Page 30 of Freeing Camila

Although Jeeves had participated in the hunt and the eventual rescue, Valeria had managed to elude capture and remained at large. A fact that still haunted him to this day. Jeeves had a score to settle with the evil woman. One that was three years in the making. She was responsible for his teammates’ death. Countless other deaths were a result of her actions, staining her hands with the blood of her victims.

And now Jeeves had one more reason to want the woman dead. She was responsible for Cammie’s kidnapping and subsequent torture.

Jeeves nodded, a silent affirmation to Haley’s question, his throat too tight to speak. He rose to his feet, a restless energy coursing through him, needing to move. Needing to do . . . something!

“She’s obviously back in play,” Flint stated.

“She didn’t waste any time,” Eggs murmured, sharing his astonishment.

“She’s pure evil,” asserted Jeeves as he paced.

“She’s the one from Colombia?” Eggs, aware of the disastrous mission from three years ago that led to their teammate’s death, inquired. Again, Jeeves nodded, his throat tight, unsure if his voice would cooperate.

He felt an ache in his hands as he looked down to see his fists clenched so tightly, the knuckles were bone-white. However, he kept them in that condition, fearing that unleashing them would result in a tremor that he would be powerless to stop.

Running a hand through his hair, Eggs cursed, “Shit. What isn’t this woman capable of?”

Jeeves had to agree there wasn’t much the woman wasn’t capable of. No deed was too evil for her to commit. She’d betrayed her people. She’d betrayed the numerous girls and women who’d trusted her. She’d betrayed him. She’d betrayed and abused countless girls who were under her care. She exploited. She manipulated. She tortured.

Yeah. She was capable of anything. And that’s what made her so unpredictable and hard to capture.

But just like anybody, eventually, she’d make a mistake. And when she did, he’d be there.

“Okay,” Flint said, bringing them back to the matter at hand. “Thanks to Jester, we’ve got inarguable proof of Piras negotiating the sale of a woman in that audio. As well as all the other misdeeds Haley was able to uncover.”

“Thanks for that, boss,” Haley muttered, her voice tight with barely concealed irritation, the slight lift of her eyebrow a clear signal of her displeasure at not receiving first recognition.

“Your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed and you know it.”

“How did you manage to find all this, anyway?” wondered Eggs. “The guy’s a tech giant. Surely he could hide his tracks better than this.”

“He’s good, but I’m better,” Haley stated. “He’s gotten greedy. Pure and simple. Overextended himself. Got in too deep in debt with the cartel.”

“And his only way out was to sell his daughter?” Eggs asked hardly able to believe a man was capable of such an atrocious act.

“He did it. There’s no doubt about that,” Jeeves stated quietly, his voice a low murmur in the otherwise silent room. The files displayed on Haley’s computer monitors were cold, clinical—just numbers, data, and coordinates, but Jeeves’ stomach twisted as he recognized the truth that had been hidden away behind layers of encryption that Haley had managed to hack through. It was undeniable. The man had sold his daughter, just like he had numerous other girls.

Jeeves took a shaky breath, the tension in his frame vibrating under his skin. “Gio Piras.” Though his voice was a mere whisper, it was thick with a simmering, furious energy. “He . . . he sold her. His own daughter! He sold her for what? Covering a debt?” Ceasing his restless pacing, he abruptly halted his movement and then gripped the back of his chair with a firm, almost desperate hand. He dug his fingers into the smooth, cold back of the chair, his knuckles turning bone-white with the intensity of his grip.

He thought of the little tree sprite who’d been on his mind far too often lately. Her sweet smile. Her tinkling laughter. The way her eyes would light up whenever she encountered something completely new and unfamiliar was truly remarkable, a testament to her boundless curiosity and zest for life. The sheer vibrancy of her spirit was a mystery to him. He couldn't fathom how she could possibly be so full of life after experiencing such unimaginable horrors.

His experiences, though not as intensely personal as hers, had nevertheless led him to retreat into a state of isolation and self-imposed confinement, where he had shut himself off from the world. He had retreated, piece by piece, into a state of isolation and self-imposed confinement. It wasn’t just that he preferred solitude; it was that he’d come to believe it was safer. Simpler. The walls he built weren’t made of brick or steel, but of silence, of days stacked in sameness, of misplaced blame and suffocating guilt.

He’d shut himself off from the world, convincing himself it was a choice—a calculated, necessary decision, not a wound he didn’t know how to cauterize. It was easier to pretend he preferred the quiet, that the loneliness was soothing rather than suffocating. Safer to tell himself he liked the solitude, the long stretches of silence that no one interrupted, rather than admit it had been born from grief, shame, and the slow erosion of trust in himself. He wore detachment like armor, polished and impenetrable. But all it took was her—one look, one laugh, one defiant flash of spirit—and that illusion started to unravel. Suddenly, the silence didn’t feel peaceful anymore. It felt empty.

He could learn a thing or two from her resiliency. Even though he’d previously pledged to distance himself from Cammie, a nagging doubt lingered in his mind regarding the wisdom of that choice. Perhaps it wasn’t her who required his protection and care, but rather, it was he who was in need of her support, comfort, and strength.

“Your girl’s father isn’t just a monster, Jeeves. He’s a trafficker. Look at all of this,” she said, waving to the information on the screens. “He sold her. His own daughter. Who does that? Was he really erasing a debt? Or was it more about tying up loose ends? Hard to tell. Do you think she knows something? Maybe she uncovered something about his dirty dealings.” Haley wondered, and he could hear an underlying tone of heartbreak in her voice. Despite never having met Cammie before, she felt Cammie’s pain with the same certainty that he did. A remarkable empathetic connection, a tangible sense of understanding and compassion, was what Haley was known for. She worked in the background, never out in the field, never meeting the clients she helped, but she felt their pain, deeply.

Jeeves noticed Flint’s worried gaze was locked onto Haley. The depth of her emotional involvement in their cases was so intense that it clearly concerned the boss. If Jeeves had been more clear-headed, he might have been anxious about his friend’s mental health, too.

“Is it possible she knew something?” Eggs asked.

“Baker seemed to think she didn’t know anything,” Flint answered.

“Maybe she was too afraid to talk to him?”

“Maybe.” He rubbed his chin as he stared at the screens. “Any word from Baker?”

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