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Zephyr didn’t ask but the question must have been on her face.
“He’s high-functioning autistic,” Morana clarified. “We had him tested recently and the counselor suggested getting an emotional support pet. Xander hasn’t really shown any outward interest in Lulu, not like he showed your dogs, though he’s met her enough times.”
Wow.
“Is he yours?” Zephyr asked. Morana looked too young to be a mother to a child his age.
"No, but we might adopt him soon."
Over the next hour, the girls brought her up to speed with their lives and their loves, grilled her about how she, a personality completely in contrast to Alpha, became his wife. While Zephyr had never had any dearth of friends or female companionship, not with her best friend being her sister, she got the feeling the two women hadn’t been as lucky, so she tried to bond with them and let them know that she was there if they needed another friend.
The guys returned soon after, crashing down beside them, something dark hanging over their heads.
“Did you find anything?” Zephyr asked, curious and needing to know if they had found any answers. She snuggled into Alpha’s side, letting his familiar weight settle around her and his familiar scent comfort her.
Dante shook his head in answer. “No. But now that we can talk in privacy,” he turned to Zephyr. “Do you remember anything about your encounter with the Shadow Man at my wedding?”
Zephyr bit her lip, trying to recall. “He was tall, wore a black sweatshirt, kept his face out of my line of sight.”
Morana nodded. “Sounds like my airport man.”
“Not yours,” Tristan corrected from her side, and she rolled her eyes behind her glasses. “We need to figure out what he’s doing. First, he contacts me about the missing girls and then he’s at your wedding sending cryptic messages and then he’s meeting Alpha about serial murders? What’s his agenda?”
Zephyr wished she could help. And in a way, maybe she could. Maybe her outside perspective could glean a new light.
“What if…” she hesitated, felt Alpha give her a squeeze, and began again. “What if you guys are too close to it to see the bigger picture? What is the one thing that connects all of you? Forget familial connections. Why would a girl from Shadow Port work with a man from Tenebrae? Why did the king of Outfit come to the king of the south? What is the underlying thread here?”
Dante tilted his head to the side, his eyes going to Tristan before settling on Alpha. “The Syndicate?”
Zephyr encouraged. “That’s as good a start as any. Maybe the Shadow Man is helping you because he’s got beef with the organization too.”
“But how the hell does he know what he does?” Dante shook his head, frustration evident on his face.
“Could he be a part of The Syndicate?” Morana mused out loud, tapping her phone on her thigh. “They’re giant, which obviously means they have resources. It could make sense.”
“Then why lead us to them?” Amara asked, her husky voice quiet. “If secrecy is their thing, and it’s his thing, why leave breadcrumbs for us?”
There was silence for a beat as they all considered the questions.
“Did you find anything about my sister?” Tristan spoke for the first time, and Zephyr realized he had a nice voice, though quite intense.
Her own intense grump replied, “We tracked down the girls in the shipment, all but three.”
“Were you able to track me?” Morana asked, and Zephyr felt her eyes widen. She’d been a missing girl?
She felt Alpha tense beside her. “No. That makes it two missing girls.”
“What happened to the rest?” Amara locked her fingers with Dante’s, her green eyes on Alpha.
“Most died,” her husband answered, remorse in his deep voice.
Zephyr watched Morana put her hand on Tristan’s thigh as he looked away, the muscles in his neck working.
After another beat of silence, Dante spoke up. “One of my guys who’s been undercover in the organization for months, he found something.”
Alpha listened intently and Zephyr sipped her wine, invested.
“The last contact Vin had with me a few months ago, he mentioned the handlers give the kids numbers for identity. They also keep track of the kids in the organization as long as they are alive. He found a file for one of the girls in the batch from Tenebrae twenty years ago leading to Los Fortis.” Dante paused. “5057. The file had a seal on it. He opened it and found that someone had bought her and the transaction was to take place next week. If we can find when and where in the city—”
“We can find a girl,” Alpha completed, looking toward Tristan.
It went unsaid that if they found a girl, chances of her being his sister were high. They sat in silence, with endless questions, elusive answers, a small, tentative hope that maybe, there would be dawn to the night.
