Maybe an odd combination of both.
Honestly, there were times when Morana wasn’t particularly proud of herself, even while she wanted to pump her fist in the air and jump in glee. The reason for that was simple – sometimes, Morana did things in her recklessness that she knew she shouldn’t but still when she succeeded in doing them, she wanted to preen.
Right then was one of those reckless moments that made her want to preen.
She contained the urge. Barely.
The reason for both her stupidity and her bravery was five cars down, driving a huge black SUV, the vehicle so huge she was easily able to keep her eye on it from so far down the lane. Not a good vehicle for covert operations at all. But since it worked in her favor, she liked it.
After returning back to the penthouse from her old house with her stuff, Morana had locked herself in the guest room and gotten to work on the new set of codes, while also running a background check for the newspaper article some mysterious person had sent her from over thirty years ago. Tracking the said mysterious person had been impossible despite her numerous tries, telling her the one thing she’d needed to know about him or her – he or she knew computers. Really knew computers, for having evaded her.
And it made her wonder if they hadn’t been related to the original theft of the codes.
She’d mulled over a lot of possibilities while doing the work. Thankfully, the owner of the apartment hadn’t bothered or interrupted her at all. Not once in the thirty hours that she’d been working tirelessly on the codes - not for food, or drinks, or just plain staring.
Nothing.
And honestly, after getting the article, she was grateful. Because there were things going on, things she had no idea about. She needed some answers before getting in deeper than she already was. Her stray thoughts had been evident enough for him on the ride back to the apartment, and he’d withdrawn himself.
For nearly thirty hours, Morana had worked on the base for the new codes. She actually made a whole lot of progress, but it wasn’t that which had sent her down the path to recklessness. Oh no. It had been the article, or rather, the background search.
Trying to find something on the Alliance had resulted in absolutely nothing. But trying to find about the series of kidnappings in Tenebrae thirty years ago had yielded more results and gruesome truths than she’d been able to digest.
It had been a series of forty-five abductions (at least those known to the public). Abductions of young girls from their homes or parks that had spanned over a period of ten years. The missing girls were never found, not one. Since they had been abducted sporadically over the years, it had been hard for the police to gather much evidence.
Morana was smart enough to connect some dots, yet she had no clue how that was related to the fall of the Alliance. She didn’t even know if it had something to do with it. For all she knew, the person behind the article could’ve been a lunatic or just a prankster.
Yet, she knew in her gut it was connected.
She had since the moment she’d seen the article and the note. The note had led her to the last article reporting the disappearance of a baby Jane Doe.
Morana had tried, after catching up on some much-needed sleep, to try and talk to Amara about it. It had been the beautiful woman after all who’d given her the first clue. But the moment she’d brought up the kidnappings and the Alliance, Amara had stiffened and zipped her lips tight. Morana knew it was because of the loyalty she felt towards Tristan Caine, but it had only frustrated her. Dante would’ve been as helpful as a goat, and asking Tristan Caine alone would’ve either resulted in her pressed against the nearest flat surface or dead.
And she wanted answers. Not his fingers wreaking havoc on her, or his knife slicing her skin open.
Just answers.
Which was why, under dire circumstances, her brain had come up with a plan after exhausting every single option (short of alien abductions). The plan was simple in theory - find out something about Tristan Caine, something to hold over his head (because that man’s closet of skeletons could accommodate a small country, she was certain), and then blackmail him into giving her the truth.
Or die. But at least she’d go down knowing she’d tried her best to find out the truth.
In theory, it was a good plan. In execution, it was reckless.
That was exactly the reason she’d been ready and dressed inside the guest room this morning, waiting for him to leave so she could follow him out. Her car, her beautiful baby, had been waiting for her, purring under her as she’d started it. Happy to be back inside it, she’d told the guard at the gate that she needed some computer stuff. After he opened the gates, she had pressed down on the gas, shooting out into the road like a bullet, whizzing past the other cars to catch up with the one Tristan Caine had taken.
She’d been following him for almost an hour, at a very safe distance where she was sure he couldn’t spot her in the rearview mirror, occasionally admiring his driving skills. The man maneuvered the big SUV almost as well as he did that beast of a bike. For some reason she didn’t want to explore, she was partial to the bike.
The hard sun shone relentlessly down on the road as she followed him out of town. The city was slowly left behind for more and more countryside as she carefully kept her distance, knowing how observant he was.
He drove on the highway for almost ten minutes before turning onto a dirt road off to the left, disappearing behind the line of trees that shrouded the path.
Morana stopped her car, the sun glinting off the hood as the cool conditioned air brushed over the skin of her bare arms. Biting her lip, she waited for the SUV to get far enough away so she could follow. The fact that she couldn’t actually see the vehicle anymore made her jittery.
She slowly restarted the car, hovering on the edge of the turn, palms slightly sweaty because she had no idea what he would do if he discovered her tailing him. But it was too late to turn back. She was already on the reckless path, might as well follow through. Plus, answers.
The moment the other vehicle would’ve been nothing but a dot in the distance, Morana turned slowly onto the dirt road. Her car went over the bumps roughly as she drove through at snail’s speed, his choice of vehicle suddenly making sense to her. But that made her wonder –how did he know the areas around her city so well like a resident? Could it be something as simple as GPS?
She grit her teeth, following as inconspicuously as she could, her whole body jarring over the bad road and shushed her mind, storing random thoughts away for later.
Almost after five minutes of driving at a speed slower than her car was capable of, an old barn came into view. It stood tall and abandoned under the high sun, the woods around it concealing it from the view of the highway.
The SUV came to a stop outside it, and Morana quickly maneuvered her car behind some trees on the side of the path, hiding it completely from view behind the thick foliage. Taking her gun out from her bag, Morana opened the door noiselessly and got out, tucking the weapon at the small of her back in the waistband of her jeans, silently crouching down beside a tree to watch the scene.
She saw Tristan Caine’s muscled form fold itself out from the driver’s side, his eyes hidden behind dark shades as he removed the jacket of his suit and threw it in the car. Without missing a step, he shut the door, the fabric of the white shirt clinging to the muscles she knew were harder than they looked. He started walking towards the main entrance of the barn, disappearing inside.