William complaining about the heat in the club was carbon-copy to complaining about enjoying Oreo cookies without full-cream milk to dip them in. Dairy was indulgence. What Will complained about was a luxury compared to being crammed inside an immobile car outside a cold parking lot. Of course, Aria was inside their vehicle where it was warm and toasty but she was still cooped up in a rectangle made of steel and aluminum indefinitely.

  It wasn’t her choice, really. It was the job position she chose. Working as an Analyst meant that she couldn’t work directly in the field unlike her Division mates. Drawing out her weapon whilst simultaneously examining data was impossible. It wasn’t logical. She knew because she once tried.

  But if she was entirely honest with herself, one of the main reasons she adored being an Analyst was its restriction to be on the field. She preferred to work on the side-lines, far away from all the adrenaline and the pressure. What's more, she didn’t have to look at the dead bodies.

  She learned that she wasn’t a fan of so much as glancing at a dead person when she worked her very first case after graduation. Division 6 was dispatched to a flat complex that had been set on fire by a vengeful arsonist. The operation was successful as it could be; they managed to clear out ten dead bodies that had been charred beyond recognition and extricate the few that were still alive.

  No matter how hard she tried, Aria couldn’t forget about the firefighters dressed in asbestos suits who formed a convoy, pushing and dragging out stretchers heaped with black body bags out of the complex.

  One stretcher. Two stretchers. Three stretchers. Four stretchers. Five. Six.

  Aria felt overwhelming sadness as the bodies passed by her, the smell of smoke and burnt flesh that escaped from the cadaver pouches giving her an excuse to walk away from all the madness. She felt choked, by both the sorrow and the queasiness, and she hoped that holding onto the brick of the building would give her a much-needed break to control to the nausea that was rising due to the polluted air.

  Aria remembered feeling very hot. She thought the ponds of sweat were caused by being around a viscous fire. But when she removed her leather jacket and unfastened the bulletproof vest underneath it, her body temperature dropped to a refrigerating chill. Goosebumps formed on her uncovered arms and her teeth began to chatter against each other. Her face and her neck were wet, all the liquid, she realized, coming from her eyes.

  She was crying.

  And in no time, two of the grilled-cheese sandwiches she ate that morning traced their path back to her mouth and exited in a sickening mesh of different colours and textures.

  Ew, she remembered thinking. Her guts were already on the ground for everyone to see. It was only her first day and her teammates knew more of herself than she did.

  She felt hands gently suspending her long hair on top of her head as she tried her hardest to allow all the toxic vomit exit her system. Jason, one of her teammates, had noticed her absence and approached her to find out what was going on with her. Aria couldn’t efficiently formulate the words to tell him that she wasn’t feeling so good so she unwillingly pointed at her vomit. Luckily, Jason was part of their medical team so it only took him seconds to diagnose her with an anxiety attack.

  After cleaning up Aria’s mouth, he instructed her to straighten her arms to the sky to calm her down. A few long breaths with Jason’s help and she was breathing normally.

  In essence, that was what her career at SSU consisted of for almost two years. She couldn’t stomach it all; the nausea, the body rot and the bleach that cleaned the body rot. She was saturated. Because she was the type of Agent that couldn’t be around the deceased, her Supervisor decided to demote her to Distress Gatekeeper, which was just a fancy term for someone who responded to emergency calls. It was the same time she truly acknowledged that she couldn’t do what her teammates could. She couldn’t depersonalize the victims and work through without batting an eyelash. Being a normal Agent like everyone else was not in the books for her. And it only made matters worse when all her teammates treated her exactly how she felt; useless.

  Why continue working there, someone would ask, if all the Organisation brought were puke and tears?

  She met Dave. He advised her to harness the skills embedded in her and utilise what she already knew. He even planted the seed of her as a potential D12 member and months later, she couldn’t have been happier. Her choice to transfer to the 12th Division in her fourth year at the Organisation changed the trajectory of her life. For once she felt understood. Nathan gave her the opportunity to prove that she was a great asset to his Division just by being herself. And whenever she had difficulties of any kind, Evan was always there to practice breathing exercises with her. Nothing could’ve prepared her to create space in her heart for the best leaders and friends many yearned for. She had finally found a family. Akin to a flower growing in the right soil with the appropriate nutrients, as a member of Division 12, Aria blossomed alike a flourishing rosebush.

  Focusing her passion on being an Analyst was one of the best choices she made for her career. She applied herself and it resulted in her improving her manoeuvres such as hacking any security system in under sixty seconds or less.

  Just as she had done to Pedro’s system.

  Two system units were balanced on her lap, projecting the interior of the club in four parts of her screens- telling her that there were only four cameras in the nightspot. She had already spotted everyone; Nathan, Preston and Evan conversing in the area up the stairs, occasionally rejecting advances and approaches made by any species that wore a skirt. Jordan and Harper were bopping their heads to the music downstairs on the dance floor while William leaned against the dance floor with a dreadful look on his face, repelling those who thought they were strong enough to approach him. Cy was sitting at the bar; a white, foamy drink in hand, flanked by an unfamiliar man sitting beside her.

  Aria knew Cyan for a very long time and though she couldn’t see the man’s face, she definitely knew that he was not her type. She was more into cute DECs with impeccable leadership qualities, phenomenal hair and a stellar personality. Aria wondered what was going on between them anyway. Seeing Nathan after all that time must’ve been a little difficult for Cy. For Nate too. Whenever they were ready to talk, she would be there for them. As for now, any thoughts she had, she kept to herself.

  Concentrating on the camera that filmed the bar area, Aria noticed that events there undertook a heaty turn. Cyan's body language changed from resistant to unusually coy and Aria wondered what all of that was about. She instantly reached for her comms in the drinks compartment of the car, where she had put them when her ears became a little itchy and shoved them back in her ears.

  ‘’...meet you by the stairs.’’ Aria heard the man say as he left the bar.

  ‘’VIP, then what?’’ Nathan asked.

  That was followed by Cyan and Harper justifying their last-minute plan to seek out Pedro in the upstairs section to the rest of them. It made sense to Aria for Cy and Harp to follow the smoke whilst the trail was still visible and Nathan comprehended that too because he gave them the go-ahead.

  With her thumb and index finger, Aria moved them a significant distance away from each other to expand the camera block that displayed Cyan, Harper and the man they had used to gain access to the lounge section. Aria didn’t want to say it and she certainly didn’t want to think it but the lounge area resembled more of a strip club than anything. Half-naked women danced on important men in suits while being rewarded with showers of money and champagne. Cy looked around the place registering what Aria had also seen. But she still maintained synchronised step with Harper and the man that flanked her.

  They didn’t walk far until they stopped at a booth where a man reclined lazily on a purple couch. He was smoking so much that Aria couldn’t see his face even when she attempted to zoom in. When the girls stopped at the booth, the man excitedly stood up from his seat and greeted Harper by pecking her knuckles. When he lifted his head to express his gratification to the second man, Aria noticed the familiar face of Pedro Gallo. He sent Cyan’s impromptu date away and led Cyan and Harper into a narrow hallway in the opposite direction. Without notice, the screens on Aria’s laps went dark after Cyan and Harper followed Gallo to wherever he was leading them.

  The hallway wasn’t covered by any camera. It was a blind spot.

  Aria sighed and slid down the leather seat. She had lost eyes on two Agents and seeing as they had entered the lion’s den, they needed all the backup they could get. Aria could’ve given them that by tracing their every move. But she also knew that Cyan and Harper were more than capable of holding their own since they were well-equipped. She just hoped that there were no surprises hiding in the bushes.

  Aria flung herself up in her seat.

  ‘’Guys.’’ she called into her buds. ‘’Can you hear me?’’

  ‘’Yeah.’’ Jay answered.

  ‘’Yes.’’ William answered.

  ‘’We can hear you.’’ Nathan answered. ‘’Why?’’

  ‘’Do you hear that?’’ Aria asked.

  “You mean the loud music and the drunken cheering we’ve all been hearing since we arrived here?’’ William asked flatly.

  ‘’Nothing I haven’t been hearing before.’’ Evan answered.

  ‘’I don’t hear anything.’’ Preston said.

  ‘’Exactly.’’ Aria answered. ‘’We can’t hear the girls anymore.’’

  There was a silent moment of realization that occurred. Not seeing Cyan and Harper was one thing but not hearing them was a disaster that she didn’t want to deal with. Their connections were lost and Aria’s stomach was a pit full of nerves.

  ‘’I don’t hear them.’’ Evan confirmed. ‘’What’s going on?’’

  ‘’Their signals were interrupted.’’ Aria answered frantically, fingers running over keyboards attempting to reconnect the disconnected coms.

  ‘’That means Pedro figured out who they are.’’ Nathan deduced.

  ‘’That means Pedro figured out who we all are.’’ William surmised. ‘’Aria, lock all your-’’

  Aria didn’t get the chance to hear the end of what William’s sentence because the passenger seat door was abruptly opened by a man Aria didn’t recognize. She wanted to yell at him for disrespecting her privacy but her lips were immediately sown shut when the man pulled out a pistol out of his jeans and pointed it at her.

  Aria went incredibly still with panic.

  She closed her eyes and opened them again to make sure that she wasn’t in a bad dream. When it sunk in that she was directly across the barrel of a pistol, her heart began to pump at a million beats per minute. Regardless of her frenzy and confusion, she still applied protocol under duress; she kept her eyes away from the firearm and put her hands up admitting surrender.

  ‘'Aria? Aria!’’ she heard the boys call her.

  She was tempted to send a signal to notify them that she was in danger but her attacker’s posture told her that if she did something stupid, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to pull the trigger. Grabbing her own weapon was out of the picture. She picked comfort over common sense when she threw it in the back seat after it dug in her side.

  She never wanted to strangle herself so badly.

  The man stealthily moved closer to her and checked her ears. His cold hands violently removed her comms from both her ears and threw them on the tarred ground. He lifted his leg and his leather cowboy boots crushed them into unrecognizable pieces. After he was done destroying Aria devices, his calloused hands dug holes into her exposed arm and dragged out her out of the vehicle.

  Under the horrible circumstances, she was silently grateful that she did not allow Harper to talk her into wearing heels because upon being dragged out of the Ford, she lost her balance and sprained her ankle. Her face met the ground and the tiny stones pricked their way into her skin. She tried to get up but she fell down again because it felt as if a stack of needles had stabbed her ankle all at the same time.

  The pain was excruciating.

  The canon, however, was placed directly over her spine so it motivated her to forget about the amount of pain she was in and move a little faster. As someone with little choice in the matter, she willed herself to push the pace with her good leg, forcing her throbbing right leg to limp more steps. And as if the pistol hadn’t aggravated the predicament enough, the cold weather brushed ferociously across her smarting ankle, making it the second enemy she had made that night.

  They passed the main entrance and walked to the rear of the club. Her provocateur pushed her to the back of the building where they found another door similar to the one in front. The man kicked the door open just like Chuck Norris and hauled Aria into the darkness that was at the pariah of the club. Aria couldn’t see much because the lights were off but she noticed that the man was very familiar with where they were, pulling Aria by the strap of her dress and ascending the creaking stairs with her.

  A strong wave of alcohol and sweat punched her brutally in the nose making it difficult for her to breathe. She was not ignorant to the queer scents of nightspots but the smell she was currently inhaling was disastrously lethal. Clearly immune to the dark and the off-putting smell, her other half kept it moving in the dark space, passing silhouettes of men lying across the floor. From the little that Aria could see, these silhouettes were sitting upright against the walls popping pills or snorting white powder.

  Most were doing both.

  ‘’Oh, look. Pedro’s lapdog.’’ one of the silhouettes slurred.

  ‘’Shut up.’’ Aria’s abductor sneered.

  ‘’Isn’t it pathetic how Shayne does the boss’ dirty work for approval?’' another silhouette from the floor bunch laughed.

  Shayne.

  Without letting her go, Shayne, who held her hostage, punched the drunk man across his face with his pistol. His limp body fell off the chair he was sitting on and thudded on the floor right in front of Aria.

  She almost shrilled. But she realized she would be next if she made a sound. She gripped the thin material of her maxi dress to focus her feelings of fright that were manically creating hysteria within her and silently prayed to still be alive by the end of the night.

  Shaking off his acts of violence nonchalantly, Shayne casually fixed his shirt that rode up his torso and proceeded with Aria down the smelly hallway.

  ‘’What exactly do you think you’re doing, young man? Holding that poor lady like a piece of meat.’’ another man from the dark corners asked. It occurred to Aria that this man was either unafraid of Shayne or he hadn’t seen what had been done to one of his friends.

  Aria snuck a glance at Shayne. Menace and darkness masked an otherwise handsome face.

  He smirked.

  ‘’Checking if the bartender mixed the drinks correctly.’’

  *****

  ‘’I never thought I would have the pleasure of hosting the Special task force in my little office.’’ Pedro taunted.

  Cyan, Nathan, Evan and Harper were crowded in Pedro’s bijou office, eager to hear what information he claimed to have. Everyone seemed calm and collected, attempting not to set Pedro off by giving him the impression that they needed his help. That would only result in mind games they didn’t have time for. Harper, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate to show Gallo that she was very upset with him after being locked in his office.

  ‘’Don’t waste our time.’’ Harper flared.

  Pedro chuckled softly. ‘’You need to control that temper, little girl. It might benefit you in the future.’’

  ‘’You know what we are here for, Pedro. Let’s dive right into it.’’ Nathan reminded.

  ‘’Straight to the point. I like it.’’ Pedro leered. ‘’You know that I run an expensive drug business here. How do I know that you won’t take me out of here in handcuffs after telling you everything?’’

  ‘’How do we know that you’re not giving us false information?’’ Evan asked.

  ‘’Because the same person that killed Geoffrey is the same person I import drugs from and I want him gone.’’ Pedro divulged.

  ‘’And here I thought you offered to help because you felt terrible about Geoffrey’s death.’’ Harper replied in an acidic tone.

  ‘’I do. We worked together.’’ Pedro responded dryly. ‘’But he is six feet underground and I am still very alive above the earth. I have to rid myself of inconveniences by any means necessary.’’

  ‘’’’Inconveniences’’?’’ Cyan repeated.

  Pedro sighed. This was the first time Cyan witnessed raw emotion replace the permanent smug look on his face. It changed quite a few things. For one, Pedro must’ve been really desperate to co-operate with the police. Clearly, he needed them more than they needed him, which said less about Pedro and more about the threat they were trying to deal with.

  ‘’I made some injudicious business investments in the past.’’ Pedro started. ‘’I was out of money and I couldn’t keep myself or the club afloat. This wealthy guy offered to bail me out and I accepted his help. There was a catch, obviously. I was to sell his drugs in my club as well as distribute it to willing sellers that wanted to make a pound.’’

  ‘’I’m assuming you didn’t refuse his deal given the current predicament you’re in.’’ Cyan guessed.

  ‘’Of course, I didn’t say no. I was dead broke at the time and he gave me sixty percent of all the earnings. That sounded like a delicious amount of money to me.’’ Pedro defended. ‘’Maybe if I knew and understood the crap I was putting myself in, I would’ve made a different decision.’’

  ‘’You sold your soul to the devil.’’ Evan chipped in.

  ‘’He is more than that. And I can’t get a refund because that would result in my death.’’ Pedro complained.

  ‘’He sounds scary.’’ Nathan commented flatly.

  ‘’He is nuisance too.’’ Pedro added. ‘’He harasses me. He helped me out of a problem once and now he thinks he owns me. I can't run my business the way I want without him ruining everything. You see that cheap vodka at the bar? It's not liquor I'd ever supply to my customers.’’

  ‘’Is that why we are here? To hear you whine about alchohol?’’ Evan asked.

  ‘’You know, you’re lucky I'm even helping you.’’ Pedro scoffed. ‘’That man is dangerous. So dangerous that many want him gone. Permanently.’’

  ‘’Well, do you know who this mystery guy really is?’’ Cyan asked.

  ‘’He has been in the game for as long as the Big Ben has been around. He is a Cane Corso. Do you think he’d be stupid enough to tell me his real name?’’ Pedro asked incredulously. ‘’I only know that he calls himself George Campbell. Could be his real name. Maybe not.’’

  ‘’Alright. And have you met this George Campbell in person?’’ Harper asked.

  ‘’Only once. Man in his forties with really weird, grey hair. Wears very expensive suits.’’ Pedro described.

  ‘’That is more than half the demographic in this country! That could be anyone!’’ Harper exclaimed. ‘’Sorry to break it to you but your semi-vermin information does nothing for us.’’

  ‘’Harper.’’ Nathan called firmly.

  He seemed to calm Harper down with his unwavering stare and helped redirect her irritation towards Mona Lisa and Venus. Cyan could understand Harper’s feelings of mistrust for Pedro. Sadly, Pedro was the closest source to the information they needed to know.

  ‘’I’m a small fish.’’ Pedro burst out.

  ‘’Come again?’’ Evan asked.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  ‘’I am a small fish.’’ Pedro repeated. ‘’You’re wasting your time grilling me when you should be finding out who George really is. He is the bigger fish you need to sauté.’’

  ‘’How did George and Geoffrey-’’

  ‘’Geoffrey?!’’ Pedro laughed hysterically. ‘’You’re still worried about Geoffrey? He was a means to an end. You know what that is? It means that Geoffrey was weak and received what was coming for him. The bigger problem here wears real fur and a ‘GC’ tattoo behind his ear.’’

  That seemed to spark Nathan’s interest.

  ‘’GC? Are you sure?’’ he asked.

  ‘’Yes, I am sure. I know I only laid my eyes once on the guy but I'm sure he had those initials printed behind his ear.’’ Pedro replied.

  ‘’Anything else?’’ Nathan asked.

  Pedro took one quick glance at his Monalisa replica before answering. ‘’No.’’

  ‘’Huh.’’ Harper scoffed. ‘’You could’ve added more effort into that lie.’’

  ‘’There’s more, isn’t there?’’ Evan noticed.

  Cyan agreed with Evan and Harper. Pedro was definitely hiding something.

  ‘’My deal?’’ Pedro asked smugly.

  There was no answer.

  Cyan had a feeling she was thinking the same thing her teammates were thinking; they would be in hot water if the Organisation found out they had brokered a deal with a criminal involved in a high-profile case. It went against their values as an Organisation. She didn’t think it was worth it. To her, the Directors were scarier than this George character because they had the power to revoke their Agent statuses. There had to be another path to this information.

  ‘’We won’t take you in.’’ Nathan announced.

  Cyan gawked at him, alarmed. What did he think he was doing? There was nothing Cyan wanted to do more than drag Nathan out of the room and shake all the destructive decisions out. If Pedro’s loose mouth bragged that they had let him go, they were all as good as dead. Or worse; unemployed.

  Registering Nathan’s stone-cold expression, Cyan understood that he was aware of the repercussions. There was a stronger force that was motivating him to get answers by any way.

  In a flash, Cyan heard a loud noise behind her. She slightly moved out of her seat to see what had interrupted them. The door had been thrown open by Shayne. His exaggerated and noisy entrance didn’t frighten Cyan as much as what she saw next.

  Aria was held close to him by the straps of her long dress, a pistol puncturing a hole in her neck. Her eyes were almost fully shut but Cyan could tell that she was still breathing by the slow rising and falling of her chest. Her face was scrunched up in pain and Cyan did a quick run-over of her body to see where she had been injured. All of Aria’s weight rested on one leg and Cyan noticed that Aria’s right ankle was savagely swollen. What had Shayne done to her? Vigorous fear filled Cyan that she didn’t notice she was already on her feet with her weapon out.

  ‘’Another step and Shayne severs her little spine.’’ Pedro threatened calmly.

  It was as if they had met two different characters that belonged to Pedro. The scared Pedro that desperately needed their help and another Pedro that meant what he said by ‘’any means necessary.’’

  Everyone's panic was suppressed by what he said because they knew he had nothing to lose the moment he resorted to tell them about his oppressor, George; especially when he thought he no longer owned what belonged to him. Pedro was an already burning flame. Any gas poured on him would result in an explosion that could tear all their lives apart. If they didn’t want Aria with a bullet through her pharynx, they had to handle the situation delicately.

  ‘’What do you think you’re doing?’’ Nathan roared icily.

  ‘’The answer is simple, really.’’ Pedro goaded. ‘’I didn’t trust that I'd walk out of here a free man so I had to think on my feet.’’

  ‘’Do you understand what you’re doing?!’’ Cyan exclaimed ‘’You’re holding an International Agent against her will. That gives you more than seven years in a cell.’’

  ‘’You better make sure that doesn’t happen, sweetheart. Otherwise, her head will end up like the ligaments of her torn ankle and she won’t be able to tell the difference.’’ Pedro threatened. ‘’I’ll tell you more of what I know about your case once I'm sure I can walk free.’’

  ‘’Don’t let him walk.’’ Aria muttered.

  ‘’Shut up!’’ Pedro yelled. ‘’Shayne!’’

  Shayne removed the pistol from her neck and slammed it against Aria’s head. She screamed in pain and Shayne forced the deadly piece of metal in Aria’s mouth to shut her up. Her eyes budged out with fear and admittedly, Cyan, Nathan, Evan and Harper had become unimaginably frantic.

  ‘’Fine! Okay!’’ they all shouted at different counts.

  ‘’You’ll walk out.’’ Nathan agreed.

  ‘’Let her go.’’ Evan followed sternly.

  ‘’Good choice.’’ Pedro smiled innocently.

  ‘’Damn you.’’ Harper spat.

  Shayne pushed Aria away from him as if she resembled trash to him, in time for Evan to catch her quickly before she fell and potentially hurt herself. Seeing Aria, hurt as she was, sparked a fury so great in Cyan that she found it very difficult to control it. She wanted to pounce on Shayne and hurt him just as he had hurt Aria. She wanted to swipe the smug look off his face and pin him to the ground. It appealed to her so much in that moment that her hands began to shake uncontrollably. Nathan subtly stood behind her and soothed the small of her back to calm down. She guessed he noticed the smashing and gnashing of her own teeth and took charge of the predicament before it spiralled out of control more than it already had.

  ‘’What else?’’ Nathan asked Pedro.

  ‘’You know Rock In Diner?’’ Pedro asked.

  ‘’The American restaurant on Saxon?’’ Evan asked.

  ‘’Precisely. I heard Campbell’s minions talking to each other one time. He used to own it with two of his buddies back in the day.’’ Pedro reported. ‘’Apparently, they expanded the restaurant's capabilities. Drug dealing, laundering, gambling and possibly a brothel to generate income.’’

  ‘’So, what happened?’’ Evan asked.

  ‘’LPD received an anonymous tip about their illegal restaurant and they were all arrested.’’ Pedro said.

  ‘’The minimum one can receive for all those charges is fifteen years.’’ Harper recalled.

  ‘’George did twenty.’’ Pedro said. ‘’If my math is correct, he was arrested in 1993 and was released in 2013.’’

  ‘’So, he is out.’’ Nathan said. ‘’Has been for a while.’’

  ‘’We’ll check his prison records and track down his real name.’’ Harper said.

  ‘’It’s not going to be that easy, love.’’ Pedro decreed. ‘’I think, for your sake, I should repeat that George Campbell is a very powerful man. He wouldn’t leave traces of his old life for people like you to pick apart and analyse. Don’t underestimate him.’’

  ‘’Surely, you must know about him.’’ Harper prodded. ‘’How do we find him?’’

  ‘’How would I look in those goth uniforms of yours? Because I might as well join the SSU since I'm doing your job for you.’’ Pedro laughed.

  ‘’Don’t piss me off.’’ Nathan growled. ‘’Answer the bloody question. How do we find George?’’

  ‘’Okay, look.’’ Pedro gulped. ‘’I told you all I know. It’s hard to know about someone when they can’t be tracked. But you don’t have to actively search for him to find him.’’

  ‘’Elaborate.’’ Cyan said.

  ‘’Check out the diner.’’ Pedro suggested. ‘’You might find clues there.’’

  Nathan narrowed his gaze. ‘’Pedro, if I find out that you so much as breathed a lie-’’

  ‘’Calm down, pretty boy. I’m telling you the truth.’’ Pedro said. ‘’Nothing hidden in the dark stays there forever.’’

  ‘’Don’t expect a thank you.’’ Harper snapped as she stormed out of Pedro’s office.

  Evan carried Aria across his chest and followed Harper out. Nathan gave Pedro one last look and stalked out of the office after Evan, leaving Cyan to walk after him.

  The noise slowly crept up on Cyan’s ears as they reached the end of the narrow hallway. The music, the jeers in the crowd and the familiar stink of alcohol and sweat told Cyan that they were back in the lounge. She didn’t know how long they had been in Pedro’s office but the night was just as young as they met it when they entered the club. Ravers were still dancing and smoking as if their lives depended on it.

  Compared to the vivacious characters they had to push through to leave the club, Cyan and the rest of the Division were the opposite. They were vexed. Rightfully so. A member of their family had been attacked. There was no other horrifying feeling such as watching torture happen right in front of you. You felt the pain, not only because your family was a part of you, but you felt helpless. All you could do was stand idly and let the best parts of you disappear.

  Cyan couldn’t explain it but it was as if someone threw a burning matchstick to her already existing fury. She was more upset now than she had been when Shayne violated Aria. All she could feel was rage. For once, she didn’t control it. Professionalism wouldn’t take precedence tonight.

  One thing led to another and she detoured her route. She threw her purse on the floor without regard for its future purposes and stomped back to the narrow hallway. She had only one thing in mind; going back to that office. She heard Nathan call out her name but his voice drowned in all the music and the screams. He couldn’t catch up to her in time because she moved with shocking speed back to Pedro’s headquarters.

  Before she entered his office, she heard Pedro and Shayne laughing their tails off as if what they had done was material that belonged to a comedy special. That only infuriated her more, enough to enter his territory and make her presence felt.

  The two men were having too much of a good time to notice that Cyan was back in their space and consequently used that to her advantage. Shayne had his back to her, standing a few feet away from Pedro’s desk. So, she used the bridge of her heel to strike the sensitive area of his shin. Viciously. Shayne groaned blaringly and dropped down with a heavy thud to the ground. He tried to reach for his gun, supported by his pants’ belt, but Cyan grabbed it in time and kicked it harshly outside the office. She obliterated his other shin to completely immobilize him on the floor and pulled his burly arm to dislocate it out of its socket.

  Shayne screamed.

  His arm was probably never stretched in such a barbaric way before, resulting in Cyan yanking it again so that he could familiarize himself with the pain. She pinned it on the rear end of his neck and depressed her heel on top of his hand, that faced upwards, as destructively as she could, forming a neck-hand-foot sandwich. Not forgetting Gallo, Cyan briskly retrieved her Glock from her coat and drew it at him.

  ‘’Please! Stop! I can’t breathe!’’ Shayne shouted. His face, squashed and trampled on the floor, was almost a blue-purple colour. His breath was rapidly leaving his body.

  Cyan depressed her foot on his neck harder.

  ‘’Just put the gun down.’’ Pedro pleaded. ‘’Let’s talk, okay?’’

  It was almost as if Cyan had blacked out and lost all sense of reason. She didn’t want to talk. She was seething. All she wanted was to settle accounts with Shayne for what he did. He thought he could get away with breaking her friend’s ankle but he was dead wrong. He had made an unforgivable mistake.

  Without removing her glower from Pedro, Cyan loaded the Glock.

  The clicking sound scared Pedro out of his seat, unlike earlier, when she met his sarcastic reaction after pointing her firearm. This time, she was dealing with the real deal. Never had she heard a grown man whimper so loudly, tears and snot running down his face. She must’ve really terrified him.

  ‘’Cy.’’ a familiar voice called. Nathan.

  She didn’t dare remove her stare off of Pedro nor her foot off of Shayne.

  ‘’Cyan.’’ Nathan called with more urgency. He became visible on her right side where he knelt cautiously.

  ‘’I’m going to remove your foot off of him now, okay?’’ Nathan said slowly as if he was attempting to calm down a chihuahua that had his favourite shirt in its mouth.

  She allowed him to remove her foot off of Shayne because the real problem was Pedro. Had he not sent Shayne to Aria, she would’ve been moving on two uninjured feet. It was all his fault that Aria couldn’t walk. They were willing to cooperate with him but he couldn’t help himself from doing something unspeakable. She was capable of that too.

  Her right leg was no longer perched on Shayne. She heard him cough frantically and run out of the office.

  ‘'Cyan.’’ Nathan called nervously. He appeared in her peripheral vision, right in front of her firearm.

  ‘’Put it down.’’ Nathan muttered.

  He put his hands on top of hers and slowly lowered the firearm. Scared she was going to set it off at him by mistake, she lowered it all the way down and allowed Nathan to take it away from her. He unloaded the firearm, took out all the bullets in one quick motion and placed it inside his button-down shirt where she had no access to it.

  ‘’Are you okay?’’ he asked her.

  She wondered why he had posed that question considering she had taken down two men by herself with no scratch. It must’ve been the DEC in him to be hundred percent sure that the members in his team were always safe.

  ‘’Come on.’’ He said as he led Cyan out of the office.

  They walked back to the lounge and Nathan picked Cyan’s purse off the floor, where she had thrown it, and put it on her shoulder. They pushed through the crowd in the lounge, down the stairs, past the dance floor and they were finally out of the club.

  Cyan dragged herself to the two cars they had left in the club parking lot. Scanning the area, she spotted their team three cars from the right. Aria was in the backseat with her bruised foot in Preston hands. He knelt in front of her, analysing her puffy and inflamed ankle. Attentive to Preston’s actions, everyone else stood close, keen to hear what Press would say.

  Cyan and Nathan approached the first Ford, where all the girls and guys assembled, in time to hear Preston say, ‘’This is a bimalleolar ankle fracture. Her fibula and tibia are both broken.’’

  ‘’I’ll call Doc.’’ Jordan sighed as he walked a few yards to make the phone call.

  ‘’Is Preston a doctor?’’ Cyan whispered to Nathan.

  ‘’Yes. But not a medical doctor. His IQ is outrageous so we just treat him like one.’’ Nathan replied.

  Cyan breathed a quiet laugh.

  ‘’What happened, Aria?’’ Preston asked nervously. ‘’One minute we were talking to you over the buds and the next we couldn’t hear you. Jay, Will and I ran out here to find the car door open and empty of you.’’

  ‘’He just opened my door and dragged me out.’’ Aria answered tiredly.

  ‘’Who? Pedro?’’ Preston asked.

  ‘’Shayne.’’ Nathan answered.

  ‘’The pervert Cyan was flirting with at the bar?’’ William asked.

  Hearing the words ‘’Cyan’’, ‘’flirt’’, ‘’with’’, ‘’pervert’’ in one sentence made Cyan shiver. She wanted to correct William about how wrong his statement was but she realized that it wasn’t the time and plus, she didn’t have the energy to go at it with him.

  ‘'Yeah, him.’’ Aria drawled.

  ‘’Pedro sent him to hold Aria as leverage. That way, we wouldn’t take him in for all the product he is selling.’’ Evan answered.

  ‘’I wish you hadn’t let him walk.’’ Aria said quietly.

  ‘’Are you kidding me?’’ Harper asked. ‘’That bafoon was going to blow your brains out.’’

  ‘’I was so scared.’’ Aria trembled.

  This was the first time she let out tears after the whole ordeal. Preston pulled her close to him and pecked her on her forehead. Aria rested her head on his chest and seemed to calm down with the patting motions he was soothing her with.

  ‘’It’s going to be okay.’’ Preston whispered to her.

  ‘’At least we have a place to look.’’ Evan pointed out.

  ‘’Will you go to the diner, Ev?’’ Nathan asked.

  A confused expression masked Evan’s face. ‘’Where will you be?’’

  ‘’The Directors’ requested an audience with me.’’ Nathan reported.

  ‘’Why do they want to see you?’’ Evan asked.

  ‘’They didn’t say but they probably want an update.’’ Nathan answered.

  ‘’Already?’’ Harper asked. ‘’They assigned this case to us hours ago.’’

  ‘’This case is different to many we have worked. The protocols are different.’’ Nathan explained.

  ‘’Alright then. We'll stay with Aria and go over ‘George Campbell’ aliases and his apparently untraceable prison records. There's no way he is a living breathing human without a single trace.’’ Harper said.

  ‘’There’s no such thing as the perfect criminal.’’ Evan agreed.

  Cyan heard heavy thumps on the tarred road to her right. It was Jordan.

  ‘’Doc is on the way.’’ he announced.

  ‘’We should probably get going.’’ Nathan suggested.

  They all jumped in the cars, four in each, just as they had travelled. They were almost in the same order they came in except that Preston wanted to be with Aria so Cyan ended up in the car Nathan drove. She was quietly unhappy with this arrangement because she was embarrassed to be in more of his presence after what happened upstairs.

  Going over the events that transpired less than fifteen minutes ago, Cyan realized she valued control more than anything, that it was strange losing it to her anger. Instead of calculating the consequences, like she usually did, she just acted. Oddly, it was liberating. Though, almost killing two men reminded her why she had those precautionary measures set in the first place. When she lost herself, she had the tendency of going overboard. That was one of the reasons why she kept some parts of herself in a box. Tonight, Nathan had to put her back in which was agonizingly mortifying.

  The embarrassment bulldozed her into the backseat that Jordan had opened for her where it permitted her to at least sit down while she went over her actions. William took his place in the driver’s seat leaving Nathan in the back with her. They had quite an eventful night. Her brain was too clogged with tiredness to overthink their sitting positions so she just let any awkwardness she might have created in her mind to evaporate like alcohol in a teenager’s liver.

  William started the car, backed out of the parking lot and drove out of the club gate with Harper tailing him, behind the wheel of the second car.

  They drove back to the woods in silence. Cyan guessed that no one was in the mood to chat, which was a win for her because her eyes were about to collapse and the silence was just the catalyst she needed. She unzipped her gripping, thigh-high boots and internally beamed at the women who made up D12 who didn’t allow a stiletto to get in the way of an eventful operation. Exerting pressure on Shayne’s neck dismantled the sole and bridge of Cyan’s foot pushing her to pull off the heavy shoes and throw them under Jordan’s seat. She also removed her coat, because William had increased the heat in the car, leaving her with just her slip-on dress. Comfortable enough to sit through an hour drive, Cyan put her right leg on top of the other, set her head on the window and gazed at the wonderful night. Or morning. She didn’t know what to call the darkness of 03:00a.m. She stared at the blank canvas that was the sky and realized that although their night had taken a sombre turn, given that Aria had been hurt, there was also a touch of zeal in the air. It sunk in that they had found another piece of the puzzle.

  Without removing her eyes off of the hypnotic sky that moved faster than sound, Cyan gave into the enervation of the night, gradually closing her eyes so that it could take her.

  Almost in the abyss, she felt a warm build slide closer to her and shift her own body from the window to a soft nape that smelt of sweet berry. She was glad that her neck was in a better position because she had a feeling she’d have to answer to its stiffness in a few hours.

  The last thing she felt were two sturdy arms encircling and securing her, stroking her hair while she surrendered to the night of the morning.