Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet Book 2)

Matthew tried very hard to concentrate on the computer screen in front of him, but as he typed, his mind couldn’t help but wander off. Olivia Ruiz was most certainly suffering from Stockholm’s Syndrome, pining over her lost lover, her kidnapper and abuser. Matthew didn’t care for abusers – not one little bit. They were all the same. His mother used to try and apologize for beating him by taking him to the park. The best abusers could make you believe they felt guilty for what they’d done, right up until you got in their way.

Still, he would be lying if he didn’t admit, at least to himself, Olivia’s storytelling abilities were quite…compelling. For four hours he’d listened to her talk about her relationship with Caleb and he’d watched as her cheeks had colored and her skin flushed with what he knew was arousal. How could he not be affected?

Yes, he’d grown hard, painfully so, but he didn’t like it. What kind of person got a hard-on while listening to a victim talk about her abuse? It made him feel sick. He was sick.

And it wasn’t necessarily a new problem. He had a long history of strange sexual proclivities. It was the reason he was thirty-one and still single with no viable prospects on the horizon. He was afraid of someone seeing him for what he was. Being alone didn’t mean he was lonely, not really. He kept very busy with work at the Bureau. However, he often thought it would be nice to have someone to come home to, someone he could talk to that wouldn’t make him feel like a freak – even though he knew he was. And like, attracted like.

He was attracted to damaged and fractured women as much as they seemed to be attracted to him. Olivia Ruiz seemed to be no different. She was drawn to him for some reason, he could intuit that much, but he knew it was an attraction that could only run the one way. He would never compromise an investigation, never take advantage of a witness, and never try to save someone who was so obviously broken. He’d learned his lesson all too well.

He would do his job. That’s why the Bureau kept him on board; because at the end of the day he could be counted on to do what needed to be done. He was a closer. Nothing got in the way of that. No one got in his way.

Bringing his attention back toward his screen, he continued to type up Olivia’s statement about her time in captivity. He tried to remain impassive as he typed, but certain sentences continued to jump out at him:

“He made me beg for food…”

“Spanked me repeatedly…”

“…forced me to come.”

His report was reading more like an erotic novel than a case file. His mind was beginning to wander again, this time toward his last girlfriend, the one who couldn’t come unless he called her a whore. He was starting to get hard again—Stop!

He saved the file and decided to take a much needed break from Olivia and her relatively useless memoir and opened his browser to search for more information on Muhammad Rafiq. He was the lynchpin of the entire investigation.

According to the witness, Caleb had reported his involvement with Rafiq began because they needed to kill Vladek Rostrovich, A.K.A. Demitri Balk.

“Why?” Matthew whispered to himself and then remembered the comment about Rafiq’s mother and sister. Were they dead?

Doesn’t matter, he thought. The important thing was the auction, everything else was inconsequential. So why couldn’t he get it out of his head? Why did the story seem relevant? It was motive, sure, but how did it lead to the location of the auction in Pakistan?

Matthew let out a deep sigh and got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. He’d heard the local cops gripe about the coffee on an almost daily basis, but unlike them, he actually enjoyed the coffee in the office. It was likely true the coffee machine had never been cleaned, but maybe the grit added something. He smirked. Back at his desk he grabbed his notepad and started digging through his notes to find a starting point for his research.

Olivia’s jerk-off story didn’t provide much of a jumping off point, but he did manage to learn min-fadlik meant ‘please’ in Arabic. Caleb apparently spoke Arabic with so much ease he used it in private. He would guess people typically spoke their native tongue while alone and certainly while engaged in that particular activity. Lord knew he’d never yelled out in Mandarin while in the throes of ecstasy. Of course, he didn’t speak Mandarin.

He flipped through more of his notes and found Caleb also spoke Spanish and his English was spoken with a strange accent, one characterized as “…a mix of British, Arabic, and Persian…maybe on the Persian.” Matthew pulled out a map of Pakistan and tried to narrow down an area with such a mix. It seemed highly unlikely he would find it. Still, an accent meant Caleb was either born or immersed long-term in an area where he’d have heard those languages on a daily basis. Afghanistan, India, and Iran all surrounded Pakistan and each of those would certainly have similarities in demographics and social conventions. The Brits obviously had influence in each mentioned country, but he knew their influence would be more pervasive in India. Caleb was obviously not Indian, and if he had grown up there, he would have picked up the dialect.

He needed to narrow the list of possible locations for the auction and he had little more than experience, old case files, and the internet to work with. Pakistan was making strides toward reducing or eliminating the number of human trafficking crimes committed within their borders, but they were very much a long way from succeeding in any way as to impact their society or their politics. Slavery was very popular there, though most of it came from an indentured work force made up of women and children.

People were bought, sold, and rented in an almost casual way in Pakistan and it was about time the U.S. Government started to take notice and work with the U.N. to do something about it. Matthew was not naïve; he knew the reason the U.S. had decided to take point on the change throughout many Middle Eastern regions had more to do with the resources abroad. Still, if it meant less women and children were sold into sexual slavery or bonded labor, then he was all for it. Oil and freedom for everyone.

The Sindh and Punjab provinces were large hotbeds for human trafficking activity, but he temporarily opted to exclude them, as the area was mostly agricultural and the slavery predominately bonded labor. Certainly not the location for the world’s elitist playboys and terrorists to arrange for a lavish pleasure slave auction.

Fuck! It was going to be a very long night.

Matthew checked his watch and decided to order his dinner before his favorite Chinese restaurant closed for the night. He was practically salivating over the thought of garlic noodles and crunchy eggrolls. There had been a time when he’d have ordered for two, but it had been nearly a year since he’d had a partner to share the long investigative hours with; these days, he worked alone. It was just as well since he wasn’t really good with people. He was much too honest and people just didn’t appreciate him for it.

He was good at his job and people respected him, but it didn’t mean they jumped at the chance to work with him or wanted to go out for beers after work. Still, they did what he asked them to do and he couldn’t fault them. If he’d asked one of the analysts to stay behind and help him do some research, they’d have begrudgingly done it and kept their disparaging remarks to themselves until the next time they found themselves in better company.

Matthew had asked for a special task force to assist on the case. There was a potentially short turn-around and the possibility of an international incident if they had a raid in Pakistan. Still, his boss refused to get a decent task force together unless Matthew had concrete proof suspected terrorists and political targets would be at the auction.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d accuse the Bureau of purposely letting this case fall between the cracks. Olivia Ruiz’s face was splashed all over the news, complete with grainy surveillance and camera-phone videos of her standoff with the border patrol. Something like that didn’t go away easily.

He scrolled through the information he had available on Muhammad Rafiq and his accomplices. He was a Pakistani military officer and a high ranking one. He had fought beside U.S. forces as part of the coalition during Desert Storm. He was highly decorated and was rumored to be very close to the former Major General who assisted in the 1999 coup that overthrew Pakistan’s president. In short, the man had some very powerful people in his circle.

If he wanted someone dead, he couldn’t imagine it would be difficult for him to carry it out. Of course, he would have to do it without embarrassing himself or his superiors in front of the international community. Could his involvement be the reason the Bureau was hesitating on attacking this case full force?

Matthew picked up his pen and wrote down a list of things he needed to gather information on: military bases in Pakistan, air strips near or on such bases, customs locations and refueling stations. One thing was for certain, Rafiq wouldn’t be flying in or out through commercial means, he’d need a private plane, one that wouldn’t have to contend with customs officials. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

The intercom buzzer startled him. His food had finally arrived. He took the elevator to the first floor and met the delivery guy, gave him a healthy tip and trudged back upstairs to enjoy his greasy, delicious treats.

Several hours later, Matthew decided to call it a night and drive back to his hotel. He planned on getting up early in the morning and going to visit Olivia in the hospital again. She’d be expecting news on her request to join the witness protection program and he had no additional news to offer, but he still needed to get the rest of her statement.

If her information delivered the results he had proposed to his superiors, her request would likely be granted, but not for the right reasons. What the girl needed was justice. She needed the men responsible for her kidnapping, rape, and torture to pay for their crimes in the public arena. She needed for those men to be judged and found wanting of basic human decency, only then could she pick up the pieces of her life and move forward.

However, if he was correct in his assumptions, the Bureau would be more interested in the national security elements, rather than justice for one eighteen-year-old girl. There would be no official arrests, no public trials, because the information she could provide and the covert op that would garner evidence of involvement in human trafficking by wealthy and powerful military leaders, heads of state, and billionaire moguls would be an invaluable asset in the hands of the U.S. government.

It was somewhat of a moral conundrum as far as Matthew was concerned. Olivia was running away. She didn’t want to face her former life or its inhabitants and it was a sentiment Matthew understood well, but couldn’t agree with. At the same time, he was the last person to give advice on how a person should move beyond their personal traumas. He was still damaged, still sick in the head, no matter how many therapists he had talked to as a teenager. His records had been sealed and for all intents and purposes he was fit for duty, but he knew his own mind. He knew his own limitations and biases. He supposed it counted for something, his knowledge of his own shortcomings afforded him the semblance of perspective when dealing with his job.

He entered his hotel room and set his briefcase down on the table provided. He emptied his pockets, careful to stack any loose change by denomination and place them in a row by size. His keys, wallet and watch were also placed with care. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and hung it up in the closet. Next, he sat and removed his shoes and socks, followed by his shirt and tie. Finally, he removed his belt, wound it, and placed it on the table with his other things before he removed his underwear. He lined up his shoes under the bed and placed the other items in the hotels dry-cleaning bag. It was his nightly routine and he took comfort in the repeated actions. Order was important.

He stood naked in the warm, slightly humid, Texas air and ignored the tingling sensation of his penis becoming more erect. He knew why he was getting hard and he wished he weren’t. He’d been unable to resist the temptation of perusing his interview notes, despite the promising information he’d garnered through researching Rafiq in greater depth. That much of the girl’s story was filled with violence was regrettable, that the violence was a direct result of sexually charged circumstances was contemptible, but the way she recounted the story with such devious and manipulating zest and obvious arousal was enough to put him over the edge. It pushed all of his buttons and on the heels of his distaste was the undeniable quickening of his pulse.

He wouldn’t do it though. He wouldn’t fantasize. He wouldn’t masturbate. He wouldn’t seek out sexual gratification. Doing so, would be a step in the wrong direction for him because he knew it would lead to the debilitating guilt that inexorably followed.

Instead, he got down on the floor and proceeded to do as many push-ups as he possibly could. He was tired and his muscles protested. Two in the morning was not the time for exercise, his muscles screamed at him, but it was better than the alternative. He pushed himself until sweat ran down his back and his stomach quivered, until his arms threatened to give out…until there was not a chance in hell he could inspire his lust. Then he took a shower and got in bed.

He slept peacefully and without dreams.