19. Caleb #2
“And out of everyone you chose me?” He sounded disbelieving. “What is it with people asking me for advice.”
“You know Novak.”
This time he huffed. “More than some I guess.”
I spun my chair once, slowly, staring at the ceiling for a second before focusing back on the screens.
“This love thing wasn’t one moment,” I said.
“It was a series of them. Him being there. Him choosing to be there. Every time I pushed back, every time I told him to stop, and he didn’t—not because he was ignoring me, but because in his head the equation didn’t change.
I was still… his responsibility. His focus.
” I swallowed. “Somewhere along the way, that stopped feeling like a threat.”
“And it started feeling like love?” Doc asked.
I hesitated, searching for something that didn’t sound completely unhinged. “Yeah, like love.”
There was the faint sound of a mug being set down. “Novak doesn’t understand love the same as you do,” Doc said. “You know that.”
“I do,” I said. “That’s why I don’t understand why I’m okay with this. I’ve spent years making sure I’m not dependent on anyone, not in a way that can be used against me. And now I’m sitting here trying to figure out why the idea of stepping back from him feels like shit.”
Doc didn’t answer immediately, and I let the silence stretch. “Okay.”
I rubbed at the back of my neck. “I look at him now and there’s no version of this where I don’t choose him. That’s the part I can’t logic my way out of.”
On the other end of the line, Doc was quiet for a beat. “Then stop trying to,” he said.
I frowned slightly. “That’s your advice?”
“My advice,” he said, “is that you’ve already done the analysis. You’ve seen exactly who he is, and you’re still here. The question isn’t why you love him. The question is whether you can live with the way he loves you.”
I went still at that, the words landing heavier than anything else he’d said.
“You’ve seen it,” Doc continued. “The focus, the intensity. When Novak decides someone matters, that doesn’t switch off. It doesn’t dilute over time. It sharpens.”
“I know,” I said, quieter now.
“Are you okay with that?” he asked.
I stared at the screen in front of me, but I wasn’t seeing it anymore. I was seeing Novak instead—his stillness, the way he watched, the certainty in everything he did.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Part of me thinks I should run. That this is exactly how you lose control of a situation.” I exhaled slowly. “But the rest of me… the part that actually matters, I guess… doesn’t want out.”
Doc hummed softly, as if that made sense to him. “Then you don’t have a lack of understanding,” he said. “You have a decision to make.”
“I think I already made it,” I said, the words coming out before I could second-guess them.
There was a small shift in the background, as if he’d leaned against the counter. “Novak’s not going to change who he is, Caleb. But he’ll adapt where he can, if you make it clear what matters. Have you told him?”
I felt suddenly sad. “Is there any point if it doesn’t mean anything to him?”
“Jesus, Caleb, it means something to you . Tell him and let him understand what he can.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Anytime,” he replied.
I ended the call and sat there for a moment, the quiet of the room settling back in around me, the screens still running, the world still rotating exactly as it had before, and footsteps on the stairs.
Nothing had changed.
Except now I wasn’t pretending I didn’t know what this was.
He came in with more chocolate.
“You’re not even trying to make this easy,” I said.
“Make what easier?”
“Nothing,” I dismissed, not quite ready for the big reveal. I hooked a finger into his belt and tugged him. “Come here.”
His hand came to the back of my neck, it reminded me how easily he could take control of the space between us.
His thumb traced my skin, slow, deliberate, and he kissed me.
The way he focused on me, made something low and addictive tighten in my chest, the idea of him taking care of me like this—possessive, a little dangerous—not pushing me away, but pulling me in deeper.
I imagined all that focus on me as he took me apart with his cock buried inside me.
“Are you vers? Will you ever want to fuck me?”
“Whatever you want.” He leaned into my space, brushed cookie crumbs from my lips, and kissed me. “Now?”
“ After we work,” I said, although I was already hard and had to wriggle a major readjustment in my pants to sit still.
He glanced down and then back up to meet my gaze.
A vibration indicated the final files were available, and I kissed him back until it vibrated again. “Cockblocked by a phone,” I muttered.
“Later,” he promised me with a gleam in his gorgeous silver eyes.
Later.
Back to work.
My fingers moved before I could think, commands firing, two more screens flaring to life as I pulled threads together. He let me work, handing me more coffee and cookies.
“Fuck.” I scrubbed a hand over my mouth; eyes locked on the data. “That’s not… no.” Quieter now. I leaned in, reran the query, cross-checked, and forced the system to prove me wrong.
It didn’t.
I sat back an inch, as if distance might make it less real. Then I dragged files across, opened more windows, stacked everything into place, building the picture faster than most people could follow.
“What’s wrong?” Novak pushed.
I didn’t answer straight away. My jaw tightened as I scanned, sorted, and cataloged. He shifted closer to see what I was looking at. Columns. Filenames. Structure. Certainly not sermons or donations.
“The cult is a cover for a trafficking pipeline.”
I opened a directory, and a grid filled the screen—IDs, ages, coded tags. My gaze caught on one column.
“Compliance collars,” I said, the words sitting wrong in my mouth. “Inventory tracking. Behavior flags… Jesus.”
Another window. Medical files. Notes. Scores.
“They’re conditioning the victims,” I went on, my voice flattening into something colder. “Breaking them down. Grading them. Matching them to buyers.”
I opened another file—and stilled when I found Ezra and Seth’s sister.
“Eden.” Barely a whisper. “Fourteen. Four months pregnant. ‘Mother and baby healthy’—that’s how they log it.”
Images loaded. Side profile. Her stomach rounded. Same hollowed-out expression as the boys.
“There’s a listing,” I said. “Starting bid: four hundred thousand. Male fetus noted.” I swallowed, forced the rest out. “They’re selling her child.”
Novak was silent, and I stared at him for a beat too long, then forced myself to click into the next layer. A third screen populated—routes, timestamps, handoffs.
“Transport runs through multiple jurisdictions,” I said. “Shell charities. Church vehicles. It disappears in the paperwork.” I went very still as something else surfaced. “They’ve got law enforcement backing them up.” I tilted the screen so Novak could see. “Look at this—local liaison.”
I tapped the line, jaw tight. “Code name only. ‘Sgt D.’ No surname. And this—” I pointed lower, my voice dropping, “—confirmed escort at five percent fee.’ This Sgt D is assisting in moving victims and getting paid for it.”
I scanned further, faster now, anger sharpening into precision.
“He’s not the only one. Intake logs. Conditioning stages.
Transport routes. Victims cataloged, collared, scored, then pushed through shell systems so they vanish.
” I exhaled slowly. “This isn’t a handful of zealots in the middle of nowhere. ”
No. It was built. Structured. Scaled.
“A pipeline.” I pushed back from the desk, not far, just enough to breathe, but my eyes never left the screens. “Built to move victims like product.”
“What now?”
He stared at the screen. “I’ll dig deeper. Get Lyric on this. I need time.”