Seduced in the Dark (50 page)

Matthew suspected he was still alive, but as
far as he, or the Bureau, was concerned, James Cole had died in
Mexico of gunshot wounds he sustained while aiding in Olivia’s
escape. The shooter, Khalid Baloch, was still at large. Matthew had
closed James Cole’s kidnapping case as well, but not before he
reached out to Demitri Balk’s personal assistant and was told Mr.
Balk had ‘no surviving children’. Mr. Balk himself was
unavailable.

“Yes, Miss Cole, we’re done,” Matthew said.
He could almost feel Sophia’s sorrow from across the table and it
seemed to work its way into his own frame of mind. He had wanted
things to end differently. Not just for Sophia, but for him as
well. He’d been losing his faith in the system for quite some time.
He had hoped by solving this case and putting the bad men in jail,
he might regain some of the fire he’d once had for his job.
Instead, the victory had been bitter sweet. Over a hundred women
were free from sexual slavery, but only a fraction of their
traffickers would see the inside of a jail cell. Most of them would
simply pay fines and go free. ‘Bitter sweet’ was a lackluster
description of what had happened in Pakistan.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Sloan said to Sophia,
“I’ll walk you out.” She stood and gathered up her papers, putting
them into her briefcase.

Matthew watched Sloan intently. Her red hair
was gathered in a French braid and her face was scrubbed clean of
all make-up. She wore a grey suit that covered up all her sexy
curves. She was somewhat of an enigma. Matthew wondered how she was
able to change like night and day. As a social worker, she seemed
empathetic and somewhat devoid of interesting facets in her
personality, but Matthew knew, first hand, what she could be like
when she took down the mantle. He almost regretted not taking her
up on her offer of more sex. He’d never been with a woman so
attuned to his needs. Then again, she terrified him a little.

Matthew stood and offered Sophia his hand,
“Goodbye, Miss Cole. Please know…you can contact me if you ever
need anything. You have my card and I’d be offended if you didn’t
use it.”

Sophia smiled at him, but tears shone in her
eyes, “Thanks, Reed. I know you did your best.” She shook his
hand.

“Thank you, Miss Cole,” he said. It didn’t
feel like enough. It probably never would. Matthew turned toward
Sloan and extended his hand, “Thank you for all your help too,
Agent Sloan.”

Sloan raised an auburn brow, but took
Matthew’s hand and shook it, “No problem, Agent Reed. Let me know
if you need any help with the final report. I’m leaving for
Virginia tomorrow night, but until then…my phone’s on.” She smiled
and Matthew felt his face heat up.

“I should have everything, but thank you,”
he said stiffly.

“You two should just fuck and get it over
with,” Sophia said without humor.

“Livvie! I mean…. Let’s go,” Sloan said.

Matthew didn’t have a chance to respond
before the two women left the room. He smiled to himself and shook
his head. He was definitely going to miss Livvie and her crass
sense of humor. He hoped she would seek the help she needed and
make a full recovery one day. It would be a shame for such a
beautiful, intelligent, and brave person to lose faith in the
future.

Matthew picked up his recorder and turned it
off. It was an archaic contraption and completely unnecessary
considering everything in this room was recorded by the
surveillance cameras, but he liked to maintain his own evidence.
Things had a way of getting lost. He put it in his briefcase along
with his files and headed out the door.

As he walked toward the elevator, he
glimpsed ‘Sophia’ exchanging a tearful embrace with her mother.
Matthew didn’t exactly like the woman after all he’d learned about
her, but he was happy she was finally getting the opportunity to
see her daughter and perhaps apologize for everything she’d put her
through. As part of the agreement, Sophia’s family would be
relocated and her mother would be offered her choice of training
and employment. It was more than she deserved in Matthew’s
estimation.

Matthew would be heading back to an empty
apartment in South Carolina until he was assigned to a new case. He
hoped it would differ greatly from this one and he was fairly sure
it would. In the meantime, he’d decided he wouldn’t give up on
getting in touch with Demitri Balk. The guy was dirty and despite
all evidence to the contrary, he wasn’t untouchable. Perhaps, in
time, he would also lead him to Muhammad Rafiq and the rest of his
cohorts.

James Cole deserved justice.

“
I don’t want revenge, Caleb. I don’t
want to end up like you, letting some fucking vendetta run my life.
I just want my freedom.” – Livvie

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Day 287: Kaiserslautern, Germany

He’d learned the hard way that there was no
future when all he could see was revenge. The only thing revenge
had ever given him was a brief moment of satisfaction, followed by
an empty abyss. He was through with revenge. He wanted to feel full
instead of empty, loved, instead of feared.

Love, Caleb reminded himself. Love was the
purpose of all this. He’d been dreaming of this moment for nearly a
year, but now that his moment had arrived, he hesitated. Was it the
right thing to do? Should he take his own advice: leave and never
look back? He wasn’t sure.

As a slave trainer, he had trained at least
a score of girls. Some had been willing, offering themselves as
pleasure slaves to escape destitution, sacrificing freedom for
security. Others had come to him as the coerced daughters of
impoverished farmers looking to off load their burden in exchange
for a dowry. Some had been the fourth or fifth wives of sheikhs and
bankers sent by their husbands to learn to satisfy their distinct
appetites. He had trained so many, he had forgotten their
names.

He knew them all by heart now. Ojal Nath had
ended up in Turkey; her master had died and passed her off to his
son. Caleb had paid a king’s ransom to set her free. She was safe
at home with her family now, and she had enough money to support
herself and her young daughter.

He’d been too late to save Pia Kumar, she
had been dead for nearly five years. She had been beaten to death
by her master’s new wife. Caleb had made sure to bury the both of
them together. Alive.

Isa Nasser, Naba Mazin, and Jamila Awad, had
refused their freedom. They had come to him willing from the first
and they lived happily with their respective masters/husbands.
They’d been more terrified of Caleb than of remaining in their
servitude. He’d wished them well and vowed to keep an eye on
them.

His years spent with Rafiq had built him a
reputation and Caleb took full advantage of the fear he’d
cultivated as Rafiq’s ‘loyal disciple’. A lot of blood had been
spilled in the last ten months, some of it even belonged to Caleb,
but it didn’t buy redemption. Caleb knew he could never be redeemed
and he’d made his peace with it. He couldn’t right the wrongs, but
he could offer a better future to those he’d wronged for the sake
of his own selfishness.

It wasn’t about revenge. Caleb had had
enough revenge to last him several lifetimes. The things he’d done
to Rafiq and Jair in Mexico hadn’t given him solace. They’d given
him nightmares. For Caleb, it had become about love. He loved
Livvie. Through her, he’d learned what love could make a person do
and it drove him forward. She had given him a gift and while he
didn’t deserve it, he tried to make sure it had not been
wasted.

His work was far from over and he remained
dedicated to his task, but the road was long and Caleb was only
human. There was a hole in his heart and each day it grew,
threatening to pull him into a pit of despair.

Caleb, from his vantage point diagonally
across the street, glanced at the girl he’d been observing for the
last thirty minutes. Her hair was pulled away from her face, a
heavy frown played across her mouth as she stared intently at the
laptop sitting on the table in front of her. She fidgeted
sometimes, alluding to a sense of restlessness she was unable to
hide. He wondered why she seemed so anxious. As he eyed her
beautiful face, he felt himself bursting with hope and burning with
shame.

After Mexico, Caleb had traveled farther and
farther south, until he could book passage to Switzerland. He liked
Zürich, he liked its diversity and wealth, and he knew no one would
notice him there. He’d been putting his investments into
commodities and he had enough money now to live as he pleased and
travel the world to free the women he had wronged. Still, it wasn’t
in his nature to pursue being miserable, and so, he’d looked for
Livvie.

At first, there had been plenty of
information. He’d simply had to get on his computer and sift
through the dozens of news stories from the weeks following her
rescue. Things had not been easy for Livvie once she’d crossed the
border. She had been the target of a controversy-starved media.
They followed her every move, and her reluctance to speak with the
press only made her a more attractive target.

Her beautiful face had lit up his computer
screen, but all he had learned was that she refused to speak to
anyone. She had looked sad, and his heart had ached because he’d
known it was his fault. Then, after a few weeks of coverage, Livvie
had seemingly disappeared.

Caleb had called the bank in Mexico and was
informed the account he had set up was closed several months back.
The person who’d closed the account had left no messages with the
bank.

His next plan of attack had been to find
Livvie through her family. Caleb knew the FBI would be keeping a
close eye on Livvie and had decided to hire a private investigator
online. Livvie’s family was gone and the private investigator he’d
hired couldn’t provide him with any answers. Instead, the
investigator had asked to meet in person, and Caleb had severed all
communication.

He’d almost given up hope of finding her
until he remembered she’d had a friend named Nicole. Caleb didn’t
know the girl’s last name and he’d had to go about finding her
himself. She was attending university in California. He’d followed
her for weeks, but saw no signs of Livvie.

His break didn’t come until Nicole left her
laptop unattended while she went off to play a game of Ultimate
Frisbee with her friends. Caleb had simply walked past the table
filled with belongings and snatched it up, along with other things
of value he could grab in a few seconds. He wanted it to look like
a general robbery.

Livvie had not been easy to find and at
first he had been glad. However, as the months had passed, he’d
become obsessed with knowing how she was. Nicole’s laptop stood the
best chance of letting him know how Livvie had fared. He’d told
himself he only wanted to make sure she was safe and happy, but in
the back of his mind, he’d known the real reason he wanted to find
her again.

“
I’m yours! Isn’t that what you said?
Isn’t it what you promised? What we swore!” she’d cried.

Back at his hotel, he’d opened the laptop
with shaking fingers and a racing heart. At first, he’d thought it
was yet another dead end, but then he realized Nicole had been
trying to make contact with someone named Sophia, for quite some
time. He followed the trail, opening each message Nicole had sent
until at last, he arrived at an email from Sophia.

To: Nicole

From: Sophia

Subject: Re: Where the hell are you?

December 23, 2009

Hey girl, long time, no hear – I know. I’m
sorry. Even as I write this, I know you have every right to hit the
delete button, but I hope you’ll at least hear me out. It’s almost
Christmas, and I’m lonely. I miss you. I miss my family (never
thought I’d say that).

I’ve been wandering around Europe, seeing
all the things most people won’t get to see in their entire lives.
The truth? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. The French are truly
assholes. I wouldn’t suggest coming unless you speak fluent French,
because they’re pretty crappy to tourists. For the city of love,
it’s pretty damn lonely. I had to take the stairs up the Eiffel
Tower and when I finally reached the top I realized I had no one to
share the moment with me. I mean, it was crowded and people were
pushing, but the view was truly gorgeous, but alone, it’s just
another tall building. Someone stole my wallet and I didn’t notice
until I tried to get something from the gift shop.

England is super expensive. Did you know
it’s like two dollars to every pound?!? I didn’t stay there long.
The money I have is great, but it won’t last forever if I don’t
take care of how I spend it. The one great thing about England is
the people are much nicer, but the men remind me a little too much
of you know who. The accent makes me want to cry.

I miss him, Nick. I know it’s stupid, but I
do. I think it’s why I couldn’t talk to anyone after I left the
hospital. I didn’t think you’d understand. It’s not that I don’t
trust you – I do. It’s just that I love him and everyone else hates
him and I can’t deal with it.

Someday, I’ll be ready. Someday, I’ll stop
loving him and seeing him everywhere I go. I’ll stop hearing his
voice in my head and dreaming of his kisses every night. Someday,
I’ll be able to see things the way I should and I’ll hate him for
everything he put me through – but not today. Not tomorrow.

You’re angry with me and believe me, I get
it. I would be pissed if you decided to fall off the edge of the
earth and not reply to my messages, but I needed time. I still need
time. If you’re not there for me when I’m through this, I’ll
understand. Just know, I love you and I never wanted things to be
this way between us. If I don’t hear from you, have a Merry
Christmas.