“Many believed she completed the mission because she’d never leave a mission incomplete. What we failed to figure out was why she’d gone black for so many years,” the shorter man on my right continued to talk, smiling at the sight of tears pooling in my eyes. This group seemed to rejoice in my emotional connection to their topic of entertainment.
It had been so long since I had seen my mother and touched her that I could hardly picture her face anymore. I had trouble hearing the sound of her voice in my head. There were times I would sit for hours, forcing my mind to rebuild the pixels of her features so I would at least have her smile and wise eyes to remind me that she was once a real part of my life, the best part.
“There were so many theories and scenarios floating around. Her death lit the dark web for months when it was finally confirmed. It took us years to piece together a fraction of her movements, but it wasn’t until we caught the trail of the two she’d left to take care of you that we began connecting the dots,” the woman eagerly divulged, eyeing me with a vicious smirk when she sensed she had yanked me from my emotional reverie.
“A little girl, protected even from the federal government, you were. There was only one conclusion to jump to. You were her daughter. It took us years to catch another break where we discovered that you were the only logical reason why she’d gone black, not the Ferali Syndicate,” the woman enthusiastically supplied. She was glaring down at me with a sour expression, her eyes strained and her lips turned up like she was sorry I was ever born.
I fought my own mind, struggling to piece together clues from any of the fractured childhood memories I had left that would corroborate what these people were saying was true.
“You were the one link to a woman who never failed. It wasn’t your mother’s planning that led us to you either. It was your caregivers’ missteps that did.” The shorter man had taken over the conversation again.
The way the three coordinated their conversation meant they knew each other well or had worked together for a long time. They all appeared to be in their forties and probably well-educated if they were prior federal agents. What would make them choose this type of work?
“We believe your caregivers were a part of your mother’s team. There was no way an agent on her level didn’t have her own team of people she trusted outside the government. One woman couldn’t possibly know that much, gather that much information, and get into and out of notorious organizations using the meager tools and constricting rules of the government.”
The man paused. His thinking gaze was aimed at the magnifying glass in his hand and his smile hinted at his admiring thoughts. If he was such a fan of my mother’s, then why sell her secrets?
“Your caregivers were good at their jobs, keeping you hidden for a decade, but they weren’t on your mother’s level. When we found them we nearly had you in our grasp. But, you are your mother’s daughter. Like her, you hid yourself so well it took us torturing those women for weeks for tiny pieces of information. We managed to drag out that you bore a tattoo that was one of the most talked about things in the spy community.”
Was my tattoo what they had been searching for? I sure as shit wasn’t telling them where it was and I prayed the makeup I had applied over it would keep their search going and buy me some time.
“You’re going off the words of women you tortured to find me because you think I know something about my mother and her job? I was five years old when she was murdered. What the hell could I possibly know?”
The taller man was at my feet now, turning my left foot and observing my toes like he wanted to eat them. He glanced up and held up a finger, preparing to make a point.
“I believe you when you say you don’t know anything. It would have been your mother’s way of protecting you. But, it doesn’t mean she didn’t leave clues. And based on the words of a tortured soul, she said and I quote, “The girl and her tattoo are the biggest clues.””
The shit was cryptic as fuck just like every other piece of information about my history. The woman reached onto their instrument table and picked up a needle and a vile.
“I’m going to take some blood,” she informed me like I had a choice in the matter. I didn’t even flinch at the needle pinch. They had given me too much to think about and the drug they had pushed into me still had a tight hold on my motor functions.
“I can see the questions on your face. We as well as the federal government have never stopped hunting for your mother’s hidden secrets, you being one of the biggest. We believe she may have hidden the information she gathered on the syndicate some place on you. If not on you, we believe finding you means you’ll eventually lead us to that information. Do you have any idea how much a case file of secrets on how to take down the biggest criminal organization in the world is worth?”
The shorter guy at my head chuckled.
“The current listing price for any specific secret is one hundred to two hundred thousand a piece. A portfolio on how to take down an organization as vast and intricate as the Ferali Syndicate is currently worth a billion.”
Eyes wide, I stared at the ceiling, blinking.
“Why do you think we are taking your blood? There’s a million on the table if we can successfully confirm your father’s identity?”
“I can save you the trouble. He’s dead,” I told them with no emotion, continuing to stare up at the ceiling. “He killed my mother and attempted to kill me. I was an eyewitness to her murder.”
Again, they all paused and stared, their eyes moving over me robotically. I poured strength into lifting as far as I could go to glance at each of their faces. Was I missing something?
“We killed the idiot who shot your mother. He was in over his head and she was playing him like a fiddle, flipped him and was gathering information on us when he should have been gathering information on her.”
“That can’t be true,” I sputtered. “Malcolm Gentry was my estranged father,” I stated, jerking my head around at the three, not believing a word they were saying. They were playing me, seeing what type of information they could cipher from me by planting lies about what little I knew about my life.
“He must have panicked when he found out he was out of his depth with your mother. He had to die for doing something as stupid as taking out a target as valuable as her. One, with the information she collected alone Parris Davis could create hundreds of careers for other agents. And two, mere crumbs of the secrets she uncovered could keep us in business for years.”
The woman paused and shook her head at whatever thought was running through it.
“However, we believe your tattoo is the biggest clue to finding out who your father truly is. And believe me, it wasn’t a rogue agent who suddenly went rogue from a rogue agency and got flipped, because he didn’t know how to be a double agent. Why do you think there’s been a reward out for decades for anyone who finds a person bearing that tattoo? We believe the tattoo is also on the body of your real father.”
I choked on the air I’d sucked in too fast. I needed water. I needed anything to unclog my throat. I also needed a protective barrier to stop the flow of information that was using my brain for a punching bag.
These people were painting an overwhelmingly intricate picture that caused my head to spin much too fast. I had to shut my eyes in an attempt to stop thinking.