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"We don't let people bring people in here, Romy. We let a lot of things come through here. But not people. All of the people who work with us know this, respect it."
"I think we can all assume that criminals are not the most trustworthy group of people. Someone might be doing it without you knowing."
"If that is true, they won't be doing it for much longer," I told her, already itching to get out of here, get back to Angelo, to look into the matter.
"No," she snapped, holding her hand up. "No, you can't stop it right now. I have... I have to find her."
"How long ago were you told she was put on a ship?"
"There was no date for it. It was just a tip to get here and check the containers from Venezuela. I was told that sometimes girls get held for a while before making their way to the U.S.."
A slow sigh escaped me, mind on a dozen things at once. The possibility of being screwed over, the repercussions of that should any of our enemies find out, if New York found out and wanted to take it over, if the commission got together and gave any one of those families permission to carry out the orders, what we could do about finding out who these people were who were supposedly using our port without permission, what we would do to them when we found them.
And, of course, along with all of that, there was the issue of Romy. And her sister.
"What's your sister's name?" I asked.
"Celenia."
"Okay. I need to figure some shit out tonight, Romy. And you need to come with me."
"I can do that. Can you show me the containers I missed earlier? Because you moved them to make a trap for me?" she added, brow lifting.
"Yeah. We can do that. Come on," I added, leading her toward the stairs.
"What's going on, Luca?" Michael asked.
"We have a situation. Call Lucky. Get him back from whatever bed he crawled into last night. And call my father. Tell him to meet us at the docks."
"It's that kind of situation?" he asked, already reaching for his phone.
"Yeah," I agreed, jerking my chin toward another of my men, leading them through into the garage to climb into the car.
I'd climbed into the back with Romy instinctively, both of us sitting in tense silence as Michael made the phone calls, keeping the communication to a bare minimum as we always tried to do.
When we arrived, the docks were empty save for the crowd of men Michael had called to assemble.
My father. Leandro, Dario, Angelo, and Lucky were gathered around. The other men would be called in if and when it became necessary. But the serious shit, that was discussed among the six of us, seven should Matteo decide the issue was worth of his attention for a change.
"Michael, you take Romy around, let her look at the containers she wants. Don't let her out of your sight," I ordered, getting a nod from them and a look from Romy that was somehow both thankful and annoyed at the same time.
"You never drag me out of bed," my father started once Romy and the others were out of earshot.
"I can't guarantee there is an issue right now, but if what Romy says is true, it is a big one."
"What is she saying?" my father asked.
"She is saying that some trafficking operation is bringing girls in through our port. She made it clear that they aren't hitting any of the ports South of us, that were closer to Venezuela."
"Venezuela?" Dario asked, brows pinching. "Since when do they ship women into the States? Last I heard, kidnapping for extortion was a bigger business for them."
"Trafficking is on the rise everywhere. But most people who are trafficked are stolen and sold in their own countries. It's not easy to get human beings into other countries," Lucky said, reaching in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Smoking was a habit he had mostly given up, only reaching for one when he was stressed. Hell, I'd never smoked, and I felt like I could use one.
Because if we had someone shipping girls into our port, we all knew what was going to follow. An all-out war. After such a long period of peace, it was a daunting possibility.
"How did she get this information? Is it reliable?"
"Her sister was supposedly taken by these traffickers. She flew down to Venezuela to figure out what happened. Somehow, she got pointed here."
