Page 55 of Jersey

Chapter 22

Jersey

I never know how my day is going to go.

This morning, I woke up beside Caitlyn before calling Casper. After a cup of coffee and a confession from her that broke my heart, I fucked her on the kitchen counter as if my cock was somehow capable of fixing whatever trauma made her unable to stomach someone touching her.

I spent an hour watching her at a fucking dog park of all places. When she got back to the cabin, she simply told Eli goodbye, loaded Kiva into her car, and left without bothering to come inside. I don't know what I was expecting as Lark drove up to the house, but it wasn't her being in such a rush to leave.

I had every intention of following her home, but I was assured by Casper and Hemlock that Lark was going to sit on her house because Zeus and I had a job to do.

Now, several hours later, we're in South Carolina, sitting on a house that we're certain is one of the final stops on a trafficking pipeline. This place isn't their stable, where they keep all the girls before dispatching them based on customer needs, but there are several women inside. This house isn't a place where patrons can come and spend some time with unwilling women. This place isn't nice enough for that.

The crazy thing about some men who want an unwilling woman is that they also don't want to be inconvenienced. They don't want gritty and dirty. They don't want to feel like they're going to be robbed in some shitty neighborhood in order to fulfill their needs. The only struggle they want is the woman they plan to hurt.

This house is in a less-than-savory neighborhood. The roof is bowing, and I have no doubt it leaks during heavy rain. The yard was overgrown before winter turned the grass brown, and those weeds now lean toward the sidewalk leading up to the front porch.

"I think it would just be easier to set the whole fucking thing on fire," Zeus grumbles.

The man is never silent about how he feels about people who hurt people for profit, but tonight, he seems to be even more verbal than usual. It makes me want to tell him to shut the fuck up.

But to avoid suspicion, I remain silent. I don't need him questioning my change in character.

For some reason, Casper hasn't said much to the other guys about Caitlyn. At least he hasn't shared with them just how close he suspects that I've gotten. It didn't stop Hemlock from watching my face when it was discussed that Lark would stay behind rather than me.

"We could never risk hurting the women inside," I mutter, knowing he's well aware of this.

"We could go in and easily shoot every guard they have. They'd never expect us. We could put an end to this night right now," he argues, his hands running down his thick red beard as he glares out the windshield toward the house.

One of the worst things I've ever had to do is learn patience when doing surveillance. We know that there are unwilling women in the house, and there's a very good chance they could be being hurt as we sit outside doing nothing, but we also know that this is a very small part of what the organization we're tracking is doing. Cutting this part of the cancer out does nothing to stop the larger problem. If anything, going in and taking out the assholes in this one house could make the main trafficking organization go further underground, where it can spread and create even more victims, only we wouldn't be capable of stopping them. Letting them operate without stepping in is hard as hell, but it's also for the greater good.

I stiffen in the passenger seat when the front door of the house opens. A massive guy steps out on the porch, lighting a cigarette as he looks around. Thankfully, the house is in a pretty crowded area, and one more car parked on the street doesn't draw added attention.

I rest a pair of binoculars in my lap, scrunching down some when a car turns on the street, coming up from behind us. The dark sedan is out of place in such a low-income area, and I'm not at all surprised when it pulls up outside the house.

The passenger side door opens, and a guy about Zeus's size climbs out before taking a glance around. His eyes, much like the guy on the porch, never pause over our car, indicating they aren't aware they're being watched.

"Are you fucking seeing this?" I ask on a gasp when the guy opens the back passenger door, and a very familiar man steps out.

I can't believe my fucking eyes, but I know better than to press my palms to them in order to make sure I'm not seeing shit.

"Is that Nathan fucking Adair?" Zeus snaps, sitting up straighter behind the steering wheel.

"It sure as fuck is," I mutter as I pull out my phone and shoot off a text to Casper.

We had suspicions that this place might be one of Adair's houses, but we never dreamed the guy would come out of hiding to get his hands dirty with any part of the day-to-day business.

There has been a manhunt for Adair for months. It was presumed that the man had hauled ass out of the country to one that doesn't extradite to the United States, but here he is in fucking South Carolina, in the flesh.

"He looks smaller than I pictured him," Zeus mutters, but I guess everyone is smaller compared to the massive man.

"It's his reach that makes him seem bigger," I say as I wait for Casper to respond.

The man is notorious for many evil things. He's known for trafficking guns and drugs, but mostly, he's the one to go to when you have some of the sickest fantasies to live out. Women and children are expendable to him. He doesn't keep his girls very long because they quickly end up shells of themselves from the abuse he allows them to suffer. He goes from town to town, kidnapping women right before he leaves, leaving their dead bodies in the next town. It's a constant fucking cycle of pain and abuse.

There's a whole dark website setup like the man is a traveling fucking show that people fight to get tickets to. Just the sight of him disgusts me.

Adair hadn't been spotted once in recent months after a series of events where his son was killed in a raid, and his stepdaughter was meant to testify against him.

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