Chapter 3 #2
That had all changed when the oldest sibling, Eagle, then freshly turned eighteen, left to join the military.
Their farm was attacked, and the oldest daughter, Raven, still bore the physical scars from that day, but she’d saved her family’s life, and they’d entered the real world.
Inheriting a fortune, Eagle remained in the military while ensuring his five younger siblings were all well taken care of.
All three Oswald boys—Eagle, Falcon, and Hawk—had joined the military, along with middle sister Sparrow.
After a career-ending injury took him out of the SEALs, Eagle decided to use his wealth to form his own private security company.
Now, Prey did everything from black ops missions, to undercover, to search and rescue, to K9 work, to a team that specialized in apprehending serial killers.
Not only did Prey and the Oswald siblings save lives, but they also donated millions a year to various charities.
Part of working for Prey was becoming part of their extended family, something Van had always resisted. He hated his biological family, and he wasn't on the lookout to replace them with anyone. Not even people he could see were objectively decent human beings, and who he respected.
Usually, he avoided in-person meetings with his boss, preferring to send encrypted emails with video footage from his hidden cameras that he thought should be further examined.
He also sent details to Prey of the women he thought had the lowest chances of surviving their ordeal, because from time-to-time, Prey would send in someone to purchase one of the women from Azure instead of having to wait to rescue them once they’d already been sold.
But today’s meeting was unavoidable. With both Nathan and Mateo out, and everything within the organization shaken up by the abrupt departures of two of their team, he felt like a face-to-face was necessary.
Parking his car, he didn't bother searching around to make sure he hadn't been followed. If he’d noticed anyone on his tail, he would have driven around until he lost them before coming here.
Once inside the café, it didn't take him long to spot the large man with the dark hair and piercing blue eyes.
Falcon gave off the same kind of energy as Van himself did.
That kind of stay away from me if you know what's good for you vibes that most people, even without specialized training, were able to pick up on.
Only Falcon was softer these days. Meeting his now wife Hope when he rescued her from a trafficking ring had changed something fundamental in Falcon.
Then having their three daughters, seven-year-old twins Addison and Adelia, and two-year-old Azalea, had further lightened him.
While that darkness was still present, and it slipped out every so often, Van had seen the man with his family, and he was like a completely different person.
While he’d always maintained that he didn't believe in love, maybe it did exist, it just wasn't for everyone. Because there was no doubt that Falcon loved his wife and little girls, and he’d seen the way Hope looked back at him. Pure love and devotion.
“Coffee, black,” he told the waitress buzzing around the mostly full tables as he made his way to the back corner where Falcon was sitting.
“You came,” Falcon said.
“Told you I was, why wouldn't I?” he asked. Maybe he didn't feel emotions like a regular person, but he wasn't a liar.
Falcon shrugged. “Wouldn't be the first time you bailed on a face-to-face meeting.”
“Always tell you when it’s not necessary,” he reminded his boss.
He already knew that Mateo and Ally had survived the car explosion, he’d used his encrypted phone to alert his boss that Mateo had left.
Falcon had sent him a short text a few hours later telling him that Mateo was out, but he felt it was the polite thing to enquire about the man’s well-being.
Not because he cared. Because he didn't. But they were colleagues, even if they’d never met before they both took the job with Azure, and it would make him seem even less human than everyone already thought he was if he didn't at least ask.
“He okay?”
“Mateo?” Falcon asked.
“Who else?”
“Yeah, he’s good. Ally too. Both shaken up, and Ally was struggling to hold it together, but they have each other, and they’re going to be fine.
We did a second debrief of them today, got everything out of them that they knew, thought, or suspected, and added it to the profile we’re building of the man we’re looking for. ”
“We don’t need a profile, we need a name.
” Since Falcon’s younger brother Hawk had married a woman whose job it was to assist police in identifying suspects by profiling the victims, he knew the whole Oswald family had started to take profiling a lot more seriously.
On the other hand, he wasn't interested in the whys, only in stopping criminals from doing what they did.
“And this could lead us to a name,” Falcon insisted.
“Whatever. I'm glad they’re both okay.” Which was true. Just because he had no personal feelings toward either Mateo or Ally didn't mean he wished them harm. If they thought they were happy together then good for them. “What about the other two?”
“Nathan and Emma?”
“You know exactly that’s who I'm asking about,” Van snapped, grinding his molars together. He was trying to behave like a normal person. Did Falcon have to make such a big deal about it?
“They’re both good, too. But Nathan and Mateo both feel bad about leaving you in the lurch.”
“They should,” he grumbled. But it wasn't so much that he was angry about them leaving, it was more that he didn't understand it. Why would they put ridiculous feelings above a job that was actually accomplishing something important?
His irritation today wasn't because Nathan and Mateo’s leaving had left him with extra work, it was that one of those extra tasks had gotten to him. Damn the spunky brunette and her inability to back down. He hadn't liked holding her in place while he delivered the ten lashings.
It was the fact that she hadn't made a sound throughout her punishment. He’d expected her to last maybe three or four if she was lucky before she turned on the tears and began begging him to stop.
Van was comfortable not delivering mercy when asked for it, because no one had ever shown him mercy, but he wasn't comfortable with someone just accepting what they were given without a single protest. More than that, she’d told him flat out she hadn't learned anything from the punishment and would continue to be a problem.
The last problem they’d had was Emma Beaumont, who was now dating Nathan. That had turned into a disaster, and he didn't need another disaster on his hands.
“They’ve left me with a whole lot of extra work,” he continued.
Entertaining the notion that he’d be stupid enough to care about the brunette whose name he had learned was Makayla Adair, was too ridiculous to waste time on.
“I texted you the new location. It’s not properly set up yet, but the guys are very enthusiastic about moving all of their torture implements in.
I suspect the training rooms will be set up and ready to use by tomorrow.
I’m doing my best to get my camera system back up and running.
One thing working in my favor this time is being there as the place is fitted out, which means I can slip in my hidden cameras while everyone else thinks I'm just putting up the old system. I have names for the six women that are currently being held by Azure. I’ll give them to you so the cyber team can run their background checks, see if anything pops.
Right now, we only have one room set up, but they're planning another five holding rooms, each one housing six women.
So they're upping their game. The warehouse had room for two dozen women, but the factory will be able to handle thirty.”
“They’re growing more confident,” Falcon mused. “Expanding at the new location will soon lead to setting up new locations.”
“We need to get them shut down,” he said.
Already this had been going on too long.
Too many innocent women had been dragged through Azure’s doors, destroyed and broken down into nothing, then rebuilt into the perfect sex slaves and sold off to monsters around the world.
One hundred and forty-one women had been sold by Azure so far, for a total of just over thirty-five million dollars.
Of those one hundred and forty-one women, twenty-eight of them had already been dead before Prey could mobilize to mount a rescue, or they’d been hidden away by their new owners too deep to be found.
Now another six women’s lives lie in the balance.
One in particular shoved her way into his mind. A pair of steady blue eyes refusing to look away from him, refusing to back down, taking her punishment like she’d been punished her entire life and was just used to it.
Why?
What made Makayla Adair tough enough to hold in her screams while being caned ten times?
Why was he pretending that he cared?
And why was he lying to himself?