Page 69 of Dark Auctioned Mate

The afternoon crawled by with agonizing slowness. Rael continued to spy, making a record of all those who entered and left the compound. He spotted Gavin and Dominique walking into the place where Alanis was being detained, and they walked out thirty minutes later. He also took note of the guard’s schedule.

***

Rael looked at his watch for the hundredth time. It’s been over 24 hours since Alanis was taken into that building, and there has been no signal yet.

“No news is good news,” Rael thought to himself. She would send him a signal if something was really wrong.

Unless she couldn’t. Unless that man had—Rael shook his head, putting a stop to that line of thought. Thinking like that wouldn’t help or change anything. It would just increase his chances of acting stupid.

Rael caught the first wisps of smoke just when the sun started to set. Initially, he thought that it was merely a cooking fire—they would have to feed all of those people. But it wasn’t.

Rael grabbed the binoculars. The building Alanis was in was on fire. People were shouting, rushing towards it with buckets of water.

“No, no, no.” Rael began to panic, already moving. “This is not fucking happening.”

He was halfway down the hill, abandoning all pretense of stealth, when something made him stop.

The fire pattern was wrong. Fires started in one location and spread. This fire had multiple origin points, all around the building’s perimeter. Like someone had deliberately set it.

Like someone purposely created a distraction.

Rael’s mind raced. This was strategic and intentional.

He pulled out the binoculars once more and looked at what was happening. People were rushing out of the building, and there was Alanis, being dragged out by the man who had taken her in before, coughing, covered in soot, but clearly unharmed. She was even leaning against him like she was in need of support.

But her eyes…Rael watched her as she glanced around. She did not look worried or panicked. She looked…pleased. Like she’d done this. She’d set the fire.

Rael watched the pack rally to get the fire under control. By the time they succeeded, the building was badly damaged and uninhabitable.

He watched Gavin arguing with the man who took Alanis into that building—the man he now decided to call blondie, because well, he was blonde. Blondie shook his head, his body language defensive. Gavin pointed toward the road leading out of the compound.

They were leaving, and Rael was a hundred per cent certain that Alanis knew where they were going.

A couple of hours later, the Caldwell Operation was almost done packing. They took equipment, some documents, and women who looked sedated, bound, and loaded into vehicles.

He followed at a safe distance as the convoy headed south. And, indeed, they were on the way to the place August was able to locate as another big auction area.

Rael sent a brief text to August: “Caldwell pack is on the move. Going to where we suspected.”

August replied at once: “Confirmed. We are in position already.”

“We?”

“Silas and Javi came back from their trip yesterday. Elle will also be joining us. She would be of great help.”

Rael felt pressure on his chest. The entire family, meeting at one place. All separate investigations leading to the same conclusion.

This was it. This was the core of the human trafficking network that they had been chasing for years, and tonight, they’d finally destroy it.

But before he could do that, he must see that Alanis was safe.

Caldwell stopped in front of a big warehouse complex in the suburbs of a small town. Rael recognized it as one of the biggest auction sites of the network, where the biggest events were held.

He stayed in his car, watching them unload and watching Alanis being carried out of one car to another, still acting as a submissive prisoner. They had planned for three days, but just two days later, she had given them exactly what they needed to bring this trafficking network down.

She was brilliant. Reckless, but brilliant.

Rael met up with August in a parking garage overlooking the warehouse complex.