Three
Lodestar
Present Day - November
"You know what a super recognizer is?"
I cast the leader of the Satan’s Sinners’ MC, West Orange Chapter, a dismissive look. "Of course, I do, Rex. They're very rare—" My words waned as I figured out where he was going with this.
A super recognizer was someone who had the ability to always remember a face down to every last detail.
Scotland Yard had a team of them monitoring CCTV footage, and they’d been proven to be more accurate than computers at scanning a face, registering it, and then finding it amid a crowd.
"You're one?" I shot a look at the ex-sex slave who’d been rescued by the MC. She was sitting opposite me at the kitchen table I’d staked out as my work surface.
Amara dipped her chin, her gaze on the table.
A part of me wondered if that was a sign of her nerves, or proof she was lying, but maybe it was neither. Maybe it was a force of habit, and not just submissiveness or anxiety or bullshit.
We'd shared a similar life path, unfortunately for us, but that was about as much as we had in common. It didn’t make me trust her. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"She says that some of the people who owned her were New World Sparrows."
Eagerness filled me as I leaned forward. Suddenly, Amara had become very interesting. "You telling the truth?" If she wasn’t, then I’d have to rip her a new one for trying to mess with me.
I didn’t have the luxury of time that I could waste.
She nodded, but remained quiet, allowing a brother in the MC to defend her.
I batted his words away and chose to focus on her.
"So, what gives? What do you want, Amara? You tell me, as well, not these guys. You got a mouth on you, don't you?"
Her gaze darted to mine, and her eyes were loaded with a wildness I didn't necessarily understand but could empathize with.
"Every man who ever raped me, who owned me, who tortured and abused me, I can describe them in great detail," she whispered. "They haunt my every waking moment. I know they were important men. I know they were Sparrows. I know I can help."
"I figured you could put them through a facial recognition program, Lodestar. We’d be able to put the faces to names, and we’d finally be able to start taking those Sparrow sons of bitches down."
I didn't bother looking at Rex, just kept my eyes trained on her. "And what's in it for you, Amara?"
I didn’t trust selflessness.
Everyone was selfish.
To be human was to be selfish.
Her smile, when it came, was soft. So soft that it made me think she was going to say something completely different than what she actually uttered:
"I get to kill them."
Nowthatwas logic I understood—she was finally talking my language.
And I had just the way of getting those faces that were haunting Amara out there.
Savannah Daniels.
I just had to make miracles happen and get her to stop ghosting me.