Chapter Thirty-Nine
Elio
Loyalty was a word I liked to think resonated with who I was as a person—at least, most times, in certain situations.
An outsider looking in might be the first to think otherwise; not everyone knew who I was, but everyone made assumptions based on what they saw and heard.
Yes, I might be a liar. I might say one thing and then do the opposite, but if I made a promise or an affirmation to someone I cared about, I was bound to follow through.
I was constrained to honor it in a form best suited for the situation, no matter how adverse it might be for the person or how much they despised my methods of keeping a promise.
Of course, not everyone was built this way, and I completely understood that. I understood many things I should probably question, but my heart, mind, and being had pushed my head into withholding my suspicions and keeping my conclusions to myself until I heard from her.
Until I heard from Zahra—I raised the flash drive I had been holding on to for a day—until she told me why exactly her name was imprinted on this drive.
Why she had left the underground with the flash drives, accompanied by people she had never once mentioned.
Why she had left behind her friends. Not once looking back.
I knew she would be here; I counted the hours, the minutes, and the seconds. I was ignoring the doubts tearing through my insides, little by little, knowing she would come back to me, and even if she didn’t return for me, she would return for this drive and whatever content it held.
After all, that might have been the reason she was here in the first place.
Though I knew she had another motive aside from finding the gold with Street like she had claimed, I never once asked because I saw past whatever she was concocting.
I saw her.
I fell in love with her.
I cared for her and had ignored whatever deceit came with her because I trusted she would eventually feel comfortable telling me whatever she had been keeping to herself.
But then again, I could have handled every scenario of possible things she would have wanted out of coming here and doing things under my protection, but the last thing I expected was this.
A flash drive dedicated to her.
I didn’t check it.
The last thing I would do was learn something about the woman I loved through a hardware device made by someone who could speak the truth and still not be as in-depth as it would be coming from her directly.
I drank from the whiskey glass, dropping it on the table as my eyes returned to the drive.
ZAHRA FAIZAN
The first time I saw the drive in that box after reaching the underground a day ago, I had completely ignored the drives labeled MCSS and THE SERPENT SOCIETY. I picked up and left with the one I’d never expected or predicted would be there.
I couldn’t determine the future, and I had no idea how their mission had gone today, but I couldn’t risk her flash drive entering into the wrong hands, so I took it and left the rest.
Casmiro had tried to convince me to check it and to grab the one marked MCSS.
But I didn’t care for those. They could fall into the enemy’s hands—it would most likely be doing me a favor.
I didn’t care about their affairs, seeing as they were sovereign—but I hadn’t found a flash drive with my name on it, nor had I found one with my father’s or my empire’s names.
I had found one with her name on it, and I needed answers.
Asking her to be the one to get the drives wasn’t a test per se—she was supposed to piece two and two together when I gave her the password and told her the flash drives would be in a separate space from the gold.
Upon seeing her flash drive missing, I expected her to know who was responsible. I was the only one who knew the password, and if the safe had been hacked prior, she would not have needed a password to get to it.
I did not know what she was hiding, but I knew I had already forgiven her—that is if it had anything directly to do with me. I wanted answers because I’d failed to predict her actions; I was beyond positive Zahra would return to me with the flash drives.
But she hadn’t.
I needed to know what had gone wrong, if it pertained to whatever she wanted to discuss with me, and why she had chosen to do something so drastic, knowing she could lose her friends’ trust and possibly mine. What could have—
Gunshots sounded suddenly from outside my hotel room, and my thoughts halted as I listened in—muffled thuds, grunts, and combat that was too smooth and fast, enough to be missed if one didn’t pay attention to the rise and fall of the sounds the atmosphere around them provided.
Suddenly, they stopped, and the sound of a door opening and closing reached my ears. I stilled but didn’t turn.
My hand fisted around the flash drive in a vise grip, listening to the careful footsteps entering the bedroom—searching for me—a whiff of her perfume hit my nostrils, and I closed my eyes as her footsteps drew nearer, entering the small office-like space the hotel suite provided.
The footsteps stopped, and then what followed was the click of a gun leaving its safety.
I smiled.
“Turn around and get on your knees.” Her scratchy voice, on edge, thick with emotions, had my jaw locked.
“Are we role-playing?”
“Do I sound like I’m fucking around?”
“Hard to tell,” I spoke into the silence, listening to her unsteady breathing. “You do not sound quite like yourself at the moment.”
I couldn’t see her, but I knew she’d probably just shifted on her feet. I knew her heart was pounding—from the way she sounded, I knew she was hurt, though not physically—and from the way she talked, I knew something else had happened.
“Turn around, Elio.”
Allowing another minute, I flexed the corded muscles around my neck and tentatively turned.
Her eyes were filled with … anger, swollen with tears she had probably cried before coming here, and I watched how fresh tears welled in her eyes as she looked down at my hand, which held the flash drive. “Get on your knees and hand over the drive.” Her voice shook.
Concern tugged at a muscle in my chest, and I stepped closer. “What’s wrong, Zahra?”
Her hands tightened on the gun, her index finger deadly close to the trigger. “Don’t come any closer.”
I frowned, taking another step, and she shifted on her feet, eyeing me carefully like she was genuinely scared of my next move, scared of me. “I’m warning you, Elio.”
“Is this how you want to do this? Choose violence over cordiality?” I caught her swallowing as a tear slipped down her cheek. “What’s wrong, querida?”
She sniffed, her hands flexing around the weapon’s hilt as she flexed her shoulders. “I’m counting in my head. If you don’t do as I say, I will shoot you.”
“What happened?”
The anger flared in her eyes, and they hardened to slits. “Get on your fucking knees, Elio. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
She was going to do it. She would shoot me if I didn’t comply; she was apparently too angry to see reason, and I was confused as to why this was happening. It couldn’t be from the fact that I hadn’t told her I had been to the underground before her or her team.
I had disarmed the building and dealt with unnoticeable traps that could have led to instant death for trespassers. I had been my usual self, always ten steps ahead … just like I had with the first two locations.
She took a threatening step forward. “Down. On your knees. Now.”
I sighed. “All right, relax,” I said, eyeing her and the gun before raising my hand a little to show her I meant no harm, neither did I intend to cause her harm, as I got on my knees before her. “You have me where you want me; now, can you please tell me what happened today and why you’re crying?”
As if just noticing the tears on her cheeks, she rushed to wipe them off, still pointing the gun at me.
“Querida—”
“Don’t call me that,” she said without missing a beat. “Give me the flash drive.”
“I will not,” I told her, not letting my eyes fall from hers. “Not until you tell me what went wrong today.”
She scoffed; her red-rimmed eyes, filled with tears, pierced me with the most cutting glare she had ever given me.
Hate. There was so much hate in that glare.
My thoughts faltered for a second, wondering why she would look at me like that.
“I found your flash drive,” she said, her chest rising and falling at an abnormal rate. “That’s what went wrong.”
I frowned. “That is impossible. I do not have one dedicated to me.”
“Oh, but you do. The MCSS. Ring any bells?”
My brows shot up. “Oh, them.”
Her expression twisted from hate to pure loathing, a snarl in her words as she said, “How did it feel, Elio? Listening to me talk about being violated by men old enough to have fathered me? How did it feel when I cried and you offered false comfort? How did it feel to make promises to me, telling me you would find the people responsible for the trafficking ring when you are the direct channel to where they originate from?”
I paused, watching her with my frown deepening as her words settled in my head. “That is a very heavy accusation to throw at me, Zahra.”
“Accusation?” she asked, sounding indignant. “Accusation? You can still kneel here and lie to my fucking face in pretense?”
I blinked, unsure of what she was talking about. “I promise you; this isn’t me in pretense; this is me watching you accuse me of something so diabolical after everything we’ve been through together.”
“I saw it,” she gritted out. “Your name, your fucking signature, Elio, on every file, every document for the MCSS, regarding shipping of children, illegal births, trafficking rings from various countries … Every authorization came from you; you want to tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about? ”
My mind was working a million miles per second. I was confused beyond comprehension.
The MCSS …
Trafficking rings …
Illegal births …
My authorization …