Her eyes were filled with… anger, swollen with tears she had probably cried before coming here, and I watched how fresh tears welled in her eyes as she looked down at my hand, which held the flash drive. “Get on your knees and hand over the drive.” Her voice shook.
Concern tugged at a muscle in my chest, and I stepped closer. “What’s wrong, Zahra?”
Her hands tightened on the gun, her index finger deadly close to the trigger. “Don’t come any closer.”
I frowned, taking another step, and she shifted on her feet, eyeing me carefully like she was genuinely scared of my next move, scared of me. “I’m warning you, Elio.”
“Is this how you want to do this? Choose violence over cordiality?” I caught her swallowing as a tear slipped down her cheek. “What’s wrong, querida?”
She sniffed, her hands flexing around the weapon’s hilt as she flexed her shoulders. “I’m counting in my head. If you don’t do as I say, Iwillshoot you.”
“What happened?”
The anger flared in her eyes, and they hardened to slits. “Get on your fucking knees, Elio. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
She was going to do it. She would shoot me if I didn’t comply; she was apparently too angry to see reason, and I was confused as to why this was happening. It couldn’t be from the fact that I hadn’t told her I had been to the underground before her or her team.
I had disarmed the building and dealt with unnoticeable traps that could have led to instant death for trespassers. I had been my usual self, always ten steps ahead… just like I had with the first two locations.
She took a threatening step forward. “Down. On your knees. Now.”
I sighed. “All right, relax,” I said, eyeing her and the gun before raising my hand a little to show her I meant no harm, neither did I intend to cause her harm, as I got on my knees before her. “You have me where you want me; now, can you please tell me what happened today and why you’re crying?”
As if just noticing the tears on her cheeks, she rushed to wipe them off, still pointing the gun at me.
“Querida—”
“Don’t call me that,” she said without missing a beat. “Give me the flash drive.”
“I will not,” I told her, not letting my eyes fall from hers. “Not until you tell me what went wrong today.”
She scoffed; her red-rimmed eyes, filled with tears, pierced me with the most cutting glare she had ever given me. Hate. There was so much hate in that glare. My thoughts faltered for a second, wondering why she would look at me like that. “I found your flash drive,” she said, her chest rising and falling at an abnormal rate. “That’s what went wrong.”
I frowned. “That is impossible. I do not have one dedicated to me.”
“Oh, but you do. The MCSS. Ring any bells?”
My brows shot up. “Oh, them.”
Her expression twisted from hate to pure loathing, a snarl in her words as she said, “How did it feel, Elio? Listening to me talk about being violated by men old enough to have fathered me? How did it feel when I cried and you offered false comfort? How did it feel to make promises to me, telling me you would find the people responsible for the trafficking ring when you are the direct channel to where they originate from?”
I paused, watching her with my frown deepening as her words settled in my head. “That is a very heavy accusation to throw at me, Zahra.”
“Accusation?” she asked, sounding indignant. “Accusation? You can still kneel here and lie to my fucking face in pretense?”
I blinked, unsure of what she was talking about. “I promise you; this isn’t me in pretense; this is me watching you accuse me of something so diabolical after everything we’ve been through together.”
“I saw it,” she gritted out. “Your name, your fucking signature, Elio, on every file, every document for the MCSS, regarding shipping of children, illegal births, trafficking rings from various countries… Every authorization came from you; you want to tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about?”
My mind was working a million miles per second. I was confused beyond comprehension.
The MCSS…
Trafficking rings…
Illegal births…
My authorization…
