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?”