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She shrugs. “It’s nothing…” At our skeptical look, she says, “It’s nothing we can do anything about now.”
“Let’s decide that together. What’s dampening your joy?” I ask.
She reaches her hand out to me and Valentino. “I don’t think you guys know how much being with you means to me. You fill me with so much happiness that I question if I’m living in the real world. Then I remember. Although Giulio seems to be genuine in his desire to back off from hurting us, he’s still a concern. And there’s the mastermind. I’ve reached a dead end with the tattoo. I want to believe he’s no longer a threat since nothing has happened, but my gut’s uneasy.”
“As is mine.” Valentino pulls on Sloane’s hand until she rests in his embrace, upsetting Cielo who darts under the bed. With his chin on her head, he says, “We’ll find out who’s after you before he gets to us.”
“You said your last clue was the tattoo?”
Sloane nods.
“Can I see it?”
“Haven’t I shown it to you?”
“No. Valentino showed me a grainy image that seemed familiar but I couldn’t identify. Maybe we’ll have better luck with the newer picture.”
Remorse spreads across Sloane’s face. “I didn’t mean to leave you out. I honestly thought…let me get it now.” She rushes out of the bedroom and returns shortly after with her laptop.
She boots the computer and finds the file she needs. “I have a feeling that I know the tattoo but I can’t for the life of me remember where I’ve seen it before.”
The picture fully loads, much clearer than the first time I saw the image. Ice slithers down my spine. “That feeling you have? It’s because you know this tattoo well, Sloane.”
“I really don’t.”
“If you hadn’t joined the Air Force, you would be sporting this yourself. All Ghost Six members have it.”
“What are you two talking about?” Valentino’s sharp question reminds me of what we’ve been keeping from him. “Why would the Ghost Six want anything to do with Sloane, then or now?”
Sloane and I stare at each other unable to hide the guilt from our expressions.
“Don’t keep me out. What aren’t you telling me? Principessa?” Though Valentino’s face is calm as he questions Sloane, he can’t disguise the steel freezing his blue eyes or the slight bristling of his beard.
“You better tell him,” I say. “It is your story after all.”
Sloane agrees with a nod. After a few seconds, she takes a deep reinforcing breath. “I guess I should start with after Giulio took you away. Up until then, no one bothered me for fear of getting on your bad side. Unfortunately, when you were no longer in the picture, everyone who refrained…stopped refraining and I fought back.”
I notice she leaves the part out where she came to my defense.
“That doesn’t sound like the Ghost Six I remember from my days in Springfield.”
“Because they weren’t the ones coming at me when you lived there. When I stood up for myself, I got on their radar and spent two years dodging their efforts to corner me. Their recruitment efforts were getting more forceful…” Sloane steals a glance at me, while rubbing at her waist. “Even though we planned to go to college together, the way things were going, I had no choice. Not if I wanted to protect everyone around me. So when I turned seventeen, I enlisted in the Air Force.”
Valentino spears me with a glare but he keeps his thoughts to himself. He doesn’t have to say anything for the shame I’ve lived with to roar its head. No one knows more than I do how I should have been the one to stand in front of all threats Sloane faced. I’ve worked hard not to be that weak boy, but will I ever be able to atone for my shortcomings?
“Something I don’t understand is why they’re targeting you now after twenty years.”
“Are you forgetting? When Ghost Six chooses you, your only options are membership or death. Didn’t you ever wonder why I never challenged Sloane’s choice?”
“Regardless,” Sloane interrupts the stare down between me and Valentino. She continues to worry the same area on her waist, causing me to wonder about her unusual behavior. “They seem to have found me. I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought to catch two birds with one stone. Lure me with a job to eliminate one person only to deal with me in the end.”
Valentino stands to pace the room. He has yet to take me to task or release judgment on me and Sloane. I don’t know what his anger will look like as I’ve never been on the receiving end, but I tighten my stomach in case. My worst fear can’t come to pass.
“I’m worried their presence in Douglas means there’s more at risk,” he says. “My gut is telling me that the new organization in the underworld is the Ghost Six. Since they’ve kept their existence hidden while moving on DeLuca turf, I need to treat them as a bigger threat than I first thought.”
“So what do you want to do?” Sloane asks. “Whatever we do we’ll have to be careful not to leave you open to exposure.”
“When have I ever let a little thing like exposure stop me?” He turns to us with a determined glint in his eye. “We’ll take them out. I have a small military ready to go to war.”
