“Try new material if you want laughs,” Nico suggests unkindly.
“Give me a break, will ya?” I huff, grumbling under my breath. “I’m not exactly in fine form tonight. My head is fucked.”
He doesn’t have a smart remark for that.
“I think it’s good,” Remo says without turning around to face us. He continues to work on the coding or programming or whatever the heck he’s getting up to on his various screens.
Needing clarification, I ask, “What’s good?”
“That you’re both so affected by this,” he replies distractedly. “That you hear about something so terrible and you want to make it right, even if you can’t actually help her. Dad would be proud, if he knew what we were all doing right now.”
I—
“I’m not doing anything noble,” Nico grouches. “I want to punish criminals in the most inhumane ways possible. I’m going to enjoy it. I don’t care if it makes anyone proud.”
“I’m not trying to make anyone proud either—” I start, but Remo interrupts.
“Knowing that would only make him more proud, Matteo.” He stops typing, spinning in his chair to eye his twin. “And you can pretend to be indifferent to everyone else, but you stopped being able to fool me more than ten years ago now. Just take the comment for what it is and accept that you’re a good person when you allow yourself to be.”
Nico looks like he wants to get out of his seat and throttle our brother, but he doesn’t get the opportunity to act on his anger. A loud and high-pitched alarm sounds from Remo’s computer, ringing out twice before shutting up.
“What was?—”
“We’ve got one of them.”
My heart beats wildly in my chest as I get up to look closer. Nico has the exact same idea and meets me behind Remo’s chair.
“Where is he?” he snaps, narrowing his eyes at the screens.
“Only an hour away,” Remo reports, using his hand to point at the map as he zooms in. “Here.”
“Let’s go.”
“Wait,” I start, grabbing Nico’s arm.
His face goes as still as stone. “If you’re having second thoughts, you’re free to fuck off and stay home. I don’t need you for this.”
“I’m not backing out,” I practically bark, voice dropping. “I’m only saying we need to take a second. Our plan can’t just be to storm over there and wing it. Are we bringing back up? Do we know where we can take him that’s nearby and private enough to keep him for hours or days? Are we knocking him out to move him? Is he alone?”
Nico’s jaw clenches and he looks like he wants to break my arm for holding him back.
“There’s an old storage warehouse five miles from his current location,” Remo provides. “It looks like he’s alone, but there’s civilians around. I’ll message your team to meet you in the area and run recon if they beat you both there. Same story as usual.”
“Good enough?” Nico snarks, pulling his arm back and narrowing his eyes at me. “Get dressed, I’m leaving in three minutes. With or without you.”
“You have ateam?” I question in disbelief, following as he leaves Remo without a thank you or a goodbye.
“What about it?” he grunts.
“How often are you going out to find someone to torture that you have a team of backup on standby?”
“Often enough.”
Jesus.
“How does one even acquire a torture team?”
“Uncle Cesar got them for me for my twelfth birthday.”
