One day. After Luna was home safe.
Moving on from the familiar faces of the family, the men Tristan had only ever seen in passing with his father but didn’t know the names of, he turned his neck to look at the other end of the table. That was where the guests from outside the city were.
He scrutinized them closely. The man at the head of the table was big, bigger than the Boss but not bigger than his father, in a dark suit like everyone else and a short beard. Tristan stared at his face for a long moment, memorizing it, and looked at his eyes.
Something heavy settled in his stomach.
He didn’t like this man. He didn’t like this man at all.
His face was regular and his eyes were dark, but there was just something about them that would have scared any other boy his age. It only made Tristan dislike the man even more.
Yet, it wasn’t him who held his attention a moment later.
It was the woman, sitting beside the bad man in a pretty blue dress, holding a baby.
Tristan felt the breath rush out of his chest.
She was so small.
So much smaller than Luna. Wearing a pink dress, her head sparsely sprinkled with curly dark hair, Tristan could only see her back as the woman held her.
Had she been with Luna? Had she been with his sister, sat with her, cried with her?
How had she been found? Why only she and no other girl?
The questions never left his mind as he watched the little bundle in the woman’s arms, everything else forgotten. She was wiggling like an inquisitive little worm, trying to get away from the woman he assumed was her mother. Tristan remembered when Luna used to do that, the noises she’d made in her little chest in frustration, the happy laugh that had bubbled out of her upon release.
This baby was making the same noises. Tristan could hear her across the room.
“Just put her on the table, Alice!” the bad man’s voice made Tristan’s eyes narrow in focus.
He saw the woman, Alice, hurry to sit the toddler on the table in a way that she could see the room with her back to her mother.
Tristan looked at her face, feeling the same flutter in his chest he’d felt the first time he’d seen Luna.
She was beautiful – rosy cheeks chubby on her pink face, little cute legs folded on the wood of the table, pink mouth opened in a small ‘O’ of wonder as she looked around the room at all the people. But it wasn’t that which Tristan found so beautiful. It was her eyes. Big, pretty eyes the color of wheat and grass mixed together. Those eyes were blinking at people, at things – clear, sweet, pure. Untouched by the evil around her.
Tristan hoped his sister was the same way. He hoped he would see her like this one day soon. He hoped he would kiss her little fingers and blow raspberries on her tummy again.
Another tear left his eyes.
And then something happened.
He didn’t understand how. He didn’t understand why. But suddenly, the little girl’s eyes came to him beside the pillar in the shadows, found him.
She tilted her chubby little head in wonder.
And then she smiled.
A completely toothless, completely adorable smile that just knocked him in the stomach.
Tristan felt his own lips move.
He felt himself smile for the first time in days since Luna had gone missing.
The baby flapped her chubby arms wildly, wiggling on the table, her giggling cackles loud in the room.
“I’m glad to see little Morana is well.”
The Boss’ voice erased the smile from Tristan’s face.
Morana. A pretty name. Tristan saw the baby turn towards the sound of the voice, and tilt her head again. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like how they’d put her on the table along with so many guns. He didn’t like how the room was full of men with dark eyes and they were all looking at her.
It made him want to pick her up and leave the room like he did with Luna when men came to their house. He didn’t like anyone seeing his baby sister with their dark eyes. He didn’t like anyone seeing this baby with those dark eyes either.
But he stayed quietly hidden.
“You wanted to see her for yourself, Lorenzo, here she is,” the bad man spoke from one end of the table to the Boss at the other end. He leaned back in his chair, his hand on the table. “Now, can we get to business?”
Tristan grit his teeth at the man’s tone.
“In a second,” the Boss said, putting out his cigar, the smoke curling around him. Air swirled around the room from the overhead fan, spreading the smoke around.
“Alice,” the bad man spoke to the woman. “Take Morana and leave us.”
“Leave the baby,” the Boss drawled out as the woman stood up. She hesitated for a second, but then turned around and left the room. The door closed behind her. The little girl, Morana, completely oblivious to everything, put a piece of her pink dress in her mouth and started chewing on it.
The Boss’s voice broke the silence. “Since only your daughter has been found from all the missing girls, you will do me the courtesy of answering some of my man’s questions, won’t you, Gabriel?”
There was something in his voice Tristan didn’t understand – like he was speaking in riddles.
The bad man raised his eyebrows. “Who has these questions?”
The Boss’ eyes gleamed in the lights from around the room. “My head of security. His daughter has been missing for a few weeks.”
Tristan inhaled deeply as his father stepped forward, coming closer to the table as the bad man, Gabriel, nodded at him.
“How did your daughter go missing?” Tristan heard his father ask in his cool voice. He’d never understood how his dad could shout and scream at home like he did and yet stay so composed outside the house.
Gabriel indicated to the door from which the woman in the blue dress had left. “My wife took her to the park and lost her. We didn’t know she’d been taken until she wasn’t found for four days.”
The men near the Boss’ side straightened as his father nodded, stepping closer to the table. “And how did you find her?”
“We didn’t,” the bad man, Gabriel, said. “She was dropped outside our gates at night.”
Just like that?
But why?
Apparently, his father’s thoughts were on the same track.
“So, she’s taken and four days later, delivered to your doorstep?” his dad asked, his voice losing its cool and resembling the tone Tristan had heard for so many nights. “How convenient.”
The bad man glared at his father. “Are you implying something?”
“Damn right, I am,” his dad responded, walking right to the table.
Leaning down, his father’s face shone in the lights, the look in his eyes scaring Tristan.
Tristan looked at his face, looked at the bad man sitting at the edge of his chair, looked at the baby between them, and his gut dropped to his knees. She needed to get away before his father started his shouting and the bad man responded.
“I’ve looked into you, Gabriel Vitalio,” his dad spoke, his voice edging towards the blackness in his eyes. “I’ve looked at the things you have done. So many girls gone missing, and not one is returned. Yet, when it’s your child, she’s sent back to you gift-wrapped. It only means two things – you either scare them, or you know them. Which is it, huh?”