Ezekiel Kane had been watching Mitchelle Carter for thirty-seven days.
He knew the exact number because he tracked everything—time stamps, movement patterns, behavioral anomalies. The database he'd built contained 1,247 individual observations, cross-referenced with surveillance footage from four strategically placed cameras and the GPS tracker he'd installed on her Honda three weeks ago.
He sat now in the climate-controlled darkness of his operations room, surrounded by monitors displaying live feeds from Ashwood Lane. The duplex occupied the center screen, thermal imaging overlaying the visual to show heat signatures. Mitchelle's apartment glowed orange and red—she was awake, moving between rooms. The adjacent unit remained cold and dark, as it had been for the past four days.
Ezekiel's fingers moved across the keyboard, pulling up archived footage from November 3rd. He watched again as the panel van arrived at 9:47 PM, as three men emerged and entered the duplex through the connecting hallway. He'd been monitoring the operation from a vehicle two blocks away, close enough to intervene if necessary, far enough to avoid detection.
The men had been efficient. Twelve minutes to clear out the staging props, load them into the van, and wipe down surfaces. They'd missed the soap wrapper in the bathroom—sloppy—but otherwise left no trace. By 10:03 PM, they were gone, and the duplex's secondary unit was empty.
Ezekiel had followed the van to a warehouse on the industrial side of town, documented the unloading, identified two additional men who'd been waiting. He had facial recognition running on all five, cross-referencing against Interpol databases, FBI watch lists, and his own extensive records of known traffickers.
Three matches so far. Two more pending.
The operation next door to Mitchelle Carter wasn't about termites or staged apartments or a fictional elderly woman. It was a waystation—one node in a network that moved human cargo through the countryside, far from the scrutiny of urban law enforcement. The "Mrs. Kowalski" identity had been maintained just long enough to establish residency, create a pattern of normalcy. Now that the route was shifting, the identity was being erased.
Ezekiel had seen this before. Dozens of times. The trafficking networks were adaptive, intelligent, constantly evolving. They used rural areas, quiet neighborhoods, places where people minded their own business and asked few questions.
They hadn't counted on Mitchelle Carter.
He pulled up another monitor, this one displaying her evidence log. He'd gained access to her cloud storage two weeks ago—not difficult, given that most people used laughably simple passwords. Hers had been "Breadcrumb123"—the bakery name plus a numerical sequence. It had taken his software four minutes to crack.
He read through her latest entries, noting the precision of her observations. She'd documented things even he'd missed—the cigarette butts, the sedan's license plate (partial), the specific cadence of footsteps. She was meticulous, careful, intelligent.
She was also in danger.
The moment she'd called the police, she'd moved from irrelevant civilian to potential problem. The responding officer had filed a report—Ezekiel had intercepted it from the county database—which meant there was now a paper trail. The trafficking network would be monitoring police activity. They'd see the report. They'd identify Mitchelle as a risk.
Risks were eliminated.
Ezekiel leaned back in his chair, considering his options. The ethical calculation was straightforward: one woman's temporary discomfort versus dozens of trafficking victims. He'd been prepared to let Mitchelle remain oblivious, to work around her presence while he dismantled the network. But she'd made that impossible by being observant, by refusing to ignore the signs everyone else missed.
Now she needed protection, whether she knew it or not.
He pulled up her schedule—a document he'd compiled from weeks of surveillance. Tuesday mornings she left for the bakery at 4:15 AM, returned by 3:00 PM. She rarely deviated. Predictability was dangerous in her situation, but it also created opportunities.
Ezekiel opened a new window and began typing, composing an email to a contact in the county assessor's office. Within two hours, Mitchelle Carter would receive official notification that her duplex was being sold, that she had sixty days to vacate. The documentation would be flawless—he had people who specialized in creating paper trails that could withstand legal scrutiny.
Forcing her to move was the simplest solution. Get her away from Ashwood Lane before the network decided she needed to disappear.
But even as he drafted the email, Ezekiel found himself hesitating. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, not typing. On the monitor, Mitchelle's heat signature moved from the bedroom to the kitchen. She was making tea—chamomile, based on the supply inventory he'd observed during his one visit inside her apartment. She'd drink it slowly, sitting at the table, probably reviewing her evidence log again.
She did that when she couldn't sleep. He'd noticed the pattern weeks ago.
Ezekiel closed the email draft without sending it.
Moving her solved one problem but created others. She'd ask questions about the sudden sale, might investigate the new owners, could potentially stumble into something worse. And the network would still be operational, would simply shift to a new location, endanger new people.
No. Better to eliminate the threat entirely.
He opened a different file, one containing dossiers on the five men from the warehouse. Their routines, their vulnerabilities, their sins. Three of them had extensive criminal histories—assault, rape, murder. One had been accused of killing a witness in Romania but never charged. Another had disappeared from FBI custody during a transport three years ago.
These weren't men who deserved trials or rehabilitation. They were predators, and Ezekiel had built his entire organization on a simple premise: some problems couldn't be solved by the justice system. Some problems required more permanent solutions.
He began planning.
At 6:47 AM, Ezekiel was sitting in the corner of Breadcrumb & Thistle, reading a newspaper he'd already memorized, waiting for Mitchelle to notice him.
She'd arrived at her usual time, moved through her opening routine with mechanical precision. Even from across the room, he could see the fatigue in her movements—she'd slept poorly, maybe three hours total. The security cameras she'd ordered would arrive today, which would complicate his surveillance but not prevent it. He'd already identified the model from her Amazon history. Child's play to intercept the feed.
She was wiping down tables now, working her way toward his corner. He kept his posture relaxed, his attention apparently on the newspaper. In his peripheral vision, he tracked her approach.
"Excuse me," Ezekiel said as she reached his table. He used the soft voice, the European accent—subtle but distinctive. People remembered accents. "Is this your establishment?"
"I just work here. The owner's usually in after lunch."
He looked up, made eye contact for exactly two seconds before glancing away. Long enough to register, not long enough to seem intense. "Ah. I wanted to compliment the pastries. The kouign-amann especially—not many places outside of Brittany make them properly. You've caramelized the layers without burning them. Difficult to achieve."
Her cheeks flushed—pleasure at the recognition, surprise that someone noticed details. "Thank you. It took a lot of practice."
"I can tell." He stood, leaving exact change calculated to the penny. "Dedication shows in the details. You should be proud."
He left without waiting for a response, without looking back, without seeming too interested. Just a customer offering genuine appreciation. Forgettable except for the compliment, which she'd remember because people always remembered being seen, being valued for their skills.
It was the first seed. There would be others.
Ezekiel drove to a location three miles away, a parking lot behind an abandoned mill where he'd left his primary vehicle—a gray SUV with tinted windows and plates that changed with the press of a button. The sedan he'd been using for surveillance was a rental, carefully chosen to be unremarkable. He'd return it this afternoon, rent a different one tomorrow. Patterns were traps.
His phone buzzed. A text from Cipher—his second-in-command and the organization's head of digital operations:
Warehouse activity confirmed. Shipment expected 11/7. Manifest attached.
Ezekiel opened the encrypted file. Twelve names, ages ranging from sixteen to twenty-four, all female, all from Eastern Europe. Acquisition locations, transport routes, projected "market values." The clinical language made his jaw tighten.
Forty-eight hours. He had forty-eight hours to decide between a tactical intervention—raid the warehouse, extract the victims, eliminate the handlers—or a strategic play that might reveal more of the network's structure.
The tactical option would save twelve lives immediately. The strategic option might save hundreds over time.
He forwarded the file to his tactical team with a single instruction: Prepare for both scenarios. Standby for my call.
Then he drove to a coffee shop in town, ordered an espresso, and opened his laptop. To anyone watching, he looked like a businessman catching up on emails. In reality, he was reviewing building schematics for the warehouse, guard rotations, entry points. He was calculating angles of fire, estimating response times, identifying witnesses who'd need to be managed.
He was planning how to kill five men without leaving evidence.
The irony wasn't lost on him. Ezekiel Kane had spent the last eight years building an organization dedicated to destroying the same kind of monsters he'd become. The difference—the only difference that mattered—was intentionality. He chose his targets carefully. He killed to protect, not to profit.
The fact that he enjoyed it sometimes, that he felt a cold satisfaction watching predators realize they'd become prey, was something he didn't examine too closely.
His phone buzzed again. Cipher:
Police report flagged. Ashwood Lane duplex. Filed by M. Carter.
Ezekiel's fingers stilled on the keyboard. He opened the secure link, read through the officer's notes. The dismissive tone was predictable—local cops weren't trained to recognize trafficking indicators, especially in rural areas. But the report itself was now in the system, which meant it was vulnerable to the same monitoring tools Ezekiel used.
The network would see it. They might already have.
He checked Mitchelle's location via the GPS tracker. Still at the bakery. Safe for the next six hours, at least. After that, she'd return to the duplex, to the apartment adjacent to a now-empty waystation, where she'd install security cameras that would capture everything.
Including, potentially, the men who'd come to ensure her silence.
Ezekiel closed his laptop and made a decision.
He would accelerate the timeline. The warehouse operation would happen tomorrow night instead of waiting for the shipment. His team would hit hard and fast, extract the victims if any were being held there, eliminate the handlers. Then they'd sanitize the entire network—bank accounts, communication channels, safe houses.
And he would personally ensure that no one touched Mitchelle Carter.
He sent the orders to his team, encrypted and routed through six different servers. Within minutes, confirmations started arriving. His people were good—former intelligence operatives, ex-military, a few who'd been victims themselves and had chosen to fight back. They didn't ask questions about legality or ethics. They trusted his judgment because he'd earned it, because every operation he'd ordered had saved lives.
Because he'd never once failed to keep his promises.
Ezekiel paid for his coffee and left, heading back toward Ashwood Lane. He wouldn't approach the duplex—too risky now that Mitchelle was actively watching—but he needed to verify security, check for threats, ensure she made it home safely.
The fact that he'd parked down the street from her apartment seventeen times in the last month, that he'd walked past her windows after dark to confirm she was inside and safe, that he'd once spent an entire night in his vehicle watching her bedroom light because she'd had a nightmare and woken at 3 AM—none of that was relevant to the operation.
It was simply due diligence.
By 3:15 PM, Mitchelle's Honda was pulling into the duplex driveway. Ezekiel watched from his usual position, two blocks away with a clear sightline. She sat in the car for thirty-seven seconds before getting out—longer than usual. Scanning the area, looking for threats.
Good. She was adapting.
She entered her apartment, locked the door. Seventeen seconds later, the delivery truck arrived with her security cameras. She answered after the second knock, signed for the package, retreated back inside.
Ezekiel pulled up the building's electrical schematics on his tablet. The cameras would be wireless, connecting to her router. He'd need to intercept the feed without alerting her to the intrusion, which meant waiting until after installation to hack the system. Doable, but it would require physical proximity to boost the signal initially.
He made a note to return tonight after midnight, when she'd be asleep.
His phone buzzed. Cipher again:
Network chatter increased. Your location compromised?
Ezekiel frowned. He typed back: Specify.
Multiple references to "countryside observer." Could be coincidence.
Could be wasn't good enough. Ezekiel ran through the mental checklist—had he been sloppy? Left traces? The sedan rental was clean, his movements varied, his digital footprint scrubbed. But trafficking networks had their own intelligence systems, their own watchers.
If they'd noticed him watching Mitchelle, they'd assume he was law enforcement. Which meant they'd either evacuate the area or eliminate the threat.
Or both.
He typed: Increase surveillance on primary target. Report any approaching vehicles.
Confirmed.
Ezekiel stayed in position until sunset, watching Mitchelle's windows. She moved through her apartment, installing cameras, testing angles. He could see the blue glow of her laptop screen, knew she was following installation guides, probably documenting the process in that meticulous way of hers.
At 7:23 PM, a vehicle turned onto Ashwood Lane. Dark sedan, tinted windows, moving slowly. It passed the duplex, continued to the end of the street, turned around, passed again.
Ezekiel's hand moved to the weapon holstered at his side. He watched the sedan park three houses down from Mitchelle's duplex—the same position she'd documented in her evidence log.
Through his binoculars, he could see two figures in the front seat. The driver lit a cigarette, the glow briefly illuminating a hard face, cold eyes. The passenger was larger, bulkier, one hand resting on something in his lap.
They were watching Mitchelle's apartment.
Ezekiel's phone buzzed. He answered without looking away from the sedan.
"Two men, armed, surveillance position on your civilian," Cipher said without preamble. "Want me to run facial recognition?"
"Do it. And send the tactical team to staging position beta. Tell them to wait for my signal."
"Copy that. Ezekiel—are we escalating?"
He watched the sedan, watched the glow of cigarettes, watched the way the passenger shifted every thirty seconds to maintain visual on Mitchelle's windows.
"Yes," he said quietly. "We're escalating."
He ended the call and settled in to wait. The sedan would stay for surveillance tonight, assess the threat level, report back to their handlers. Tomorrow they'd return with instructions—either to scare Mitchelle into silence or to make her disappear.
They wouldn't get the chance.
Ezekiel had eliminated forty-seven traffickers in the last eight years. He'd used bullets, blades, bare hands. He'd made some deaths quick, others slow. It depended on what they'd done, how many victims they'd broken, whether they'd shown remorse.
These two wouldn't show remorse. They never did.
He pulled up the tactical plan on his tablet, began making adjustments. The warehouse operation would still happen tomorrow night, but it would be preceded by a smaller, quieter action. Two men would leave their homes in the morning, get into their sedan, drive toward Ashwood Lane.
They would never arrive.
Somewhere along the route—Ezekiel was already identifying the location, a stretch of rural road with no cameras, minimal traffic—there would be an accident. Mechanical failure, perhaps. Something that required them to pull over, to step out of their vehicle.
And then Ezekiel would step out of his.
It would be quick. Professional. Two shots each, center mass, then one to the head for confirmation. He'd move the bodies, dispose of the vehicle, sanitize the scene. By the time anyone noticed they were missing, the trail would be cold.
Mitchelle Carter would never know how close she'd come to vanishing like the woman who'd never existed next door.
She'd go to work tomorrow, bake her pastries, return to her duplex where new security cameras would record empty streets and quiet nights. She'd slowly convince herself that she'd been paranoid, that the odd coincidences were just that—coincidences.
And Ezekiel would continue watching, continue protecting, continue killing anyone who threatened her.
It was what he did. What he was good at.
What he'd been doing since the first night he'd seen her through her kitchen window, flour dusting her hands, humming softly to herself as she shaped bread dough. She'd looked so peaceful, so unaware of the monsters living next door.
He'd meant to leave after confirming the trafficking waystation. Meant to add her address to the case file and move on to the next operation.
But then she'd smiled—just a small, private smile at something only she understood—and Ezekiel had found himself staying. Watching. Returning the next night, and the next.
Thirty-seven days ago, he'd been conducting surveillance.
Now he wasn't sure what to call it anymore.
The sedan remained in position until 11:43 PM, then drove away. Ezekiel waited another hour before approaching the duplex on foot, staying in shadows, moving with the silence that came from years of practice. He positioned himself near Mitchelle's router, deployed the signal booster, and accessed her camera network.
Four cameras, covering front door, back door, driveway, and living room. Good coverage, but she'd missed the blind spot near her bedroom window. He made a note to anonymously suggest better placement—perhaps a positive review of the camera system mentioning optimal angles.
He was backing away from the building when he heard it: Mitchelle's voice, muffled through the walls, sharp with distress. He moved to her bedroom window, staying low. The curtains were thin enough to show her silhouette—she was sitting up in bed, breathing hard. Nightmare.
She had them often. He'd documented seven instances in the past month.
Ezekiel stood in her garden, surrounded by the skeletal remains of the previous tenant's landscaping, and watched her shadow as she got up, paced to the kitchen, made tea. Chamomile. Always chamomile after nightmares.
He watched until she returned to bed, until her light clicked off, until the apartment fell silent.
Then he returned to his vehicle and drove to his operations room, where he spent the next four hours planning exactly how to kill two men who'd made the mistake of threatening someone under his protection.
By dawn, the plan was perfect.
By noon tomorrow, the threat would be eliminated.
And Mitchelle Carter would never know his name.