A warm feeling swelled in my chest.An emotion I’d learned to suppress years ago.
But whenever I thought of Henry, it was there.
At first, it was subtle, but over the past few weeks, it had grown stronger and stronger to the point where I could no longer ignore it.
Maybe it wouldn’t last.
Maybe life was about to shift again in ways I couldn’t predict or control.
But right now?
I could breathe.
I could hope.
That was all I cared about.
ChapterThirty-One
Henry
Blake was already in my office when I walked in.Black suit.Crisp shirt.Dark hair styled with precision.Facial hair neatly trimmed.The only thing out of place was the chaos swallowing my office.
Four Banker’s boxes rested on the floor near the coffee table, overflowing with manila files, the smell of paper and dust thick in the air.Blake sat on the couch, flipping through papers like a man possessed, the edge of his jaw tight.
“What’s all this?”I asked, furrowing my brows in confusion.
“The files you wanted,” he said, not looking up.“The women Victor had Schaffer sterilize.”
“What are you talking about?This isn’t just a few like he claimed.”
He finally met my eyes.“This is why I wanted you to see this.He lied.”
“Where did you find these?”I asked, taking in all the files.
“His charity runs a few clinics in Florida.I found these at one outside Tampa.I’m guessing it’s where he performed all the procedures.”
“Fuck…” I exhaled.
“Exactly.”Blake returned his attention to the papers in front of him as I joined him on the couch.
“I’m running their names through a program I built.It’ll crawl through every state database — DMV, court records, even old social media caches.See if I can find a common denominator other than Victor paying Schaffer to sterilize them.”
“Anything yet?”
“I’ve only checked five names so far, but I haven’t found much connecting them except for the fact that the last transaction on their bank accounts was a few days prior to the date Schaffer performed their procedures, according to his records.”
“What the fuck was he involved in?”I asked, although I feared I already knew the answer.
“I can only think of one reason Victor would want to make sure this many women couldn’t get pregnant.”Blake gave me a pointed stare.“And I doubt it’s because he was keeping them all as mistresses.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, pinching the bridge of my nose.“You’re right.”
This was so much bigger than I’d expected.I’d wanted these files in the hopes of finding a list of mistresses on the off-chance it might lead us to Victor’s hiding place.
Instead, we’d uncovered proof of something much worse.
A goddamn human trafficking operation, if my gut was right.
