Her mischievous laughter trails after me while I curse under my breath and make my way back toward my office.
The ocean beyond the windows is hard to make out due to the storm rolling through. Rain lashes against the glass in bursts while thunder roars overhead.
The room is dark as I drop into my chair and wake the monitors up by moving my mouse a few times back and forth.
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
The screens erupt with movement.
Encrypted chat rooms swarm with activity faster than I can process it. Usernames blur together in nonstop streams of messages, private bids, crypto transfers, livestream countdowns and coded conversations hidden behind fake humor and emojis.
The deeper corners of the internet always look the same, decaying from the inside out.
Most people would see chaos, but I’ve learned the patterns.
Predators always have them.
My fingers move across the keyboard, opening channels I’ve already flagged. One chat room is inflating with traffic, multiplying at rapid speed.
Then I see the username and every muscle in my body locks,themonsterinyourcloset868.
“Well,” I mutter to myself, “Look who finally crawled back out.”
I move to another monitor and pull up the information I have been collecting on this fucker.
Photos and files populate the screen.
A photo of a warehouse stands out among the rest. It’s near the shipping docks on the island, rusted exterior, one-story, no windows, rolling bay doors, industrial air conditioning, private security and a file opened underneath contains the business registration listed as a marine freight storage.
The blueprints show it is more or less ninety thousand square feet.
It’s bullshit, we already know what it really is.
This trafficker is a live streamer, and all the operations are done there. Women between the ages of eighteen to possibly early twenties are being held captive inside and forced to do any kind of request. The buy-in to join the livestream is hundreds of thousands of dollars. The subscribers’ type into the chat what they want to happen, and the highest bidder’s request determines what the livestream will be.
My attention moves back over to the chat, and I scroll to the newest message and start reading.
Stream tomorrow night.
New fruit arrived today.
Highest bidder makes the cake.
Disgust curdles deep in my gut, but the wrath is spreading like fire does over spilled gasoline.
All I hear is the rain hammering the windows as my fingers move on autopilot, searching and accumulating information.
I sense Cassidy’s presence beside me before my eyes do. I glimpse over at her. Her damp hair pinned up in a claw clip, wearing her favorite beige oversized lounge set that engulfs her and is two sizes too big with one sleeve slung low showing her white bra strap.
Her brows pull together with concern the moment she notices my expression. “What’s happened?”
I point to the monitor with the chat room still active.
“He’s shown back up.”
