“Don’t lose hope, yeah?” she whispered to him. “You worked so many years to get control. You have the reins now. You have Dante, who has the reins here. You have Morana, who does stuff I don’t even understand. And you have me, who does nothing but for moral support. We’ll find her.”
His jaw clenched but he gave her a nod, straightening and walking to sit beside Morana, who snuggled into him like he was a bear instead of one of the most dangerous men in their world. But then, nobody knew how dangerous he was more than Morana.
Amara took Tristan’s vacated space and leaned against the windowsill, as Dante spoke up. “You notice too many fires in buildings of late, Tristan?”
“Yeah, it’s fishy.”
“I agree,” Dante took a sip of the drink. “So, we don’t have any leads as of now?”
Morana shook her head. “I’ve contacted the airport guy again but haven’t heard anything back yet.”
Dante nodded. “Well, let me tell you what I know.” Putting his drink to the side, he took out a cigarette from his pocket, and hesitated, his eyes coming to Amara. She nodded at him to go ahead, and he lit it up. She didn’t have anything to contribute to the meeting per se, but Amara knew Dante wanted to keep her in the loop. She appreciated that, especially because if she was to be by his side, she wanted it to be a true partnership.
He inhaled deeply, telling her just by the action that it was stressful. “The Syndicate is deeper than we thought,” he began. “I barely got through the surface and the filth is deep. They’ve been trading in children for at least twenty-years that we know of. Could be much more than that.”
Amara felt her hand instinctively go to her stomach, before she breathed out, bile rising in her throat at what he was saying. It was ghastly. Children were a line never, ever to be crossed, and to hear they had been grossly violated for decades just made her skin crawl.
Why aren’t you screaming anymore, slut?
The memory came out of nowhere, barreling into her consciousness. She had been a child too.
She pinched the inside of her wrist and exhaled, listening to Dante’s voice, anchoring herself to the present.
“I don’t know how many ways they operate,” he went on. “But I did find one of them. They have recruiters of sorts who scour through chat rooms and forums where assholes who are into kids go, and that’s where they find members to get into the organization.”
“Factoring in at least twenty years, maybe more,” Morana voiced, “this could mean they have over hundreds of thousands of members.”
“Jesus,” Tristan cursed, rubbing a hand over his face.
The kids. The poor kids.
Dante took another drag. “These members seem worthless though. We need to find more information about how deep this goes and who all are involved in this. The recruiter this guy told me about went by the username MrX.” Dante hesitated, casting a small look at her, before speaking again, a tic in his jaw. “He’s also the guy who ordered Amara’s abduction fifteen years ago.”
The strings of a conversation from long ago drifted back to her, triggered by that name.
‘MrX is here.’
‘Show me the girl.’
“He was there,” Amara murmured, her brain still trying to recall more of a conversation she didn’t even remember happening.
Dante turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised.
“That name triggered something,” Amara frowned. “I think I wasn’t fully conscious when I heard his name. But he was there for a moment.”
Dante’s eyes blazed as he looked back at Morana. “Tristan and I looked into the building back then and it was a dead end. I want you to look again, look deeper, to see if we missed anything. Amara’s abduction never made any logical sense to me, and this MrX guy being connected to it… he’s a lead to pursue.”
Morana nodded. “I’ll get on it. If they’re hunting these forums, there would definitely be a trail on the dark web. But it won’t be safe. I hadn’t realized how much the Reaper – my father, I mean, had been shielding me down there. It might take a while for me to cloak myself but I can do it.”
Amara was kind of in awe of Morana’s brain and her confidence in her abilities. As a woman who had to rebuild herself from the ground up, and someone who still had days of self-loathing, that confidence seemed so unreachable to her. As a therapist, she knew that confidence was a well-made shield hiding a well of emotion.
“Good, but it shouldn’t lead back to you,” Dante pointed out. “We can’t risk them closing the one door we found. Also, do me a favor and try to find something on the Shadowman, if you can.”
“The Shadowman?”
“He’s involved?”
The other couple spoke at the same time.
The Shadowman. That was an interesting name, especially given how they were earned in their world.
Dante looked at Tristan. “My interrogation told me the one person the Syndicate is careful of is the Shadowman. So, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I want to meet my new friend and find out what he knows.”
“Okay, but that’s a badass name,” Morana echoed Amara’s thought. “Who is this guy?”
“No one knows,” Tristan answered her, his arm over the back of the couch behind her. “There were whispers about him on the street out of nowhere. Big players turned up dead right in their homes, no signs of entry or exit, no break-in, dead by a bullet, garrote, poison, ice. He has no MO, no face, no name. That’s why they started calling him the Shadowman.” He turned to Dante. “But why would the Syndicate be careful of him? He’s one man, they’re an entire organization.”
“Why indeed,” Dante muttered, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “You feel like paying a visit to Alessandro Villanova tomorrow? We’ll take the jet.”
Tristan nodded. “Time?”
“Eight.”
“Alpha,” Amara spoke up from the side, seeing all eyes turn to her. “That’s what he told me to call him. He was kind to me, especially given I was there under a false name. He even offered me protection.”
“Did he now?” Dante stubbed the cigarette in an ashtray, his dark eyes on her, the possessive fire that had simmered in them over the years burning hot again. “Could it be because you were a beautiful woman all alone in his territory?”
Amara narrowed her eyes. “I’m not defending him. Just keep in mind that he was good to me when he didn’t have to be.”
Dante’s jaw clenched before he turned to the other two in the room. “We’re getting married.”
Amara felt her jaw drop at his sudden announcement as Morana exclaimed an ‘oh my god’, and Tristan’s eyebrows hit the roof. He looked between the two of them before a small smile curved his mouth. “Congratulations.”
“This is amazing!” Morana leaned forward, her excitement so genuine it warmed Amara’s heart. “Wait, where is her ring? Did you propose without a ring?”
“It wasn’t planned. I’ll get my ring on her, don’t worry,” Dante reassured her. “You need to send Vin back to the compound. I need him here. And keep your eyes on Nerea. Any suspicious movement, tell me immediately.”