There was one other thing she’d seen that day.
One other instance that had been the thing that had made me think that’d been why she really turned me down for a date.
Belle smiled.
“You think it upset me to see you beating the absolute shit out of my abusers?” She rolled her eyes and tossed the underwear she’d been holding to the shelf that was holding a pair of jeans beside her. Then she frowned, picked it back up, and tucked it underneath her arm. “That was the highlight of my eleventh year.”
I gestured to the underwear. “You gonna buy those after all?”
She frowned. “No, I’m going to go put them back on the rack where I found them. It bothers me to have things out of place.”
Then she just… left.
I started to follow her—and did for the most part—when I got a call.
“He’s coming your way,” Sin said in my ear. “Black t-shirt now. He took off the sweatshirt.”
I picked him up immediately, heading right for a woman with a baby strapped to her chest, and three young kids running wild around her.
The littlest of the young kids was standing directly next to Belle, looking up at her and reaching for a long, bouncing curl that was playing with the small of her back.
I’d wanted to do the same damn thing.
But, sadly, I had a job to do.
Hanging back in the sock aisle, I kept my eye on the chaos around me, my gaze going from the kids, to the mom, to the man that was looking suspicious as fuck hanging out in the lingerie.
Neither Belle nor the frazzled mom noticed the man.
Which was his entire damn job. Be inconspicuous, follow young moms around, and relay that information to his buddies outside.
From there, those buddies would make their move while the mother was trying to control chaos and get her kids into the car.
Then, when she least expected it, the man would nab a kid—two if he was lucky—and run.
Child trafficking at its finest.
We’d heard that two children had been nabbed by neighboring bulk stores in the area, and then we’d gotten the call about the man about an hour ago.
Hunt had been doing some research online when a social media article had popped up and practically condemned a suspicious looking man.
Everyone had played it off as if it wasn’t a big deal, even the police, and Hunt had gotten us on it.
Sin and I had been the only ones available to go immediately, leaving us to walk around the damn store for the last hour trying to find this guy.
Finally, Sin had spotted him.
Which led to now, me watching him watching those kids.
It made me sick to my stomach.
Belle broke off when the child finally got ahold of the tip of her hair and pulled.
Belle grimaced, disentangled her hair, and then immediately scooted out of the aisle.
Yeah, she really didn’t like being touched.
Not even by a toddler.