God and Monsters

Chapter 21

Motherfucker, I will fuck you up," Daire snaps from his computer chair, his chin tipped over his shoulder as he glares at me.

I roll my eyes. "You say that every time and never do."

I wouldn't mind if he tried. These men are trained killers just as I am, and a good old-fashioned fistfight might serve to release some of the tension crammed in my muscles. The weight of carrying frustration, anger, and anxiety in my bones is taking a toll. I've gone out on a few missions to take down rings in Oregon to relieve some stress, but it's never enough. I push away and pace the floor behind him. His office is inside the vault, but you wouldn't be able to tell if it wasn't for the door. They hollowed out the room and transformed it into a basement. Right at the round entrance is a staircase that leads you down to the bottom, which has been expanded to run beneath the ground floor, where Kace's work area is. Just like the rest of the bank, it's washed in browns, creams, and blacks; all of it screams money.

So of course, his get-up is a computer nerd's wet dream. His desk takes up an entire wall, filled with monitors and TV screens hanging above. LED lights flash colorfully around the room, highlighting the sharp edges of Daire's face as he searches through his channels again, checking to see if Rosie was tagged in any locations.

"You're looming over me. I can feel your breath on the back of my fucking neck."

I exhale extra heavily, prompting him to whip around and send a fist flying towards my dick. I easily avoid it, but he manages to surprise me and stomp on my foot with his, forcing me to step back.
Touché.

"You hover worse than a wife checking over her cheating husband's shoulder," he snips.

"I would say the scorned wife and I both have valid reasons."

He grumbles something under his breath, leaning his face farther into the computer as he checks over the grid. His pet kneels beside us, head cast down, but I catch the hint of a smile on her face.

"Did you find out where Jillian and Gloria came from?" I ask.

Daire shakes his head. "Not yet. I can easily trace the ones kept in a holding facility-like the ones you take down-because those are checkpoints for girls to be transported to and from. But many of the victims are taken to groomers before they're auctioned, and those are usually residential houses and oftentimes off-grid to protect the homeowners. Whoever Francesca is, she's obviously a groomer and a well-hidden one."

He has an entire map of transportation routes and checkpoints and insists that he would know if Rosie were put up for sale or transported. There are minimal places to list girls for sale on the dark web, even for those who are selling their own children for profit, and Daire has access to every one of those channels. There is also an entire network for the auctions, moving girls to and from holding facilities, and other events where high-profile people can buy women and children, which Daire also has access to. But Rosie is too high-risk to be put through those standard processes. Claire is smarter than that. So, we've shifted our focus to tracking down this Francesca woman, but there are no homes in the state of Oregon owned by her.

"What was their last known location before they disappeared?" I ask. We've been narrowing our search down to surrounding towns within an hour's drive from Jacksonville-where the auction was held-but unless they have cameras within or outside of the house, we have no way to confirm if Rosie is inside any of them.

"Prior to being auctioned, Gloria was last seen getting into a vehicle in Grants Pass, and Jillian was picked up in Portland. She has records for prostitution, so she most likely was being trafficked beforehand that way."

"Those cars are dead ends?"

"Yep," he confirms. "Drove somewhere with no cameras and never seen again from there."