“Like hell,” I reply getting off the bike. “Saudi Arabia. Am I supposed to believe that shit?”
“Yes,” Carter answers sharply, visibly agitated.
“And what the fuck is he doing there?” Rage asks, but Carter doesn’t reply.
“Carter, please answer him. What is he doing there?”
“Dante…” His response is a painful whisper.
Back then, when Bruno finally opened himself up and let me in, he told me the reason why he enlisted in the military. His younger brother had been kidnapped by a group of terrorists a few years back. The authorities had launched a search and rescue campaign, and after a while they found something, a tape. In that tape there was footage of Dante being tortured and killed.
“Dante? What about him?” I don’t have to look at Rage to know he is as confused as I am.
“He’s alive.”
WHAT THE FUCK?
My head hurts.
Probably because my brain is trying to make sense of whatever Carter just said.
How could Dante be alive after all this time, when Bruno clearly watched him die? There’s no way Bruno got that wrong.
Right?
“Alive?” I whisper.
Carter glances about, ready to give me all the information I’ve needed for so long, so I prepare myself.
“Yes, he found raw footage of the video he saw many years ago, only that this video was sixty seconds longer than the original one...”
“And what’s in those extra sixty seconds?” I ask.
“Enough to understand that it was all a lie.”
I start to understand everything. I bet Bruno found that video filed on Asad’s laptop. That’s about the only thing I would accept as a reason for him to leave me like that – he left to rescue his little brother.
“You must be feeling like shit, I mean, I am sure I would if I were you, a selfish bitch,”Life adds.
A warm shock wave of love and sorrow invades my body; I can’t imagine what Bruno felt that night after finding out his brother didn’t die like he believed. But if I have to guess, I’d say that’s exactly the only thing giving him hope, although knowing him as I do, he is probably feeling guilty for not trying hard enough to find the rest of the video before.
“And how do you know he is in Saudi Arabia?” Rage asks. For a second I completely forget he is right next to me.
Carter sighs loudly, and he looks at me when he continues, “Asad himself told him that night. Come on, Sarah, I’ve given you what you wanted. Can we please go now?”
“We are not going anywhere until I say so.” I need more information. All I can get. “So, did he find him?”
“Not yet,” Carter snaps, and the selfish part of me is relieved because if he had already found him that would mean he could come back to me, and he hasn’t. “He’s been searching for him ever since,” Carter adds.
“Wait, are you telling me thatThe Professorhas not found someone? That’s a first,” Rage adds with a smirk.
I found out years ago that in the underworld the nicknameProfessoris heavily tied to being efficient and lethal in the process.The Professoris one of Bruno’s many faces. I still remember how fast he switched from a sweet and merciful man to a cold-blooded psychopath.
“I can’t believe that,” Rage continues, “there’s no one better qualified for this kind of mission than him.”
Carter huffs, “Well fuck me, we agree on something, asshole. The last thing he told me was that Dante is a slave in an impenetrable compound.”
A bolt of anger and fierceness strikes my chest. “You know where he is, and you didn’t go to help him?” I can’t hide my disdain.
