“Come through to the back,” Stefan greets me when the guards escort me to his office. “The others are waiting.”
He imparts the information without laying blame for my tardy arrival. Like everyone else in my inner circle, he’s treading carefully, aware that my temper lies closer to the surface right now.
Inside the room, I nod to Teodor Zoric, next in line to the Zoric crime family or the Serbian Mafia as his father prefers them to be known. To his left is Micah Webb. He runs the central Auckland silo of the syndicate. Stefan Kovac runs the eastern silo and is my subsidiary head here in Canterbury.
The missing piece, Andrej Darnell, is conspicuous by his absence. I’ve never been as close to him as the others but even if we were the best allies, he wouldn’t be invited to this shindig.
I’ve tried to trace back leads from the name Isabelle gave me and every time it bumps back into the one known fact. Sergio is employed in Andrej’s silo of the organisation.
“Sergio Mannika isn’t on anybody’s watchlist,” Stefan says the moment I sit. “From everything I’ve been able to dig up, he’s a minor player. The only connection is his business being used as a front for laundering money. Everything else is small time. A few favours here and there, reciprocated mostly.”
“How can a minor player suddenly be a staging post in my daughter’s abduction?”
“Either he’s connected in a way we can’t see or there was a change in plans,” Teodor says. His façade projects more calm than the other two; fitting for his slighter build.
After training as a bodyguard back in Europe, he only took part in a few assignments before his father upgraded his status. Although illegitimate, his promotion was inevitable after Drago Zoric’s number one son, Trajan, died. Now, there’s no barrier to him inheriting the mantel.
But it’s not his position as heir that I’m interested in. “One of Sophia’s guards was involved, but he barely talked. You were in the same training facility. Are there weaknesses there we can exploit?”
He sits back to consider it, the twist in his lips telling me the answer before he says it aloud. “No, but I can try another angle. Pavle is desperate to align everyone before he cedes power. The chief way he intends to do so is with traditional alliances. Andrej has a daughter.”
Micah tosses him a bemused look. “You’re going to marry a woman to get some intel? Don’t you think that’s a step too far?”
“I’m going to open up a line of dialogue between our families,” Teodor corrects with a lazy smile. “And Amala Darnell is a looker. We’re not all as terrified of marriage as you.”
“I’ve just avoided a stint in prison, thank you very much,” Micah adds. “Going straight into another jail of my choosing holds no appeal.” His eyes narrow as they return to me. “Speaking of disastrous marital arrangements, where’s your ex?”
“My ex didn’t want Sophia when she was part of my life; she signed away every right to her the moment she left.”
Micah holds my gaze. Although based in Auckland, he grew up in Christchurch and his father still lives here with his stepfamily. Despite his recent troubles, he maintains strong ties across the community, including some that bump into my ex-wife. “That’s rather my point. Is it possible she’s renegotiating her exit contract?”
I would love for it to be something that simple. But Alice never wanted kids. Sophia was an accident that I pressured her to carry to term, expecting somewhere along the line that she’d grow the same feelings I had from the moment I saw two lines on the pee stick.
It never happened. Half the time I believe she held her feelings back just to be stubborn. Spite is a weapon Alice always wielded with finesse.
Now there’s another stubborn woman living in my home, enchanting me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I had a type.
“Christ. You haven’t caught feelings for your ex again, have you?” Micah asks, staring at me through narrowed eyes. “If you hated her enough to ditch her the first time, learn the lesson.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve had eyes on her from the first second we knew something was wrong. There’s been no change in her routine. No reaching out or receiving unknown calls. Far as we know, she hasn’t even realised Sophia went missing for a few hours.”
A few hours. Is that all it was? It felt like decades, living in a world where I was completely at somebody else’s mercy. I would have done anything to get my daughter back safely.
“The woman who rescued her checks out,” Stefan is saying when my mind drags itself back to the conversation. “I’ve forwarded the complete dossier to your home but in short, she was a competitive pairs figure skater until sustaining an injury age eighteen. Since then, she’s held a few dead-end jobs and wound up at the rink. There’s very little to add to what you already knew. She’s nothing special.”
I could argue that point, but I let it go. “Any connections through her family?”
“Barely any family,” Stefan answers. “A cousin in town and her stepfather lives in Whanganui. They appear to be estranged. No calls from her mobile or landline to him over the past three years. Most other relatives have upped stakes to Australia, or they’re deceased.”
A woman without ties.
It’s tempting to believe Isabelle is exactly who she says she is but a person with no connections also means a person who won’t cause a leak in an advanced plan. If they’re caught, there are no pressure points. The threat to kill a family member would just as likely prompt a laugh as a tear.
As if reading my mind, Stefan shrugs. “I can turn her over to my team for a few hours if you’d like to rattle her and see what shakes out.”
But I don’t want another Emmaline on my hands. “No. I’ll continue to keep tabs on her.” Watching her closely will be a joy.
There’s been nothing to show she’s lied to me so far. With her penchant for overtalking, I can’t imagine her keeping a secret for more than a second flat. Her face is so expressive, her eyes so warm…
