“It was stupid. I was being a brat. But it pushed me to ask about getting out. Well, pushed my therapist to ask about me getting out.” She looked up at me as she explained. “I was assigned a therapist when I moved here to help with the transition and stuff, and she knew I was in WITSEC just doesn’t–didn’tknow the details of why.”
I nodded trying to process everything.
“So, she was the one to ask about you leaving the program?”
“Yeah. And Bradley wasn’t happy about it, but when it came down to it, there really wasn’t a reason for me to stay in if I was so miserable. There are no immediate threats. I mean, everyone I was supposed to testify against was killed and I kind of just fell off their radar.”
“Killed? Everyone was killed?” She nodded. “What do you mean you fell off their radar? They don’t know that you were an informant?”
This was too much information at once and I was struggling to keep up.
“No,” she shook her head.
“Okay, go back a little. So, the FBI approached you the night before your faked death to start informing and then what? Why did the gang have to fake your death?”
“I told you. A job. I couldn’t just leave school or…you. So, the simplest solution was to make me disappear.”
My eyes bugged out. “Wait, they knew about me? Like knew we were together?”
Shiloh winced and nodded slowly.
“Fuck.”
“I didn’t want to get you involved. I didn’t mean to…I promise I never intended for them to know about you or your family.”
“Shit,” I mumbled, sitting back in my chair. “So, you disappearing…that was forourbenefit? So that I didn’t come looking for you?”
“That was part of it, yeah. Carlos didn’t want to deal with any loose threads. Adrian knew about us, knew about your family, knew about Sebastian and his family members in the gang…I don’t know how much of that information was sharedwith Carlos, but Adrian made it clear that there would be people looking for me if I just disappeared.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Holy shit,” she repeated softly.
“So, then you were working with the FBI for what…” I mumbled under my breath, counting off the months, “another year, right?”
“I wouldn’t say I was working with them at all until the very end. And that was another year and seven months.”
“Where were you? In Texas still?”
Shiloh nodded and I blew out a breath.
“I-I mean this is the kindest way possible, but what did a seventeen-year-old girl have that…” I trailed off and my stomach churned, the food threatening to come back up.What the fuck do you think they wanted with a seventeen-year-old girl, Nox? Prostitution, human trafficking…Fuck.I didn’t want the answer and based on the expression on her face I could tell she didn’t want to give it to me right now. I switched gears.
“So, I’m sorry for Googling, but I didn’t find anything online about any gang members being put into prison. You’re saying that you never had to give any testimony in court?”
“Los Siete,” she took a breath, “Los Siete had a code. They called it ghosting. If you betrayed them, they would kill you before you made it far enough to tell the cops anything. Made you disappear. It’s what they did to my brother. Had his death ruled a suicide. And as soon as Carlos was arrested, as soon as any of the members were arrested, they started dropping like flies. The gang, they aren’t just some small group of criminals in Granby. There are seven jefes. And they operate in several states. The FBI wanted to take down all of the jefes at once, otherwise they’d just keep growing and replacing their jefes.”
I nodded slowly. None of those details were public knowledge.
My brain tripped as I realized what she said. “Wait, wait, wait. Los Siete, that means ‘the seven’, right?” She nodded and I continued. “So, there’s seven different leaders and Carlos was justoneof them?”
“Right.”
“So, all the leaders were arrested?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
