Her fork hovered halfway to her mouth. Moments later, she lifted her eyes and met my gaze with quiet intensity. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said, slipping a piece of grilled chicken between her lips.
I ignored the sass in her tone but gave her a stern look—one that said I wasn’t asking.
Her silence was an indication that she was trying to dismiss the question. However, the hard look on my face wasn’t something she could ignore.
Quietly, she set down her cutlery, dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and sighed. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she answered, placing her elbows on the table.
“That’s oddly vague.”
Her brows drew together by a whisper, but her expression remained blank. “As you know, people—girls have been going missing around the city,” she said, holding my gaze. “A few weeks ago, a friend of mine went out to get some groceries but never returned.”
A glint of pain flickered across her face, accompanied by a flash of fury.
She continued, “So, I decided to look into it since nobody was willing to do so. I received an anonymous tip about a warehouse where some shady business was going on. I found the place, hoping to take some pictures and use them as evidence.”
I watched her swallow her words, her chest heaving with slow breaths. “Let me guess. That’s when you got caught.”
Her jaw tightened, and her scowl deepened.
“Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
She raised a brow. “The cops? Are you for real? You and the other monsters control more than half of the precincts in Chicago.”
I paused for a second, watching the rage simmering beneath the surface. “True,” I murmured to myself.
Her story sounded legit, but I’d been in the game long enough to distinguish between the truth and what only sounded like it. The best lies were those that had traces of the truth embedded in them, and she obviously was familiar with that psychology.
“I guess she was sold off to some Mafia monster. Just like I was,” she said, her voice lower than average. “Isn’t it ironic that I landed in the same trouble I was trying to get her out of?”
As she spoke, her voice never wavered, and she didn’t even blink. Not once. Her emotions were under control, and she maintained the same expression throughout. Blank. Her voice was steady, and her breath was controlled.
This girl had trained herself to lie convincingly, and with her skills, she might just beat a lie detector. I knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but I couldn’t prove it, and I wasn’t mad either. Rather, I was impressed—couldn’t help watching her with unsettling amusement.
“Do you have a sister?” she asked me.
Silence.
She continued regardless. “If you had one, how would you feel if someone abducted her and sold her off like some piece of property?”
Again, silence.
“Imagine it happened to your daughter sometime in the future, what would be your reaction?”
At this point, my jaw locked, and anger coursed through my blood. Not because of what she said, but because the mere thought of my daughter in the hands of those pigs infuriated me.
“With the kind of power and influence you hold, I’m sure you’ll burn the world down looking for her,” she said, her eyes boring into mine. “I have no doubt that you’ll find the men who took her and make them regret their decision.” She paused, letting her words sink in. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
She wasn’t. That’s exactly what I’d do if that ever happened to my future daughter.
“You’re not wrong,” I answered, cradling the glass in my hand.
“Then why do you and your kind do such monstrosities?”
I leaned back in my chair, still holding her gaze. “Hate to break it to you,Dikaya. But the Bratva doesn’t deal in such crimes.”
“Yet you were there at the auction. You participated and bought me,” she shot back.
I went silent for a moment, observing her from across the table. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t there to be a part of the auction. My presence at that gathering was for a different reason.”
