eggs” Scott asked after walking in the room twisting a cap off of a bottle of water.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Voodoo said, walking over to the console where a pot of coffee waited. After pouring himself a cup, he frowned at Jeeves over the top as steam wafted up in his face. “What did you do this morning?”

“Nothing,” Jeeves answered.

“There’s that nothing again,” Hoot teased.

“So, you just sat at home and did nothing?” Eggs asked.

“Fine. I went for a run,” Jeeves finally relented, handing over a little something to avoid further relentless pestering from the insistent guys. Somedays they gossiped like old mother hens.

The guys glanced at each other before settling their eyes back on him. Shit. They weren’t buying his deflection.

Flynn “Flint” Condor entering the room at that moment saved his ass and he let out a sigh of relief. The men seated themselves as their boss, standing at the head of the table, projected the image of authority and control they had come to expect from him.

You would never guess that the man was a billionaire, as he possessed a remarkably modest and unpretentious demeanor that belied his immense fortune. Forgoing a life of leisure funded by his family’s fortune, he prioritized service, first to his nation through military service and later through his own private security firm, with a dedication towards helping others in need. Leveraging his inherited wealth, the former SEAL commander established Condor’s Overwatch, a company that provided services to both government and private entities. He exclusively hired former military personnel, a practice exemplified by his recruitment of Hoot and Voodoo, both of whom had served alongside him in his SEAL team. Even with their multifaceted backgrounds, the team members’ similar experiences forged a strong bond, allowing them to work cohesively and develop a relationship as close as brothers.

The loss of a team member three years prior had been a devastating blow from which the team was still struggling to fully recover. Jeeves was particularly affected by the death of his friend having been present at the time of the death and powerless to prevent it. His actions in the aftermath of that time only served to deepen his sense of guilt, preventing him from moving past it.

Not for the first time, Jeeves wondered what he was doing there. His team at Condor’s Overwatch, all ex-military like him with finely-honed skills, were incredibly valuable assets in their high-stakes security work. But him . . . his mistakes stabbed at him like a persistent woodpecker. Constantly pecking at him and telling him he didn’t belong among them.

Despite the opportunity, the bitter taste of past setbacks lingered. He knew he should be grateful to Flint and Condor’s Overwatch, but his confidence was shattered. A gnawing sense of inadequacy persisted, even with Flint’s support. The disastrous years had left his self-esteem in ruins with the weight of past failures, leaving him feeling utterly defeated.

Atonement was all he could focus on now, all that he could do to try to right his wrongs.

Jeeves could sense that a reckoning was coming from his boss. Throughout the last three years, Flint had afforded him both the time and space required to work through his shit. A considerable act of patience Jeeves knew was coming to a close, and its end would not be easy for him to bear.

Haley “Halestorm” Lamb stumbling into the room thankfully distracted him from his thoughts. Their resident computer geek looked the part. With her hair a chaotic jumble atop her head and her glasses precariously perched, she looked harried as usual. And was that a pencil in her hair?

A steaming cup of coffee threatened to spill as she fumbled with her laptop and notepad, nearly dropping them all when she collided with the doorframe. Hoot was closest, so he quickly rose from his seat to help her, grabbing her coffee before she burned herself with the hot liquid. She smiled her thanks before taking her seat.

Her lack of self-awareness was overshadowed by her incredible skill. She could perform feats of digital wizardry on the computer, leaving most others far behind in their aspirations. She was an asset to the company, as were the other guys that sat around the table.

Flint, so named because he had the knack of being able to light a fire under the most stubborn, started the meeting. Hoot and Voodoo gave their report of a security assessment they’d done for a local business. Then Eggs and Spark spoke of their ongoing investigation into a fraud case. That left Jeeves who had nothing to report, having had no duties assigned specifically to him. The fact that he’d spent the previous few months in a supporting role, while helpful to his team, did little to alleviate his nagging sense of being undeserving of his position. A cruel twist of imposter syndrome that sat in his gut like a rock.

“I have one more thing,” Flint then stated before turning to Haley. “He there yet?”

“Just calling in now,” Haley answered, hitting a few keys on her laptop. Baker Rawlins’ image popped up on the large screen behind Flint. As their boss greeted the renowned SEAL, a ripple of respect went through the assembled men around the table, each one instinctively straightening their posture. Baker’s legendary status extended far beyond the teams, reaching into all corners of the military community. Last Jeeves heard, he’d retired to Hawaii―and the word “retired” was used loosely since a man like Baker never truly retired. Jeeves was aware the man maintained a vast network of contacts in the world’s seedy underbelly, constantly gathering information to safeguard those who most required his protection.

After pleasantries were completed, Flint then asked, “What can we do for you?”

“Got a project for you. The team stationed in Honolulu recently completed a mission in Columbia.”

His ears perked up at the mention of the country, the name a bitter taste on his tongue, bringing back the sounds of distant screams as memories assaulted him. Their run to the Humvee. Sutton’s fear filled face. Liam’s blood staining the backseat.

“I’m guessing it was successful,” Flint stated.

Baker smiled. “In a manner of speaking. But they didn’t come home empty-handed.”

“A hostage rescue operation?” wondered Flint.

“Wasn’t supposed to be. The mission’s objective? Discreet intelligence gathering.” Baker’s eyes landed on Jeeves with that bit of information, and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what the legend said next. “There was a lead on him,” he finished cryptically but Jeeves knew exactly who he was talking about.

“Who?” Haley asked.

“El Sombra,” Jeeves mumbled, the name that was synonymous with his nightmares. Otherwise known as The Shadow, the man was an evil ghost that worked out of Colombia. The leader of a militant guerrilla group had been responsible for the slaughter of dozens of women and children. At least the dead ones got off easy. The girls he deliberately separated from the others were in for a fate worse than death.

The weight of Liam’s death, a direct result of El Sombra’s actions, settled heavily on everyone’s shoulders with the mention of his name. No one knew who he was, a phantom leaving no trace but chaos in his wake, disappearing after each attack, making tracking him nearly impossible. He should know. His relentless pursuit of the man had spanned three years, yet Jeeves’ efforts remained fruitless.

Unable to take out his frustrations on the man responsible, Jeeves had fucked up and blamed the woman he and Liam had been sent to Colombia to protect.

Sutton Masters was a highly respected photographer and Liam’s fiancée. It should have been an easy mission. The gathering was supposed to be peaceful. It ended up being anything but. El Sombra attacked and Liam died protecting his fiancée. That’s when Jeeves had lost his ever lovin’ mind, blaming her for his death.

During the attack, Liam had to physically pull her away to safety; she was so engrossed in photographing the horrific scene, meticulously documenting every detail. In Jeeves’ messed up mind, if she had run after the first shots, Liam wouldn’t have been killed.

His reasoning was fucked up, and he knew it. That misplaced hatred, accompanied by a crushing guilt, had burdened him for over two years, a constant, suffocating presence. It was not until recently that he had confronted the guilt and shame he had been carrying. And it had started with a heartfelt apology to the one person who deserved it the most.

However, a different kind of frustration, one that was steadily growing and dominating his thoughts and actions, began to consume him. The endless chase ate at him; his quest for justice against El Sombra, or perhaps revenge, was a burning fire within. It made no difference to Jeeves whether El Sombra met his end through the punishment of justice or the merciless grasp of revenge; either outcome was equally acceptable.

“Because of Sutton Master’s pictures, we were able to run a search of the emblem that donned the uniforms of El Sombra’s men,” Baker said, pulling Jeeves out of his thoughts. “We got a hit which led the SEALs to a compound deep in the jungle north of Bogota.”

“What’d they find?” Flint asked.

“Not enough,” Baker relented, his frustrations at tracking down the elusive shadow just as evident as his own. “They were pulling out. El Sombra long gone. Only a handful of men and a dozen prisoners. All young Columbian girls,” he paused here for some reason which only became clear with his next words. “And one American.”

“What the fuck?” Hoot cursed.

“What was she doing there?” Voodoo wondered.

“She’d been sold to the group . . . by her father.” The team responded to Baker’s words with a chorus of colorful curses, a testament to the shocking nature of his pronouncement.

“God. Her father did that to her?” Haley gasped.

“From what I’ve gathered, he worked one branch of their trafficking ring in the US but fucked up. His only recourse was to hand over his daughter.”

“That’s fucked up,” Eggs spat.

“No kidding,” agreed Hoot.

The group began to converse amongst themselves, their shared outrage at the man’s actions—selling his own daughter—clearly evident in their tone and the intensity of their discussion. None of them, with their deeply ingrained protective instincts, could even begin to fathom such an act. Jeeves couldn’t even begin to imagine the turmoil of emotions that girl must have experienced. Betrayed by the person who should have been her greatest protector.

“Right. So what do you need from us?” Flint asked, bringing the individual conversations to an end.

“The boys brought her back with them to Hawaii, where she spent over a month recovering. As you can imagine, the women, my wife included, took her under their wing. But word got out about her rescue. It was only a matter of time before her father found her again. I wanted to prevent that. I gave her a new identity and sent her to Bell Creek.”

“You sent her here?” Flint asked.

“Alone?” Haley wondered.

“Yes, on both accounts. That’s where you come in. Need you to look after her. She’s determined to start life anew. Got a spine of steel, that one.” To Jeeves, the respectful way in which Baker had spoken about the girl implied a level of admiration and deference that was quite apparent.

He couldn’t help but wonder who this girl was, but when a picture popped up on the screen next to Baker’s image, he bit back a curse. The familiar brown eyes in the image seemed to stare directly at Jeeves, causing him to gape in astonishment as he recognized their owner. He quickly shuttered his expression hoping the others didn’t notice his reaction.

He should have known the little sprite wasn’t just another pretty face. There had been something in those deep brown orbs that spoke of past troubles.

“This is Camila Pierce.”

“Pretty little thing,” Eggs, the lecher stated, and Jeeves had never wanted to punch out a fellow teammate more.

“Fuck, she must have been fodder to those men,” Voodoo stated, which made his stomach churn with bile. The thought of that innocent woman, with her trusting eyes and gentle smile, being violated was unthinkable.

“She doesn’t remember much of what happened to her after she’d been abducted. They’d beaten her. The severity was obvious after an extensive medical examination. But no sign of sexual abuse. Doesn’t mean she wasn’t abused in other ways.”

There were countless ways those fuckers could have messed her up. Yet, it was quite surprising that the woman, a virtual stranger Jeeves had encountered mere hours before, showed no signs of any undesirable effects. Only once did he see a hint of darker shadows in her eyes.

“What do we know about her father?” Flint asked, and another picture popped up on the screen. The man in the image looked like any normal American male, but Jeeves knew better than anyone that looks could be deceiving. Salt and pepper hair that was more salt than pepper. Straight nose, high brows, and eyes the same deep brown as his daughter. Jeeves hated that for her, the fact that she carried that similarity to her father with her.

“Wait . . . isn’t that Gio Piras?” Hoot asked.

“Who?”

“The guy that’s always at the top of the Forbes lists?”

“The billionaire?”

More information scrolled across the screen as Haley did a search. The man was a high roller in the tech industry. His company produced the majority of microchips for everything from cars to personal computers. He held numerous high-tech security contracts and gave to charity religiously.

“He’s practically royalty in the tech world,” Hoot proclaimed, and the begrudging respect Jeeves heard in his friend’s tone made him sick.

“There’s no mention of a daughter,” Haley said, her eyes never leaving her screen as her fingers flew across the keyboard.

“That’s because he never acknowledged her as his daughter,” Baker said. “Apparently, she’s the daughter of one of his many mistresses. She wouldn’t share much, but I got the impression her life with him hadn’t been easy.”

“Obviously, since he sold her,” Voodoo spat.

“Shit. There’s a ton here to weed through. Daddy’s been a bad boy,” Haley muttered. “It’s going to take me a while to compile all his dirty deeds.”

“Do what you can,” Baker ordered. “I’ll keep working on the El Sombra situation.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” Haley replied, distracted, her mind already ten steps ahead as information flew across her screen. Flint made a sound and Haley apologized for her faux pas. Despite Baker’s incomparable reputation, he wasn’t her boss. “Sorry, boss man,” she said to Flint. “Won’t happen again.”

“I bet it will,” Sparks muttered, and Jeeves had to agree. The woman got distracted easily, losing herself in whatever information she could find with her computer.

“I’ll be in touch,” Baker said. “Keep her safe. As far as I know, Piras doesn’t know she’d where she is or what name she’s using. But with his tech connections, that could change.”

“We’ll keep you posted,” Flint assured before the screen went dark.

The room was silent for a hot minute as the team absorbed all that they had learned. The woman in the tree was a billionaire’s daughter. And if the preliminary information Haley was pulling up was accurate, the man was head to toe dirty. The depth of his depravity was shocking; and the world was completely unaware of his involvement in such a terrible crime—the selling of his own daughter into the world of human trafficking.

He couldn’t quite wrap his brain around that tidbit of information. She’d seemed so innocent. So young and . . . cheery. That was the best word to describe her personality. Cheery.

He never would have guessed that the sweet, innocent girl he’d met only hours ago had been raised by a man whose hands were stained with such filth. Jeeves thought about the enigmatic woman; her smile, a subtle grace, spoke of a serenity that felt worlds away from his own. How could she maintain that innocence if she’d been raised in the Piras household? Did she not know what her father was capable of before he’d sold her? She must be in her late twenties. How could she have reached that age and lived among them and not know?

A fierce wave of protectiveness washed over Jeeves. Fuck. Given his history, the profound emotional pressure he felt constricting his chest was simply more than he could cope with at that moment. A paralyzing fear, cold and heavy, gripped his chest, making it hard to breathe.

“Jeeves,” Flint called out to him pulling him back from his spiraling thoughts. He glanced around, the weight of the guy’s stares heavy on him, and realized he’d missed a chunk of the conversation.

“Sorry, what?”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, man,” Voodoo said.

Everyone was staring at him, waiting for an answer. His eyes met his boss’s, and a sudden tension, a vise-like grip, tightened in his stomach. Shit. He couldn’t lie to his boss. Sharing his connection to her would bring repercussions for him, but he had no choice but to reveal that he knew her.

“I met her,” he mumbled.

“What’s that?” Eggs asked clearly having heard him if the smirk was any indication. Jeeves knew exactly where the man’s mind had gone. He was sure Eggs thought he’d had intimate knowledge of the woman.

A low growl rumbled in Jeeves’ chest, a primal urge to snap at his teammate, but he forced it down. “I met her this morning. She was stuck in a tree.”

The men and Haley all looked at him as if he’d said something ridiculous and if he thought about it hard enough it was a little crazy. Encountering a grown woman in a tree was not an everyday occurrence.

“You met Camila in a tree?” Haley reiterated unnecessarily pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Cammie,” he corrected for some unknown reason. “She goes by Cammie.”

“Just how well do you know this woman?” Eggs asked with a knowing smirk.

“Get your head out of the gutter,” he growled. “It’s not like that. I just helped her out.”

“Helped her out how?” Haley wondered.

“She was stuck. Her clothes got snagged by some branches. I climbed up and helped her down.”

“Interesting,” Eggs, the asshole, uttered in a tone that made Jeeves’ fists clench. “You helped her down,” he continued, making the deed sound dirty.

“Oh my God. Would you stop,” Haley cried. “He just helped the woman out. Why do you have to make everything sound so dirty?”

“It’s just who I am, darlin’,” he replied with an obnoxiously confident grin.

“You must have done more than just helped her down if you know what she prefers to be called,” Sparks mused. Sparks was the quietest one of the bunch, but when he did speak, you listened.

Jeeves felt an unfamiliar heat flare in his cheeks. “She had a cut on her back from the branches. I treated it.”

“I bet you did,” Eggs murmured suggestively under his breath. Haley took a pencil out of her hair and threw it across the room at him. Of course, the man caught it and threw it back causing Haley to duck. The pencil flew past her and hit the wall behind her before rolling under the table.

“The woman’s in trouble,” Haley scolded, ignoring the pencil. “Have some common decency.”

“Not familiar with the term,” Eggs teased.

“You’re impossible.”

“So, how do we handle Baker’s request?” Hoot, wisely sensing a need for course correction, asked.

“When I spoke to Baker earlier, he got the sense that she wasn’t sharing everything with him. He thought she might have been too scared. All he knew was that she was desperate to get away from her father,” Flint said. Jeeves didn’t doubt that Cammie was scared of Baker. He was a big guy even though he’d heard most women refer to him as a silver fox. But Baker wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless that fly hurt someone he’d taken responsibility for.

“So, we watch her?” Voodoo asked.

Flint nodded. “Covertly. The new identity he’d created for her is solid, so he doesn’t think there will be an issue. He just wanted to let us know she was here.”

“Piras’s company is in LA, right?” Voodoo mused.

“Correct. The chances of him coming to Bell Creek is slim. Still . . .” He let the thought go unsaid. They all knew the best laid plans could go FUBAR in an instant.

“So we watch her,” Hoot reiterated.

“Not we,” Flint started before his eyes landed directly on Jeeves. A cold knot of dread tightened in his stomach. He knew what that look meant. “Just Jeeves. The rest of you have other assignments that take priority. And since Jeeves already has a relationship with the woman, he’s responsible for her.”

And there it was. He was so fucked.

“Sir―” Jeeves started to protest but was cut off by the bossman himself.

“That’s all for now,” Flint said, dismissing the team before standing and leaving the room.

“Shit,” Jeeves cursed and wanted to hurry out after his boss, but the rest of the group was blocking his exit.

Although he was a highly trained and skilled operator, a wave of panic unexpectedly washed over him, overwhelming his composure. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn't risk another tragedy; the memory of past mistakes made him incapable of taking on anyone’s safety. The idea of repeating the past filled him with such dread that he shuddered, the potential for loss being simply too overwhelming to consider.

He couldn’t go through that again. He wouldn’t.

That had been the deal when he’d agreed to continue his employment with Condor’s Overwatch. No personal security missions. Flint had agreed to his conditions. But now, he was reneging on that agreement and, by his quick retreat from the conference room, his boss knew it.

Pushing his way out of the room, Jeeves strode into Flint’s office just as the man took his seat behind his desk. Before he could say a word, his boss sighed.

“I know what you are going to say.”

“We had a deal,” Jeeves insisted.

“I know. But the woman isn’t in any immediate danger. Think of it as making a new friend.”

Jeeves scoffed. “A new friend.”

“Look. I know what you’ve been through changed you.”

“With all due respect, you know nothing,” Jeeves snapped, anger a fiery spark igniting the sharp words.

“I know it wasn’t your fault. I know you doubt your ability to protect others. And I know it's all complete bullshit,” he spat, the words hanging heavy in the air.

“Give it to someone else. I can’t do it.”

“You can and you will,” Flint insisted, his jaw set, before letting out a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the world. “You’ve got it in your head that you fucked up that night. I get it. Second guessing yourself.”

“It’s not second guessing. It’s fact. If I hadn’t lost focus―”

“There was no reason to think an attack was imminent. I’ve read the after-action reports, Jeeves. The gathering was supposed to be peaceful.”

Jeeves let out a short, sharp scoff, the sound tight and dismissive. “It was Columbia. That country rarely experiences lasting peace. Especially when it comes to the terrorist factions, their hidden agendas, and the constant threat of violence. While I was off dicking around, people died. Liam died,” he finished, his voice strained, the unspoken sorrow of his best friend’s death palpable in the tight constriction of his lungs.

“It’s tragic, but we all know that’s a possibility given our jobs. He knew what he signed up for. And what happened is not your fault.”

Jeeves let out a bark of laughter, a bitter, chilling sound that held no trace of mirth. “Maybe I wasn’t the one to pull the trigger, but my actions leading up to the attack didn’t help.”

“Jeeves―”

“No,” he barked, cutting the man off. “You know it’s true. While I was getting my rocks off in the woods, those innocent women were dying.” Unable to stand still, his agitation drove him to pace the small, confining room. The stifling atmosphere closed in on him. With a frustrated hand running through his hair, he felt an overwhelming urge to scream, a primal cry that seemed to be building up inside him and threatening to erupt. But even if he unleashed it, it still wouldn’t drown out the screams of those women and girls who had only gathered in a like-minded pursuit to bring Columbian women into the twenty-first century. Strong, independent women who’d been so proud of the things they’d accomplished that day. Only for betrayal from one of their own to bring it all crashing down.

The guerrilla fighters had swept through the village, strafing the huts and tents with gunfire before Jeeves could even begin to wrap his brain around what was happening. He’d been in the jungle outside the village waiting for a woman from the gathering that had caught his eye. It was a moment of weakness that would haunt him for life.

Despite his initial fucked up response of blaming Sutton, Jeeves knew deep down that Liam’s death was a direct result of his delayed response. The bitter taste of regret constantly lingering in the air as waves of ineptness swamped him. “Shit. I don’t even know why you keep me on knowing how badly I fucked up,” he muttered, his voice thick with despair, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.

“Fuck that shit out!” Flint’s shout reverberated through the room, jolting Jeeves out of his disturbing recollections. “I’m only going to say this one more time, so listen up. There. Was. No. Fuck up. Were mistakes made? Yes. But what mission didn’t come with its fair share of mistakes? The fact is, you got the primary out of there. She’s safe and living a good life because of your actions. Sutton has moved on. It’s time you did too. I think Camila Pierce is the key to making that happen.”

Shit. Jeeves recognized the unyielding tone in his boss’s voice and knew it was futile to argue further. A sigh, heavy with resignation, escaped Jeeves’ lips as he nodded slowly.

“Just be her friend. That’s all that’s needed at this point,” Flint said, the harshness leaving his voice, replaced by a more measured, calming tone.

Befriend Cammie. For some inexplicable reason, he sensed that the situation was destined to become far more complicated and problematic than was actually necessary or warranted.