Resisting spending the day with orgasms and cuddles was all but impossible. Especially when Micah was the one delivering both.
But now she had to go back and work with her team. Her stomach still ached, but it wasn't too bad, and there were no signs of infection setting into the wound, Micah was keeping a close watch on that. She was tired, and emotionally she was still at the box everything up to deal with later stage, but since she was staying at Prey, if it got to be too much and she needed a break, she could always head back downstairs and take one.
When they reached the office a couple of minutes later, Micah still had his arm around her shoulders, and Teresa realized how easy it was to lean into him. She was always going to be the kind of person who was independent, struggled to ask for help when she needed it, and liked to do things herself, but knowing that Micah was there, that hewantedto be there, made all the difference.
“Hey, you should have taken a few more days off,” Ava rebuked, although her friend hurried over to give her a hug.
“Because you took a whole bunch of time off after you got hurt,” Teresa shot back.
“You should both still be on leave,” Chelsea piped up. “Tobias should be off with Isabella, too.”
“That would leave only you and Josiah,” Teresa reminded her. From the look her friend shot the injured SEAL, Chelsea wouldn't mind that all too much. While she hoped her friend got the happily ever after she wanted, none of them believed that Josiah would ever be ready for a relationship. Certainly not marriage and kids like Chelsea dreamed about.
Still, sometimes miracles happened.
The man standing at her side, his fingers absently stroking her shoulder, was proof of that. Never in a million years would she have guessed that this would happen. Yet here they were, together, willing to work through their issues and build a steady foundation for a relationship.
Maybe if it could happen for her and Micah, it wasn't totally outside the realms of possibility that it could happen for Chelsea and Josiah, too. Although she would not be holding her breath.
“And, Raven,” Teresa added, glancing over at her boss, who was smiling at all of them.
“I understand why you're here, why you're all here. Sometimes the best thing to do when the world feels out of control is focus on what you can control,” Raven said. Of all of them, her ordeal had been the most horrific because it had lasted an entire decade. Teresa didn't even want to imagine not having your child with you for most of their childhood, not even knowing if they were dead or alive.
“Exactly.” She nodded her assent. That was exactly why she felt like this was where she had to be. This case was personal for all of them, and she had no intention of hiding in a bed and leaving the others to work on it. Especially when they finally had a name. “What did you guys find out about Ms. Tilly?”
“Desiree Tilly,” Tobias informed her. “Once we had her name and all the information William provided us with, it didn't take long to work up a profile on her.”
“She’s forty-four years old, only child to a pilot and a dentist, both parents died within two years of each other, not long after she was married. Her husband had a rare genetic condition that caused his organs to spontaneously fail. Amyloidosis. It’s hereditary, and it was passed along to all four of their kids,” Chelsea explained.
“What does amyloidosis do?” she asked as Micah guided her over to the table and pulled out a chair for her.
“Affects proteins,” Ava replied. “They’re called amyloid fibrils, and they damage organs and can lead to organ failure.”
“Which is what happened to her husband about four years ago,” Tobias added.
“Unfortunately, all four of their children were more seriously affected than their father. Their firstborn son died at two when a liver transplant failed. She was pregnant with their second son at the time, and he was also born with the condition. Their third son came along two years later, and both boys got sick around the same time, and unfortunately, both died while waiting for transplants,” Ava informed her.
“So within a couple of years, Desiree loses her parents, then three of her four children,” Teresa said, it was enough to push anyone off the deep end.
“Daughter was born ten years after their third son passed away. At first, things looked hopeful, but then she got sick as well,” Chelsea continued. “That seemed to be the catalyst for everything. Husband died within a year of the diagnosis. It was like he just gave up, the guilt of what his children went through because of his genes was too much. After that, Desiree sold off his family’s business, which was running a luxury cruise company, and kind of disappeared.”
“She decided to ensure that her daughter didn't die while waiting for a transplant,” Teresa said softly. It was a heartbreaking situation, because in one sense, she could understand Desiree Tilly’s helplessness and desperation. Knowing what she’d already lost, the woman likely felt like she had nothing to lose. There were no guarantees that her daughter would get the transplants she’d likely wind up needing if they just put her on a list. Instead, she set out to make sure there was no chance her daughter would die waiting for a life-saving organ that might never come.
Not that any of that excused the woman’s behavior.
Having lost three of her four children and her husband, Desiree Tilly knew the heartbreak that came with the death of a loved one. Yet the woman hadn't hesitated to inflict that same suffering on hundreds of families across the world as she kidnapped at will. Stealing from healthy young men and women to save the dying and profit from it at the same time.
Understandable but not excusable.
The woman had to be stopped.
“So we know who she is, and we know why she started the trafficking ring, but how are we going to stop her?” Teresa asked. All this intel was interesting, but in the end, she wanted Desiree Tilly in prison where she belonged, where she could never hurt another innocent person ever again.
“I’m going to go in undercover,” Josiah announced, shoving away from his desk and stalking over to join her and the others at the table.
“You're going to what?” Raven asked as they all stared at Josiah in shock.
“Pretend to be dying. It’s clear she’s investigated us. She targeted Teresa and Chelsea specifically by having their apartment trashed. So she likely knows I was kicked out of the SEALs because I was injured. She might not know all the details, but we know what hospitals she has contacts at, and I bet anything if I went looking to purchase an organ and convinced her I was dying, I could set up a meeting with her.”
