Page 28 of Freeing Camila

He stood up suddenly, pacing the floor like he could walk off the temptation. But it clung to him like his frequent nightmares did.

“Next time,” he growled to himself, jaw tight. “Next time, keep your fucking distance.”

Resigned to creating some space between them, the quiet weight of his decision settled as he got ready for his day.

He beat most of his colleagues to the office that morning, arriving before them all, apart from Haley, who was already there. Sometimes he wondered if that woman ever went home. He worked quietly in his office for a few hours, going over schematics of upcoming security instillation jobs that were on the docket. As his phone rang, he quickly checked the caller ID, a knot forming in his stomach before he even answered the call.

“Haley?” He knew she wouldn’t call unless she’d found something; the urgency in her voice confirmed it.

“You’re needed in the conference room,” she said, her voice clipped. “Now.”

A minute later, Jeeves stepped into the room, a scowl already forming. Flint, Eggs, and Haley sat waiting, a palpable tension in the air, as he approached the table. “What is it?”

Haley cut to the chase, saying, “I've uncovered a lot of dirty details about your girl’s father.”

Jeeves huffed out a breath. “Jesus. Not you too. She’s not my girl.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to call her?”

“Her name?”

“Too plebeian,” she said with a wave of her hand. “You’re the one getting to know her. You’re the one making friends with her. Therefore, she’s your girl.”

“Fuck. Whatever,” he spat, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Just tell me what you found.”

“Baker got off to a good start, but I dug deeper.” Haley hit a key on her keyboard and an image of a middle-aged man popped up on the big screen hanging on the wall. “Meet your friendly neighborhood tech god with a god complex.”

The man on the screen was sharp-dressed in tailored charcoal suits, salt-and-pepper hair swept back in practiced perfection, and the kind of smile that said he’d never once heard the word ‘no’ and taken it seriously.

“Gio Piras,” she said. “CEO of Piratek. On the surface? He’s the picture of middle-aged success. Built his company from the ground up, Forbes cover boy, keynote speaker, quote-unquote ‘visionary.’ But when you dig a little deeper . . .”

She tapped the keyboard, and the image shifted—bank transfers, encrypted emails, side-shell companies that didn’t show up on any public records. “This guy doesn’t just innovate in tech. He’s reinvented corruption. He’s in deep with at least two cartels. Money laundering. Trafficking. Both drugs and humans. Selling insider secrets. He turned surveillance capitalism into a weapon . . . and handed it to the cartels who bleed cities dry. To the world, he’s the visionary CEO—the man who revolutionized the microchips we use in almost everything electronic these days. But behind the smooth charm and expensive suits was a man who knew exactly what the cartels needed: untraceable networks, real-time surveillance systems, AI-powered logistics. And he gave it to them.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“When they needed to track law enforcement? His facial recognition software flagged their movements. When a new border route needed testing? His drones flew the path under the guise of agricultural development. Payments? Buried in crypto wallets and funneled through ‘social impact’ start-ups no one dared audit.”

With a few swift clicks of the mouse, she opened up several additional windows on her computer screen. Documents from companies that Jeeves was pretty sure didn’t exist except on paper appeared on the big screen. “He’s created a labyrinth of shell companies. Tax shelters on paper, but underneath? Fronts for laundering money through fake charitable organizations. Kids’ clinics. Domestic abuse shelters. All of it a lie.

“And that’s not all,” Flint stated. How much worse could it get? The man was a trafficker hiding behind a business suit. To Jeeves, he was the epitome of evil, the lowest of the low, a stain on society.

“Yeah. It gets worse. Much worse,” Haley said, her voice rough and strained, clearly shaken by the disturbing details she was unearthing. “There’s evidence of human trafficking. Not just Cammie. Others. Young women pulled from rehab programs he funded. A pipeline hidden under the guise of ‘rescue.’ Real back-alley black market horror show. He ran diagnostics through fake clinics—used his firm’s facial recognition to track vulnerable people. Homeless. Addicts. Women who wouldn’t be missed.”

“Fuck,” Jeeves and Eggs cursed at the same time. Hearing about the abuse inflicted upon the most vulnerable made them both feel a profound sense of anger and helplessness.

Jeeves rubbed his hands over his face like he could scrub the rage off. “Jesus. And he’s still shaking hands and giving TED Talks?”

Haley shot him a wry look. “Oh, he’s good. Polished. Says all the right things. But he’stoosmooth. Like a man who knows exactly how many secrets he’s keeping and just how expensive they are.”

“He’s obviously stayed on the cartel’s good side this long by never asking questions,” Flint stated. “Not about the names. Not about the missing girls. Not about what they did with the tools he gave them.

“The moment he opened that back door into his system, he became theirs—and they let him stay rich, powerful, untouchable,” Haley added. A rhythmic beeping emanating from Haley’s laptop alerted her of something Jeeves couldn’t see. With a furious look on her face and a string of curses escaping her lips, her fingers flew across the keyboard as if possessed by some unseen force.

“Haley?” Flint asked, his concern evident.

“He’s in again,” she spat. Jeeves had no idea what she was talking about, but it was obvious Flint knew.

“How?”

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