15. Caleb
FIFTEEN
Caleb
I’d been deep in researching the SaintMichael threads, cozied up on the sofa under a blanket, when I heard the shout.
Sharp. Raw. Pain.
I was already moving before I’d fully processed it, chair scraping back hard enough to jar, my laptop forgotten on the table as I crossed the space in three long strides and took the stairs two at a time.
There was a thump—something hitting the floor, ceramic shattering—and every instinct I had went on high alert.
I hit the top of the stairs as lightly as possible, and turned toward his room, already running through possibilities—intruder, system breach, delayed response from the compound somehow tracking us—, but none of it fit the timing, the isolation, the reality of where we were.
My hand went to my sidearm, drawing it cleanly, keeping it low and tight along my leg as I closed on the door.
Pushing it open with my shoulder, gun up as I cleared the frame, sweeping the room in a fast, practiced arc before settling on Novak.
He was upright, hands gripping his throat, the lamp in pieces on the floor beside the bed, the room dim except for the spill of light from the hallway. Apart from the throat thing, he looked… normal. Too normal. Breathing steady. Shoulders loose. No immediate sign of threat.
Which was wrong.
“What the fuck, Novak?” I asked, scanning him anyway, eyes tracking for injury, for anything out of place.
“I’m fine.”
Too quick.
His gaze flicked to me and then away again, already shutting the moment down. If I hadn’t heard the crash, I might have believed him.
“That didn’t sound fine.”
“Dropped the lamp.” He sat on the side of the bed and nudged the broken base with his foot, as if that explained everything. “Clumsy.”
Novak wasn’t clumsy.
I didn’t call him on it, but I stepped further into the room anyway, slow, deliberate, giving him space but not backing off, my attention on him. There was something in the way he held himself—too still under the surface, as though everything had been locked down hard and fast.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I let a second pass, then another, weighing it up, pushing enough without triggering whatever line he’d drawn.
“You can go,” he said.
Wasn’t this the point where I comforted him? Or not that, but reassured him? Was he in the middle of some PTSD-induced flashback? He’d probably kill me if I went anywhere near him.
“For the record,” I said, turning back toward the door, “next time you decide to redecorate, maybe don’t make it sound like you’re being murdered.”
A beat.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“And don’t cut your feet open,” I added.
He raised an eyebrow. “I won’t.”
Then, I left because whatever had happened up here, nightmare or accident, Novak had shouted out in pain, then buried his reaction deep in his freaky brain, and I wasn’t getting anything more from him.
Adrenaline still flooded my system, sharp and restless, and there was no chance I was getting back to sleep.
I’d been in bed with my laptop, but that was done, so I headed down to the comms room, pulled up the feeds, and started filtering data, watching the night rotations, and noting they ran on reduced coverage. Rookie mistake.
The scent of coffee and bacon woke me, or maybe it was the rough jostling of my shoulder.
I’d fallen asleep in the comms room, my face squished on my arm on the desk, and my back telling me that I was too old to be doing this shit.
“Breakfast in ten,” Novak said, setting a mug of coffee beside me before turning and walking out. I tracked the movement without meaning to, but it was his ass that caught me, high and tight and distracting as hell, and my brain shorted out for a second as I imagined burying my face there—no.
We’d never discussed the kissing or the blowjobs, but I’d never said I didn’t want more of the same—after all, we were in a remote cabin for at least the next week with nothing to do but plan how to extract Noah and Eden, and right now all we were doing was collecting intel.
Sex would be good. Him fucking me. Me fucking him.
All good. But maybe we could start small, and he’d tell me about his nightmare?
Fueled by caffeine, I headed for the bathroom for the fastest shower of my life, hard as a rock, but not touching because who knew what might happen when we started talking?
When I came back downstairs, the cabin felt different.
Novak stood at the stove with his back to me, moving with efficiency, bacon in the pan, eggs plated, coffee poured, as if the night hadn’t happened and he hadn’t shouted, and I hadn’t heard it.
I leaned on the counter, watching him for a second longer than I should have, trying to find the angle in. Something normal. Something that didn’t sound as if I was poking at a bruise he didn’t want touched.
“So,” I started, casual, or as close as I could get, “about last night?—”
My phone vibrated against the counter, cutting me off mid-sentence.
I stared at it for a beat.
Timing. Always perfect.
I grabbed the phone. “Caleb.”
“Hey.” Lyric’s voice came through, tight, focused. Not casual. Not checking in. “I’ve got something for you.”
My focus shifted immediately.
“What kind of something?”
“I’ve sent it over,” he said.
I straightened, already reaching for the laptop I’d left on the table. “What am I looking at?” I asked, already pulling up the file transfer.
“The collars,” Lyric said. “And the kids. Something’s not right. Cave meeting in sixty, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said automatically. “Okay.”
The call ended.
“Cave?” Novak said, finally turning.
“Yeah, Lyric has new intel,” I met his gaze. “Cave meeting in sixty.”
“Then we eat fast,” he said.
The screen filled with windows as the call connected.
Killian appeared first, suit still on, tie loosened a fraction, at his desk in the Cave. “Sorry, I’ve only got thirty before I’m due down in a meeting,” he said. “You’ll need to make this count.”
Jamie was at his side, tipping back in a chair on two legs, restless energy bleeding off him until Killian set a hand on his knee. The chair thumped down flat. Jamie stilled, not happy about it, but compliant.
In another window, Sonya was at her desk, glasses low on her nose, fingers already moving over a keyboard. “Recording. Go.”
Levi and Doc were together in the kitchen of their new place—stove behind them, lights on, coffee machine humming. Doc leaned on the counter, arms folded. Levi stood, shoulders tight, focus locked.
Lyric took the lead. “Intel first. I’ve pushed the files—pull them up.”
I brought the feed onto the main screen, satellite scans of the compound, plus extra views he’d found.
I cut in. “We’ve got visual confirmation on Noah. He’s collared, but he’s testing the perimeter. Looks as if it’s distance-triggered, and we saw a pain response when he crosses an invisible boundary.”
Sonya glanced up. “Signal-based?”
“Has to be,” I said. “Central relay. We think we can spoof it—feed a constant in-bounds position, give us a window.”
“Risk?” Killian asked.
“We can?—”
“No,” Novak stepped into frame beside me, voice level. “They won’t allow a clean exit for anyone. Not with that system.”
Killian’s gaze sharpened. “Why do you say that?”
Novak didn’t turn away from the feed. “Because the collar we saw isn’t just containment,” he said.
“It’s control. You don’t build a distance-triggered pain response without layering it—thresholds, escalation, redundancy.
It teaches compliance first, then enforces it.
Which means at least that boy, but maybe other guards are not there willingly. ”
He paused, just a fraction.
“And if they’ve invested that much into control, they’ll have a failsafe for when it breaks—kill-switch protocols, lock-downs, maybe remote override on the collars. If anything goes wrong, they don’t lose assets.” His tone didn’t change. “They neutralize them.”
Doc straightened. “What about the other guards? Do they all have these collars? Are the kids in there collared? What about the sister, Eden?”
“We haven’t had eyes on her, or any other juveniles,” I said. “As to the guards, we’ve seen at least twelve on rotation, possibly more off-shift. I’ve collated images, and at least three are young and collared.” I answered. “Guard rotations are thin overnight. We counted?—”
Novak cut in, precise. “They’re complacent. Standard-issue weaponry. Carbines, sidearms. Nothing exotic.”
Jamie sighed. “Kids with collars that go boom,” he flicked his lighter. “I don’t like that.”
“And bored guards,” Killian added. “A perfect storm.”
“And the religious aspect?” Sonya asked, though it was a question for Lyric since we didn’t have eyes inside the compound.
Lyric tapped a key, and a new panel filled the center screen—bank records, donor lists, images of sermons, and outreach flyers.
“The religious layer is a cover,” he said, voice steady.
“Outreach, redemption language, community housing—it’s all front-facing.
Behind it, the guy running it is Michael, and he’s moving money. ”
Killian leaned forward. “Define ‘moving’.”
“ Donations ,” Lyric said, and the air quotes were audible. Irregular amounts, routed through shell charities, then consolidated into two primary accounts. Timing matches intake spikes at the compound.”
“Payments,” Sonya said.
Lyric nodded. “For trafficked minors and adults alike. I can’t prove every transaction yet, but the pattern’s consistent—new donation , new arrival within forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”
Levi swore. “So, the church is the storefront.”
“Exactly,” Lyric said. “Public face is a sanctuary. Private operation is procurement and conditioning.”
Doc’s jaw tightened. “You got names?”
“Working on it,” Lyric replied. “I’ve got partial IDs tied to transport and a couple of handlers, but they’re careful. Rotating vehicles, burner comms. This Father Michael asshole is the constant.”
Killian: “Pressure points?”
“Financial,” Lyric said. “If we pull the thread on the accounts, we expose the network—but we also spook them. They’ll tighten the perimeter, maybe move the assets.”
I cut in. “Then we don’t tip them.”
“Agreed,” Killian said. “We build quietly. No noise. Get people to you as backup.”
Lyric glanced at me. “Caleb, I’ll flag transactions in real time. If you see movement at the compound that lines up, we’ll have a predictive window.”
“Got it,” I said.
Jamie flicked his lighter shut. “Priest runs a pipeline. That’s nothing new and getting very fucking predictable. I’ll work on a burn that will take time for him.”
Killian patted his knee. “Good call, babe.” Then he exhaled. “Okay. We do this right. No hero moves until we have a team in place. No rushing a perimeter we don’t understand.” He stared directly at me. “You sit tight. Build the picture.”
“We can move sooner if we?—”
“No,” Killian cut in. “Not on partial intel.”
Doc nodded. “I’ll start lining up support. Medical, extraction, fallback sites.”
Levi added, “I’ll pull local contacts. Quiet.”
Sonya: “I’ll map the relay possibilities. We’ll find your spoof window.”
Lyric’s voice softened a fraction. “Caleb, keep feeding me what you see. Real time if you can.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Got it.”
Killian checked his watch. “Cave reconvenes in the morning with updates. Stay dark. Stay smart.”
Jamie tipped his chair again, earning a glance from Killian, and stilled.
The feed ended, and I sat there for a second longer than necessary, staring at the screen as it went dark.
Killian was right—we needed to stay put and keep gathering intel—but Noah in a freaking kill collar, and God knows what was happening to Eden, who we still hadn’t even laid eyes on, were two of too many unknowns.
We had to sit tight. A few more days. Gather intel.
Build a picture that didn’t get anyone killed.
I dragged a hand down my face, then leaned forward, pulling the data Lyric had sent across my screens, breaking it apart, filtering it, setting up algorithms to scrape what mattered and discard the noise. Patterns. Signals. Routes. Anything that gave us an edge.
Beside me, everything was quiet.
No conversation. No distraction. Just work.
And when the systems were running, when the data was flowing the way I needed it to, there was nothing left to do but wait.