Chapter 10 Cian
CIAN
Should I say something? Faina stands at the port of Valencia talking to one of the port authority guards who stopped us for lack of documentation.
My previous travel across Europe was through taking back roads and less than legal ways to enter each country, but Faina is bold.
She’s taking us right through the front door and seems completely unfazed when we’re caught by the officials.
She must have a reason. Maybe getting caught is part of her plan. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how her mind works, but it’s part of her charm and I love her for it.
I think… I still love her.
What happened last night was phenomenal.
I expected her to turn me away, especially after how we ended things, but she welcomed me in over and over again.
Even now, several hours later, my body still sings with the sweetness of her touch.
I wanted to talk about it before we left the motel but our morning conversation was interrupted by a hotel member bringing us coffee.
Then we rushed for the ferry, and it was far too public to discuss something so intimate.
So I’ve remained quiet.
Faina has too. She hasn’t said a word, and maybe that’s a hint that I shouldn’t either.
Difficult to do when all the good feelings connected to her have been unlocked inside me and it’s the first light I’ve felt in my heart since my family died.
That’s got to be another reason I don’t say anything.
I can’t use Faina to fill the grief inside me.
It wouldn’t be fair on her. Maybe it’s not renewed love I feel but just a desperate attempt for my fractured soul to cling to anything real.
But then she turns to me with a wide smile on her face and leaves the harbor official chuckling to himself as she approaches me.
The wind catches in her thick, dark hair and lifts it slightly, adding an extra layer of flowing elegance to her walk.
Her deep blue eyes sparkle as she reaches me and suddenly, she’s sliding her arm through my elbow.
“Come on, darling. It’s all sorted,” she says loudly. “I told you it would just be a spelling error.”
“That’s a relief,” I reply just as loudly, and my hand closes over hers. It’s impossible to ignore the thrum of energy that passes between us, but if she feels it too, she doesn’t act like it.
Instead, Faina waves at the port official and leads the way down the ramp toward Valencia.
“How did you pull that off?” I ask in a low voice as soon as we’re far enough away.
Faina winks at me. “Where’s the fun in telling you?”
“What if I need to use a technique like that?”
She snorts. “I would do it.”
“But what if you aren’t here?”
She arches one perfectly curved brow. “Are you planning on getting rid of me?”
“No, but you don’t know what will happen. Neither of us do.”
“Well, it’s simple. You need to find the names of people on board the ferry and swipe their details.
It helps if you can ensure a way to delay their leaving the ferry through…
oh, I don’t know, breaking the lock on their room or something.
Then you pronounce the name in an unexpected way and chalk it up to spelling when they find you on the list. Although you lack a few ways to ensure this works. ”
“Like what?”
Faina stops at the crosswalk and turns to face me, smirking. “Tits, Cian. You don’t have the assets or the charm.”
Oh.
Her arm tightens on my elbow as she grins, then she pulls a small piece of paper out of her pocket and waves it in the air to flag down a passing taxi. Yet another place we can’t talk about what happened last night. Maybe it really is for the best.
The taxi takes us swiftly through Valencia to the address of the bank Faina has written on the paper. After paying the driver, I stand next to her while we stare up at the sign. “So, what’s the plan?”
“We’re a newly married couple looking to open an account here, but I need you to play dumb.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to find a way to hook Erik up to the system so he can find us what we need.”
“You’re in contact with him?”
“Not directly, but the new access port will alert him and he’ll know what I’m after. So, you ready to lean into a terrible Irish stereotype to buy me some time?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.” She reaches across and pats my cheek. “But just think, it’ll all be worth it in the end.”
She’s right, and I cling to that as we enter the bank and head straight to the desk.
Requesting a meeting with a manager in order to open up a new account is the easy part, and it gets even easier when we’re invited to his office for a discussion as my loud, rather obnoxious Irish drawl draws a few looks of distaste from other customers.
Once seated, it’s my job to keep him distracted while Faina accesses his computer.
Something that grows impossible when he’s sitting at a desk staring at the damn thing while taking our details.
I thicken my accent and after four attempts, I finally have the manager understanding my request for coffee, which he hurries off to collect himself.
“Can you even understand yourself when you make your accent that thick?” Faina laughs softly as she busies herself with the manager’s computer.
“Yeah. My father talked pretty thickly. The longer he spends in Ireland, the thicker it gets.”
She glances briefly at me with a question she’d never dare ask, but I give her the answer anyway.
“He’s alive. And no, he doesn’t know. I haven’t told him. It would be pointless, really. He wouldn’t remember, and the last time I got to see him properly was to tell him Brenden was dead, so I’d rather not become a death omen.”
“I’m sorry,” Faina murmurs as her fingers fly across the keys. “I wasn’t going to ask.”
“I know.” I cast my gaze out the window to the warm spring sun that filters through the net curtains. “I haven’t dared to check on him since I left, but I’m sure he’s fine.”
Faina suddenly clicks her fingers and points at the door as the manager’s return footsteps echo in the hallway.
Leaping to my feet, I head out the door and corner him in the hallway with another flurry of questions that are mostly the same security concerns but worded differently.
Throughout the entire conversation, he keeps trying to hand me the coffee and I continuously move as if to take it before distracting him with another question.
His frustration grows and I can see he’s about to snap when Faina appears and slides her hand into mine.
“I’m so sorry, I’m not feeling well. Can we pick this up another day?”
The manager looks immensely relieved. “Of course. Please make an appointment at the desk and we can reconvene at a later date.” He still tries to hand me the coffee, but I refuse and walk away with Faina in tow.
She breaks away in the foyer and hurries over to the desk to make the follow-up appointment, then returns to my side with a smile.
“What’s the point in that?”
Faina rolls her eyes. “We’re in character and trying to be inconspicuous. If we were a real couple with a real desire to open an account, we’d want that appointment.”
“True.”
“Don’t you ever think ahead?” She snorts as we make it outside.
“I was the tactical brain,” I reply softly. “Saoirse was the one good at this kind of stuff.”
“Shit.” She stops and turns toward me. “I’m sorry. First your dad and now your sister. I’m two for two.”
“It’s… it’s not you,” I say as the urge to reassure her swiftly rises.
“They’re constantly on my mind, y’know? Sometimes, I think I hear my phone buzz and look at it expecting to see a message from Cormac.
Every time someone calls, I think it’s Saoirse because she hates…
hated texting. Every time I smell baking or think about horses, I think of Ma.
They’re around constantly. Every little thing reminds me of them and I can’t stop it.
I know they’re gone, I do, but ever since the hospital, I’ve had this sliver of hope that somehow, they’re still out there. ”
Sympathy warms Faina’s face. “Would they do that? Would they hide from you?”
“If the disaster was big enough, then maybe, but for six months?” I shake my head. “It’s stupid to hope, but I can’t let it go. Not yet.”
“Losing so many people… I don’t blame you.” She signs softly. “You can talk about them, y’know. If you want to.”
I squeeze her hand. “Thanks. Anyway, did you get what you were after?”
“Yup.” She slips a pen drive from her pocket and wiggles it. “Wanna go ask a real asshole some questions?”
The owner of the bank account is a man called Evri who turns as pale as a ghost when we turn up at his door.
There’s no chance to ask questions as Faina attacks him immediately and ties him up in his own kitchen.
The man panics and plays dumb for a good ten minutes until Faina punches him so hard that a tooth clatters across his tiled floor.
“I’m not here for your bullshit!” she yells. “This isn’t me trying to get the answers out of you, asshole. This is me already with the answers and I want to know the next step!”
Blood drools from Evri’s fat lower lip and his head lolls to the side until Faina grabs a fistful of his hair and forces him upright.
“You received payment from an account I’ve been tracking for a while.
That money was for the sale of a Russian woman and the money hit your account once you shipped her to whoever bought her, didn’t you? ”
“You’re crazy,” Evri slurs around another mouthful of blood. “I’m just a postman!”
“Liar!” She releases him and snatches up a knife from the counter where Evri had been in the process of carving some meat for his lunch when we interrupted him. The moment she plunges the blade into his thigh, I have to step out.
I used to have a stronger stomach than this, but the sight of the blade piercing flesh and Evri’s scream make my stomach turn and my left leg ache like I’m on the receiving end. I step out into Evri’s garden and wander between his potted plants and tall trees that block out the sun.
Saoirse would be ashamed. As the hours tick by, I end up perched on a curved stone bench that rests at the door of the garden.
Faina slides open the patio door and steps outside, breathing deeply.
She’s drying her hands on a towel as she walks toward me, and while she looks rather presentable, there’s blood splattered on her jeans and shirt.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You okay?” She sits next to me and runs her eyes up and down me. “Was it too much?”
“A little. Sorry.”
“Nah.” Faina shakes her head. “Don’t apologize. After everything, I don’t blame you.”
“Did you get anything out of him?”
“Had to break a few fingers and fuck up his ankle, remove a few more teeth, but yeah, I got a name.”
Our gazes meet. “Within Hexagon?”
“Yes. Hawk.”
“Hawk? What is he, some American douchebag?”
“Maybe. He’s supposed to call in a couple of days because Evri is a supplier. He buys up the product, AKA the people, and then ships them on to their true buyers.”
“Buyer protection even in human trafficking? Disgusting.”
“Exactly.” She sighs deeply and her shoulders slump. “But it’s a start. When the call comes through, we have to do everything we can to find out as much as we can. Whoever is calling is the next stepping stone.”
And the next, and the next until we finally reach the head of the snake. “Thanks for taking over in there.”
Faina looks at me with such a sweet, open expression that I have the urge to reach out and take her hand. I resist. Barely.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“We’re in this together and instead I ran like—”
“Hey.” She silences me by placing her hand on my wrist. “You went through hell.”
“You don’t think it’s fucked that I can’t stomach that shit anymore?”
“I think it’s fucked that you were hurt so badly that you can’t stomach it anymore,” she clarifies.
“Anyone in your shoes would feel the same. People change. Life affects us and builds us differently, but I’m here for that shit, Cian.
Okay? You went through some serious shit so I can do this hard shit. ”
“Then why do I feel like some kind of dead weight?”
“Maybe you just can’t handle an older woman in charge.
” Faina smirks and lightly elbows me as we laugh.
“But you’ve been running on 120 percent ever since you woke up in that hospital.
Maybe it just feels weird to have help, but you can trust me, Cian.
I can take care of the dark shit and you watch my back. ”
I can trust her.
Usually, that would come without hesitation, but she’s right, I’m so on edge these days that it feels like everything is a cloaked threat waiting to take me out.
“Alright,” I say, making the choice. “I trust you. So, when’s the call?”