Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Titan
Tennessee has been a pain in the ass. I’ve been here for two months now, and I’m sick of it. The only good thing is that in my downtime I can still do research. I was able to trace Stormy and Maisy as far as Spokane. They must have changed cars there at some point. I’m not giving up, though.
My case here is taking longer than I anticipated, but I need to head to DC soon for another assignment. We can be contracted out, and unfortunately Cronus has no choice in the matter. Hermes will be with me. He’s been in a foul mood since leaving Alaska.
Our target in the human trafficking ring has gone to ground.
He’s locked up tight. We think he has someone on the inside with the Feds.
While I’m in DC, I’ll meet with an informant who might finally give us a lead.
We have a description and an alias for the trafficker, but we don’t have a name.
His friends call him the curator, as if he’s procuring them art. It’s sick and disgusting.
As I’m researching, I come across an article about a billionaire whose yacht was involved in an incident in Seattle.
This has to be our guy. He was in that area recently.
There are no further details, but something sparks in my memory.
I don’t believe in coincidence. It’s too close to where Stormy was.
I dive deep into police reports. Most have been scrubbed, but one eyewitness mentions an explosion.
The boat was destroyed, and there were no survivors.
An idea hits me. I expand my search to reports for that whole night and find a Jane Doe taken to a hospital near the incident.
She suffered burns and massive facial trauma.
I pin the report to my file, then dig into the investigation.
The victim is listed as having amnesia, and the case remains open.
Too many coincidences. Was Stormy pretending to have amnesia? Could she be the link to the curator, who, thanks to that article, I now have a real name for?
My gaze lands on an image of a girl sitting in the ambulance next to the gurney.
Long, dark hair, almost black, is braided into a thick plait over her chest. Her bright eyes shine with tears.
She’s dressed in black from head to foot.
A stocking cap on her head, cargo pants, shirt, boots, and even gloves. It’s Maisy.
A chill runs through my body as the truth sets in. My woman has a tie to the curator, Andrus Ahriman. I can’t keep this from Cronus.
The next image is slightly different. The focus is on the area where the victim was found. Maisy is in the background, looking down at the patient, while an EMT prepares to close the doors. The person on the gurney is covered in bandages, and the angle is bad, but I know it’s Stormy.
Using my facial recognition software, I try again to identify Maisy. Nothing pops up. There are only a few reasons why I wouldn’t get hits on her, and the thought scares me. As I click on another file in the police report, it disappears.
“Fuck,” I bark into the quiet of my room on the Drago Defiance compound in Chapelville.
I scramble, fingers flying over the keyboard, copying as much of the file as I can before it vanishes completely. This explains why I haven’t been able to find very much footage. I’m glad I copied it to my drives.
I hack the cameras outside the hospital, saving the footage before it’s deleted.
I only manage to capture about half a dozen, not all of them, which frustrates me.
I don’t know if someone is protecting Stormy or Maisy by removing the footage, or if something more sinister is at play.
I switch back to the police department and start searching for any digital trails the hacker might have left behind.
After several hours, I begin to piece together a digital footprint together.
Some of the keystrokes look familiar. I’ve come across this person before.
A plan starts to brew in my mind, and I decide to set a trap.
I upload an “interview” file to the police department system, but I’ve imbedded a worm in it.
When the hacker opens it, I’ll have access to their system. Let’s see how good they really are.
A pounding sounds at the door.
“Enter,” I bark, having a good idea who it is.
I swing my chair around as Aries and Poseidon step into the room. They’ve been best friends since their SEAL team days. Aries was recruited by Cronus first, and after Poseidon was injured, he was next. Our goal has been similar to the Devil’s Handmaidens, taking down human traffickers.
“Figured you’d be up your wife’s ass.” I tease Aries.
He’s been married to Wrenn for a few months now.
Her sister, Drea, was captured by a local human trafficking ring and barely escaped.
Wrenn freaked out when we were sent in to rescue her.
She didn’t know about the other part of our lives.
Because of her, Cronus decided our significant others could know what we did.
Know about the team. No one else, though.
Aries has been worried about his wife being taken too, so he hasn’t strayed far from her side. She’s a local large-animal veterinarian in Chapelville, making house calls at nearby farms and running a clinic in the town square.
“I have a prospect on her, and she’s in clinic today.”
“Did you hear the good news?” Poseidon slaps Aries on the back.
I look between them, not sure what they’re talking about.
“You two finally decided to come out of the closet?” I joke.
“No,” Aries retorts without missing a beat. “We’re expecting.” He settles into a chair across from my desk and glances up at the screens. “Still looking for that missing DHMC prospect?”
“Congratulations, buddy.” I high-five him. “Not sure the world is ready for another one of you. Although I said the same thing to Reaper and Jinx.” I chuckle.
I turn back to my computer monitors, where Stormy’s before-and-after images are displayed next to each other.
“Yeah. I ran into something interesting today, though.” I open the files. “As I was pulling reports from the Seattle Police Department, someone hacked in and started deleting them.”
“Holy fuck,” Poseidon blurts out. “Did you tell Cronus? Who’s this pretty little creature?” He points to Maisy.
I snap my fingers when it hits me.
“Fuck, I figured it out. No wonder I can’t find anything on her when I run facial rec.
She’s the one being protected by the hacker.
It’s not Stormy.” The pang of jealousy I felt knowing another hacker had his eyes on my girl is gone as the realization hits me.
“She’s the key.” I tap a pen against the screen.
“So who is she?” Poseidon asks again. “Little young for me.”
“Dude, you’d take any woman with a pulse. I saw Bambi eye fucking you again.” Aries barks out a laugh.
“Not touching that one with a ten-foot pole. I don’t know if I’m ready for an old lady or not.” Poseidon lifts his hands and shakes them while his head moves back and forth.
“It will happen. Took just one look for me to know Wrenn was mine. That was it, like a smack in the back of the head. One of those Gibbs smacks that Cronus has down pat.”
We all chuckle, and I can’t stop the words from slipping out. “Same when I saw Stormy.”
“Whoa, dude. So you going to claim her?” Aries asks as they both turn to look at me.
“I’m willing to wait until she’s ready. She’s been through a lot, and I don’t want to come on too strong.
” I fill them in on what I discovered earlier and what I’m starting to suspect.
“I think our target was the man who bought Stormy. She was found the same night his boat exploded. I don’t know how she survived. ”
“Dang, that might change why we’re here. Cronus said you and Hermes can head back to the North Pole. I don’t get why you’d want to freeze your balls off.” They both laugh at Poseidon’s joke. I just shake my head and start shutting down my system after saving everything.
“So, when is Wrenn due?” I ask, not caring that Cronus might stop what I have planned. I won’t let him. I have time to head home, take a break, and enjoy a bit of summer before it’s over.
“February.”
“Congratulations. I don’t think I ever want to have kids. I’m not sure what Stormy will want when we get her back.”
“Keep saying that to yourself.” Aries laughs.
“I don’t either.” Poseidon nods.
“Both of you probably just jinxed yourselves. Come on, let’s get out of here. Next time you bring Hermes here, make sure he gets some. He’s a bear.” Aries thumps me on the back as I grab my bags.
I’m not former military like most of the guys on my team, but I’m as big or bigger than them and can fight just as well. They all made sure I could hold my own. Cronus said I couldn’t be a pretty-boy hacker. I had to be tough enough to save myself.
By the time we land, it’s almost one in the morning, and the sky is still bright.
It’s hard to believe how light it is this late at night, but I love it.
Hermes drops me off at the clubhouse before heading to the roadhouse across the street, which will stay open for a bit longer.
I make my way through the people still hanging out and head for my room.
I’m exhausted and just want a shower and to relax.
My room is a double in the far back corner.
We don’t have a huge clubhouse, but it fits our current members.
Members like Reaper, my brother and VP, don’t have a suite here.
Reaper’s wife has one across the street at the DHMC clubhouse.
He said he wouldn’t sleep without her, and she said if she wasn’t at the house, she was in her bed there.
I didn’t argue because he’d be here in a heartbeat if I needed him.
I press my palm to the door and step inside.
Flipping a couple of switches, I set the lights to dim and walk over to my computer.
I hit the master switch to turn on the hub for my uninterrupted power supply, then flick on my tower.
My screens light up and the screensaver is Stormy.
Something settles in my chest just seeing her.
I can’t wait to see her in person again. To hold her. Maybe kiss her.
After a warm shower, I climb into bed, staring at her beautiful face on my screens.
I wonder if her voice is back to normal or still carries that husky edge she had in the hospital.
Maisy must have been the one who dragged her from the water and placed her in the park to hide where she truly was.
It makes me think Maisy is there to help Stormy, not hurt her.