Caleb wick
672 Words
Caleb’s POV
Three days.
That was how long she’d been unconscious.
Three days of doctors coming and going.
Three days of checking her vitals every few hours.
Three days of wondering if she’d ever open those beautiful hazel eyes again.
I stood outside her bedroom, a mug of warm chamomile tea in my hand, staring at the closed door.
The mansion was unusually quiet this morning.
Most of my men had already left before dawn.
The mission wasn’t over.
Not even close.
A week ago, my team had received intelligence about a human trafficking syndicate operating along the outskirts of the city. They didn’t traffic drugs.
They trafficked people.
Young women.
Children.
And when they couldn’t sell them…
They sold their organs.
We’ve been gathering evidence for months, waiting for the right opportunity to bring the entire network down.
Last night was supposed to be another surveillance mission.
Nothing more.
Until everything went wrong.
One of my men had spotted a convoy belonging to Viktor Moretti.
The bastard had been my biggest rival for years.
Wherever Viktor appeared, blood usually followed.
We tailed the convoy from a distance, expecting another shipment of weapons.
Instead…
We heard a woman screaming.
Not the scream of someone trying to escape.
The scream of someone who’d already lost hope.
I ordered my men to move.
Bullets flew before anyone could think twice.
The warehouse erupted into chaos.
My men engaged Viktor’s while I searched the building.
Room after room…
Nothing.
Then I heard it.
A muffled cry.
I kicked open a rusted steel door.
She was there.
Curled into the corner of a filthy room.
Barely conscious.
A torn blanket had been thrown over her as if she were nothing more than discarded property.
Bruises covered her arms.
Her clothes…
What remained of them…
Had been ripped beyond recognition.
My heart sank.
For one horrifying second, I feared we had arrived too late.
The doctor later assured me she hadn’t been sexually assaulted.
Whoever took her had been preparing to move her before they could carry out whatever they had planned.
If we’d arrived even an hour later…
I refused to finish that thought.
“Boss?”
Marcus’s voice broke through my memories.
I looked over my shoulder.
He stood at the end of the hallway with a file in his hands.
“We found out who she is.”
I took the file without a word.
Jane August.
Twenty-one years old.
Final-year college student.
Lives with her widowed mother.
Works evenings at her mother’s convenience store after classes.
No criminal record.
No wealthy relatives.
No connection to Viktor.
She was exactly what I’d feared.
An innocent girl who had simply crossed paths with monsters.
“Her mother has filed a missing person’s report,” Marcus continued quietly.
“I expected as much.”
“The police think she ran away.”
I scoffed.
“They’re looking in the wrong direction.”
Marcus nodded.
“We’ve also confirmed the syndicate wasn’t targeting her specifically.”
I raised my eyes from the file.
“They grabbed her because she was alone.”
“Yes.”
The muscles in my jaw tightened.
Wrong place.
Wrong time.
A single twist of fate had almost cost Jane her life.
I closed the file and looked toward the bedroom door.
The doctor had insisted she would wake soon.
When she did…
How was I supposed to explain any of this?
That I’d brought an unconscious stranger into my home?
That I couldn’t take her to the authorities because someone inside the police department was leaking information to the trafficking ring?
That the people responsible still hadn’t all been caught?
None of it sounded believable.
A sharp knock echoed from inside the room.
Marcus looked at me.
I looked at the door.
Another sound followed.
Movement.
I didn’t wait another second.
I picked up the mug from the side table, pushed the door open…
…and found Jane sitting upright in bed, clutching the blanket to her chest as terror filled her eyes.
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