Chapter 21 - Rael
Watching Alanis being dragged into a building by a man he didn’t recognize was the hardest thing Rael had ever done.
All his instincts pushed him to interfere. His wolf growled and howled, itching to shred the man into pieces because he had the audacity to touch what was his. But he remained concealed. He stayed still and trusted her. Like she asked.
“Fuck,” he sighed, dropping the binoculars and pressing his palms to his eyes. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He had anticipated the fact that this would be difficult. He knew that seeing her walk right into danger would test him in all ways. But it was one thing to know it in his mind, and another to experience.
From watching that man’s hands on her. From seeing her being hauled into a building where Rael knew she’d be subjected to the same treatment she’d endured as a child.
And there was nothing he could do about it without putting the entire operation in jeopardy.
“She can do this,” he reminded himself. “She’s survived worse.”
But what if she couldn’t? Another voice reared its head. What if the man who dragged her away went overboard? What if something went wrong and she could not signal to him in good time?
Rael forced himself to take a deep breath. Then another. Alanis had a plan. She would collect intelligence, figure out who the top dog was, and get them the information they needed.
And Rael would be watching, waiting, and ready to extract her when she gave the word.
This was just the second day. They had a day to go. He just had to trust her for another day.
The afternoon crawled by with agonizing slowness.
Rael continued to spy, making a record of all those who entered and left the compound.
He spotted Gavin and Dominique walking into the place where Alanis was being detained, and they walked out thirty minutes later.
He also took note of the guard’s schedule.
***
Rael looked at his watch for the hundredth time. It’s been over 24 hours since Alanis was taken into that building, and there has been no signal yet.
“No news is good news,” Rael thought to himself. She would send him a signal if something was really wrong.
Unless she couldn’t. Unless that man had—Rael shook his head, putting a stop to that line of thought. Thinking like that wouldn’t help or change anything. It would just increase his chances of acting stupid.
Rael caught the first wisps of smoke just when the sun started to set. Initially, he thought that it was merely a cooking fire—they would have to feed all of those people. But it wasn’t.
Rael grabbed the binoculars. The building Alanis was in was on fire. People were shouting, rushing towards it with buckets of water.
“No, no, no.” Rael began to panic, already moving. “This is not fucking happening.”
He was halfway down the hill, abandoning all pretense of stealth, when something made him stop.
The fire pattern was wrong. Fires started in one location and spread. This fire had multiple origin points, all around the building’s perimeter. Like someone had deliberately set it.
Like someone purposely created a distraction.
Rael’s mind raced. This was strategic and intentional.
He pulled out the binoculars once more and looked at what was happening.
People were rushing out of the building, and there was Alanis, being dragged out by the man who had taken her in before, coughing, covered in soot, but clearly unharmed.
She was even leaning against him like she was in need of support.
But her eyes…Rael watched her as she glanced around. She did not look worried or panicked. She looked…pleased. Like she’d done this. She’d set the fire.
Rael watched the pack rally to get the fire under control. By the time they succeeded, the building was badly damaged and uninhabitable.
He watched Gavin arguing with the man who took Alanis into that building—the man he now decided to call blondie, because well, he was blonde. Blondie shook his head, his body language defensive. Gavin pointed toward the road leading out of the compound.
They were leaving, and Rael was a hundred per cent certain that Alanis knew where they were going.
A couple of hours later, the Caldwell Operation was almost done packing. They took equipment, some documents, and women who looked sedated, bound, and loaded into vehicles.
He followed at a safe distance as the convoy headed south. And, indeed, they were on the way to the place August was able to locate as another big auction area.
Rael sent a brief text to August: “Caldwell pack is on the move. Going to where we suspected.”
August replied at once: “Confirmed. We are in position already.”
“We?”
“Silas and Javi came back from their trip yesterday. Elle will also be joining us. She would be of great help.”
Rael felt pressure on his chest. The entire family, meeting at one place. All separate investigations leading to the same conclusion.
This was it. This was the core of the human trafficking network that they had been chasing for years, and tonight, they’d finally destroy it.
But before he could do that, he must see that Alanis was safe.
Caldwell stopped in front of a big warehouse complex in the suburbs of a small town. Rael recognized it as one of the biggest auction sites of the network, where the biggest events were held.
He stayed in his car, watching them unload and watching Alanis being carried out of one car to another, still acting as a submissive prisoner. They had planned for three days, but just two days later, she had given them exactly what they needed to bring this trafficking network down.
She was brilliant. Reckless, but brilliant.
Rael met up with August in a parking garage overlooking the warehouse complex.
“Silas and Javi are on the east side,” August reported. “Elle says she can feel at least thirty women in that building.”
“Yes. They took everyone.”
“Caldwell Pack is not the only supplier,” August continued. “We have traced the representatives of at least four other trafficking businesses. This is a big event, Rael. It is perhaps the biggest we have ever encountered.”
“Security?”
“Heavy. They’re not taking any chances.” August stared at him. “Alanis is there?
“Yeah.”
“You know we can’t get her out before the sale, right? If we do that, we risk tipping them off. She might need to get sold and—” August hesitated. “You will have to watch it happen. Will you be able to cope with that?”
He bit back a sigh. “I’ll have to.”
But as time passed and the buyers started to arrive in expensive cars with armed guards—people with money and authority but no conscience—Rael began to feel on the edge.
This was not going to be the first time he had to see Alanis being sold. His decision to buy her was made under a minute of impulse—out of instinct and possessiveness. He did not know if he could see people bid over her again, like she was a piece of meat.
“Nothing will go wrong, everything will be all right,” August gripped his shoulder. “Trust our plan.”
***
The auction started at eight o’clock. Rael had set himself up in the warehouse, posing as a buyer using fake credentials that August had given him. He faded into the multitude of predators, all of which were here to buy human beings. It gave him the creeps.
The first few women were sold off easily. Rael observed, noting the faces, making mental records of customers, and the cold-blooded nature of the entire operation.
Then the voice of the auctioneer switched to a more excited one. “Our next one is especially rare. A certified virgin. Shiftless, yet tough. Twenty-four years old and untouched by anyone. Bid starts at fifty thousand.”
Alanis was pushed onto the stage. She wore white—which he supposed was to emphasize the virgin claim—and her hands were bound in front of her. But she held her head up high, looking impassively.
The bidding started to climb up to Sixty. Seventy-five.
While the crowd rallied, Rael used this distraction to make his way through the crowd, trying to find someone who appeared to be running the show, and not simply a participant. And there in the VIP section, above the main floor—he spotted them.
Five individuals dressed in three-piece suits. They weren’t bidding. They were just watching the auction like people who owned the event, rather than being there to buy someone.
He looked at the man in the middle who had a particular pin on his suit—the Blackwood Pack icon. Rael’s eyes widened in shock.
Blackwood was a pack ally. They were outspoken in their criticism of the trafficking network and their advocacy to end it.
But this was one of the high-ranking members of their pack, sitting in the VIP section of a big auction.
The forged evidence against the Weston Pack, the rumors painting them in a bad light, the way their investigations continued to reach a dead end—it all made sense to him now.
Blackwood Pack was running the very network they spoke against, framing the Weston’s pack in the process.
“Rael.”
He turned to see August standing next to him with a scowl on his face. “Judging by the look on your face, I guess you’ve seen them too.”
“I just cannot believe they were playing us the entire time. Playing both sides of the street, keeping their reputation intact, while trafficking women.”
“It’s disgusting, and I cannot wait to bash their heads in,” August growled.
“Me too. But now, we need to tread carefully.”
Rael looked at the stage, where the bidding on Alanis had reached two hundred thousand. She was maintaining her composure, but he could see the tension in her shoulders.
“We wait until she’s sold,” Rael said, even though every word cost him. “Let the buyer take her from the stage. And then we shut this whole thing down.”
August nodded. “Silas is ready to signal the pack authorities. We’ve got enough evidence to arrest everyone here.”
“And the women?”
“The Lumen team is standing by. They’ll take custody of all the victims and get them to safe facilities.”
“Two hundred fifty thousand,” the auctioneer called. “Do I hear two seventy-five?”
Rael watched a man in the front row raise his paddle.
“Two seventy-five. Three hundred? Do I hear three hundred?”
Another paddle.
“Three hundred thousand. Going once—”
The gavel came down. “Sold!”
Rael watched as Alanis was led off the stage toward the buyer. He pulled out his phone and sent the signal to Silas: “Execute.”
All hell broke loose.
The warehouse’s main lights were cut, replaced by emergency lighting. Doors burst open as their men flooded in.
“Everyone, stay where you are!” someone shouted. “This is a raid!”
The buyers panicked immediately. Some tried to run; others tried to fight. The VIP section emptied as Blackwood Pack members attempted to escape.
But Silas and Javi were already there, blocking the exits, supported by enforcers from multiple allied packs.
Rael pushed through the crowd toward where he’d last seen Alanis. The buyer who’d purchased her was on the ground, being restrained by pack enforcers. But Alanis—She wasn’t there.
Rael’s heart stopped. He scanned the area frantically, looking for white fabric, for dark hair, for any sign of her.
Nothing.
“August!” he shouted into his radio. “I’ve lost visual on Alanis!”
“What? Where did you last see her?”
“Stage exit, east side. The buyer was taking her—”
“The buyer’s in custody. She’s not with him.”
Panic clawed at Rael’s throat. “Then where the fuck is she?”
He moved through the warehouse, checking every corner, every holding area. The Lumen team was processing the rescued women, getting them medical attention, but Alanis wasn’t among them.
“Rael!” Javi appeared, breathing hard. “We’ve got a problem. Some of the Caldwell pack members escaped during the chaos. Including someone named Derek Hester.”
“Who the fuck is that?”
“Based on our research—Alanis’s distant cousin. You might have seen him. Tall, lankly, blonde?”
Blondie.
“Which way?” Rael demanded.
“North exit. They had vehicles staged—fuck, they planned for this. They knew we might raid them.”
Of course they did. These people had been evading law enforcement for years. Of course they’d have escape protocols.
Rael was already running before Javi finished speaking, his wolf surging forward, demanding he find her, save her, and kill anyone who stood in his way.
Behind him, he heard Javi calling for backup, but Rael couldn’t wait.
Alanis was missing, and this Derek Hester had her.
Everything else could wait.