Clayton Reeves is attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting when one of his friends from the group, Melissa, reveals to him that she broke up with her abusive boyfriend.

After the meeting, however, Reeves witnesses Melissa being pulled into a dark sedan. He immediately suspects that her ex-boyfriend has kidnapped her.

Reeves turns to the NCIS team, which throws itself immediately into his personal mission to find Melissa before it's too late.

They discover the ex actually worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence and had possession of vital top secret information regarding a state of the art UAV. The man and his laptop are now missing.

They discover Melissa and her ex-boyfriend's body at his cabin, she having apparently shot him in self-defense. They also later find his laptop, but the top secret information is gone.

Her story begins to unravel after the team discovers that the ex had been dating Melissa's AA sponsor.

They eventually determine that Melissa concocted the kidnapping scheme with her apartment manager. She drugged and shot her boyfriend, setting him up for the kidnapping, and planned to sell the information on the darknet.

Reeves is understandably upset by the whole turn of events, but overcomes his own personal demons and decides to share his own story for the first time at his next AA meeting.

Meanwhile, McGee deals with becoming a popular online meme after someone anonymously posted an embarrassing teenage picture of him online. He discovers the poster was none other than Tony DiNozzo in Paris, and decides to return the favor.