CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Liam
My home office was quiet except for the low hum of computers. Papers rustled in my hands and maps covered the table in front of me, marked with circles, arrows, and notes from the men who’d spent days searching for Victor Hale.
Surveillance photos were scattered beside them, each one showing a different face, vehicle, or location connected to the investigation.
I stared at the evidence without really seeing it. My mind was in the small hospital room where Nora had looked at me with tired, frightened eyes and told me what Victor Hale had planned to do with her.
She’d spoken quietly, as if saying the words too loudly would make them real again, but they’d been real the moment Victor decided she could be bought and sold like an object.
The thought made my hands tighten around the edge of the table. I forced myself to loosen my grip before I tore the paper beneath my fingers.
“Liam?” Paddy’s voice came from the doorway, cautious and measured.
I didn’t look up immediately.
“The reports from the highway checkpoints are in. No confirmed sighting of Victor Hale yet.”
I nodded once. “Leave them there.”
Paddy stepped into the room and placed the folder beside the maps. He lingered for a moment, watching me carefully.
“You should get some rest,” he said.
I finally looked at him. “Rest?”
He held my gaze without answering.
I let out a slow breath and leaned back in my chair. “Do you know what he was going to do to her, Paddy?” I asked quietly.
His expression hardened. “Yes.”
“He was going to hand her over to strangers,” I said. “He was going to sell her like she was nothing more than a fucking piece of furniture!”
The words tasted bitter in my mouth. Paddy remained silent as I looked back at the photographs spread across the table. Victor Hale’s face stared back at me from one of them, cold and smug, and rage burned through my chest so suddenly that I had to look away.
For years, I’d dealt with men who lied, stole, killed, and betrayed each other for money. I understood greed. I understood power. I understood the kind of darkness that lived inside men who believed they could take whatever they wanted.
But this was different. Victor had looked at Nora, a woman who’d already survived more fear than anyone should endure, and decided she was something he could trade.
The last of my restraint cracked beneath the weight of that truth. I wanted to find him immediately. I wanted to drag him from whatever hole he was hiding in and make him understand exactly what it felt like to be powerless.
I picked up the next report and forced myself to read it. Anger wouldn’t help Nora. I would use my rage, but I wouldn’t let it control me. Not yet.
I spread the files across the table again, forcing myself to look at each one with fresh eyes. For days, we’d treated every past incident as problems that were finished, that wouldn’t help us find Hale.
The suspicious phone number had been one lead, but that burner phone hadn’t gone online since before he kidnapped Nora.
The ambush on the waterfront had been another.
The fixer we’d captured had been a third.
Victor Hale’s attempt to sell Nora had seemed like the desperate act of a violent man trying to regain control.
I picked up the report containing the phone records we’d traced after the first attack. The number had appeared repeatedly in calls linked to Victor Hale’s movements, but it had also connected to several locations we hadn’t fully investigated.
Diggs walked in, a tablet in his hands.
“Diggs,” I said.“Look at this.”
He stepped closer to the table, and I pointed to the list of calls.
“The same number appears before the ambush, before the fixer contacted Victor, and again just before Nora was taken.”
Diggs frowned as he studied the records. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
I reached for another file, the one detailing the waterfront attack I’d survived weeks earlier. At the time, we’d believed it had to be Victor’s doing. I remembered the gunfire, the smoke, and the way they’d moved with military precision.
“They weren’t amateurs, and there were a lot of them. They knew exactly where I would be,” I said quietly. “They knew the route, the timing, and the number of men I’d bring with me.”
Diggs looked at me sharply. “I thought Victor gave them that information?”
I shook my head. “Victor Hale is many things, but he’s not capable of organizing an operation like that on his own. Someone bigger was behind it.”
I pulled Marcus’s interrogation report toward me and looked up at Diggs.
“Marcus Reed wasn’t just arranging for Victor to kidnap Nora,” I said. “He was working for a syndicate. A trafficking ring.”
The words settled heavily in the room, and I nodded slowly. “And Victor Hale wasn’t trying to reclaim control of Nora simply because she escaped him. He was trying to deliver her to them.”
The realization sharpened everything. Victor Hale had aligned himself with organized criminals, people whose business was built on selling human lives.
Nora had become valuable to them not only because Victor promised her, but because she was connected to the O’Connor family.
Taking her would give them leverage, money, and power.
I stared at the map on the table, tracing the marked locations with my finger.
My anger settled into something colder and far more dangerous.
For the first time since Nora told me the truth, I understood exactly what we were facing, and I knew that finding Victor Hale wouldn’t be enough.
This entire network had to be destroyed.
I gathered the men in the briefing room just after midnight.
The maps, photographs, and reports were spread across the long table, illuminated by the harsh white light overhead.
Diggs stood to my left, Paddy to my right, and Michael leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, his expression as hard as stone.
The room was silent when I entered. They all knew something had changed. I looked at each of them before speaking.
“We’re hunting Victor Hale, but he’s no longer just a man who’s hiding from us,” I said. “He’s part of a network that profits from trafficking people, and he offered Nora to them as payment for his own protection.”
The words settled heavily over the room. Paddy’s jaw tightened like he’d just heard the information for the first time. Michael lowered his eyes for a moment, as if forcing himself to contain his anger. Diggs remained still, but I could see the fury burning beneath his calm expression.
I placed both hands on the table and leaned forward. “The men who attacked us at the warehouse were organized, trained, and working for people who knew exactly where we would be. Hale didn’t have the power to arrange that on his own. He had help.”
Michael spoke quietly. “And now they know Nora is connected to us.”
I met his gaze. “Yes. That makes her valuable to them in ways Victor Hale could never understand. She’s no longer just his target. She’s leverage.”
The silence that followed was sharp and dangerous.
I straightened and looked at the evidence spread across the table.
“Listen to me carefully,” I said. “I won’t wait for Victor Hale or this syndicate to make another move.
I won’t sit in this house and hope they make a mistake. We’re going to find them and end this.”
Diggs nodded once. Paddy’s expression hardened with approval.
“What do you need from us?” someone asked.
I pointed to the map. “Diggs, I want every safe house connected to this network identified within the next twenty-four hours. Paddy, trace every financial route the fixer mentioned and find out where their money is moving. Michael, pull every known associate, driver, and contact tied to Victor Hale and this syndicate. I want names, locations, routines, and weaknesses.”
They listened without interrupting as I continued. “This is about destroying everyone who believed they could profit from Nora’s suffering. Every person who helped Victor Hale, every person who accepted his deal, and every person who thought they could hide behind this network is now part of this.”
Paddy looked at me carefully. “You’re talking about war. We’re with you.”
I looked down at the photographs one last time.
Victor Hale’s face stared back at me from the top of the pile, cold and smug.
I gathered the files into my hands and closed them with deliberate force.
My rage had finally found its direction.
The investigation was over. Like my dear friend Antonio De La Cruz used to say, la guerra esta aqui.
War is here.