Dante nodded. “Very good, Martin. And who was yours?”
“A… a guy I met in a … chatroom online.”
“And what did this guy tell you about the Syndicate?”
The guy shivered. “Just that… they were an organization that catered to… what I was looking for.”
“Kids, you mean,” Dante grit out, feeling the rage pulse in his blood.
The guy looked away, apparently ashamed. Yeah, the fucker had had a hard-on a few hours ago, so Dante didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for him.
“And this guy,” Dante redirected the interrogation back on track. “He was recruiting? How does it work?”
“If I tell you, will you let me go?” he straightened in his chair, trying to be brave.
“Depends on what you tell me, Martin,” Dante drawled out, leaning back in his chair. “I get in a good mood, you get out of here.” In a body bag, Dante didn’t add.
The man nodded, believing him. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Good.
“The guy,” Martin began, looking to his feet. “I just know him by his username. MrX. He said he was a part of a group that could arrange… what I wanted for me. All I had to do was show up to the induction and show them I was serious, get the tattoo, and they’d give me the instructions later. I just got the tattoo today. I don’t know anything else.”
“And this MrX,” Dante asked, his mind working to put the pieces in place. “Have you ever seen him?”
The guy shook his blown-up head. “No. The guys tonight were all inductees and a tattoo guy. MrX had cameras they said they’d be watching us with.”
Dante believed him. He tilted his head to the side. “And during the entire month as an inductee-in-waiting, did you ever hear anything you think I’d be interested in? Bonus information always puts me in a very good mood, Martin.”
Martin hesitated.
“Don’t make me stand up, Martin,” Dante warned.
The guy was a wuss. “There was one thing,” he stuttered. “I don’t think MrX wanted to let it slip.”
“What?”
“About a Shadowman,” the guy said. “We were just talking about it and he said this Shadowman or whatever kind of kept his eyes o
n the Syndicate, so to be careful of my day-to-day activity.”
Shadowman.
Fuck.
Dante had heard about him, whoever he was, only in rumors. Even in his side of the underworld, the name was a frightening legend. And if the guy was on the Syndicate’s tail, then he had a deep, deep knowledge of their world. Dante had just hit the tip of the iceberg, and this guy was already deep in the ocean. He’d never had the reason to try and find the person, but that could change now.
“Anything else? What about MrX?” Dante asked.
The guy thought for a second before his eyes blinked. “I don’t really know, I swear. He just mentioned he had retired as a recruiter. He used to be a handler of some sort.”
Dante felt his gut tighten. He stayed quiet, waiting.
“He…,” the man swallowed. “There was this one story he told me, warning me about what happened to rats. It’s… he’s kind of pretty well-known in the group.”
Dante just blinked, flexing his fingers.
“Said he had a girl interrogated fifteen years ago in your city… because she heard some shit she wasn’t supposed to. He hired the guys and they kept her for four days, I think he said.”