Heartless Lover by Faith Summers

3

Eric

It’s a little after nine when I arrive at D’Agostinos Inc., the headquarters of the Syndicate.

I rush inside and head to the large meeting room where we hold Syndicate meetings. There I find both Aiden and Maksim, his cousin and Sovietnik of our brotherhood, sitting around the Arthurian-style table with the other guys.

Massimo D’Agostino, the Syndicate’s leader is here. He’s at the head of the table. Next to him is Dominic, his brother, and consigliere. Across from them is the cartel king himself, Alejandro. I’m surprised to see him. He’s not part of the Syndicate, so whatever intel Dominic found must involve him for him to be here.

I was told he helped in my rescue from the compound I was being held at in Brazil.

We haven’t spoken much before, just a few words here and there in greeting. Of course, I thanked him for his assistance when we were introduced.

He’s an old family friend of the D’Agostinos, and Massimo has been trying to get him to join the Syndicate since he reformed it six years ago, but Alejandro has always declined.

He looks nothing like he did when I last saw him and nothing like the powerful man he’s supposed to be with his multimillion-dollar gas company and control over the weapon and vehicle trafficking contracts in Brazil.

His salt and pepper beard looks fuller and his hair longer, as if he hasn’t had time for a trim in a while. His unkempt appearance and that coldness in his dark eyes make him look like he’s ready to kill.

“Hey,” I say, acknowledging them all.

“I apologize we couldn’t bring you in earlier,” Aiden remarks. “We still had a lot of things to check out. Getting the girl was a priority.”

“No worries. What’s happening?”

“Sit here,” he replies, pulling out the chair next to him.

When I make my way over and sit, Dominic pulls up a recording on the flat-screen computer that’s hanging on the wall.

Instantly footage of Robert walking into a bedroom comes to life, and my blood boils.

I rivet my gaze to the screen and watch him; part of me stares in disbelief that I’m looking at Robert—alive and well. The other part of me that wants him dead is ready to end him right the fuck now. If I could magically reach into the fibers of space and time with my gun, I would fire one bullet between his eyes. Just one bullet. That is all it would take to annihilate him.

Robert looks the same as he did years ago. The same mid-length, unruly black hair covers his head, and he has the same evil look in his eyes.

Dominic pauses the recording, and I switch my focus to him.

“I’ve searched every corner in Hell for Robert. Who were you tracking when you found this?” I demand.

“This guy.” Dominic takes the recording back by fifteen seconds showing a well-dressed Italian man I’d peg to be in his late forties. He’s walking into the same bedroom as Robert.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“Micah Santa Maria,” Alejandro fills in, speaking with a hint of a South American accent. “It would appear he and Robert are working together. Micah is one of the clan leaders in the Camorra.”

Camorra?

Fuck.Well, that confirms the big connection Robert has and a key reason why I haven’t been able to find him.

“Six months ago, Micah murdered my brother and his wife, leaving behind my newborn niece,” Alejandro explains further. “I’ve been trying to find him ever since. Dominic has been helping me. Our efforts were to no avail until this.”

“Where was this recorded?” I ask.

“Fourteen nights ago in Monaco,” Dominic answers.

“Monaco?” I grit my teeth. Fucking hell. So that’s where the fucker is. All my attempts to find him here would have been fruitless. Robert is on the other side of the fucking world.

“That’s an apartment in Monaco Cliff that belongs to Summer Reeves,” Dominic says, and the pieces of the puzzle start fitting together. “My facial recognition bots found the recording early last night.”

“I have facial recognition bots too,” I cut in. “Mine are set up to hack and scan the net for everything with Robert's face. I should have found this.”

Dominic sighs. “When I couldn’t find Micah, I suspected he might have been using some tech or program that’s kept him hidden all this time. It’s the same thing Robert’s using. Given his background, I’m assuming he could have created it.”

“Dammit. I fucking knew he had to be using some shit like that.” That’s precisely how you hide from a guy like me. It’s like fighting fire with fire.

“You were right to think so. This recording we’re seeing is an example of what he’s been covering up. The recording was tampered with, so anyone looking before would have seen nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes, and I kept it that way for our purposes, so I recorded the footage and wiped it from the building's system. This code popped a few weeks ago, and it’s attached to the video like malware.” Dominic switches screens and brings up a binary code that looks like one hell of a powerful firewall. “I first discovered it in Micah’s personal files. When I checked it out, I realized it’s supposed to conceal and encrypt everything about a person then delete it from the system. Essentially it’s deleting your presence from anything electronic that captures your identity or information on you.”

That’s fucking amazing. All I can do is stare at Dominic. What he’s saying is a person could do all kinds of shit and be invisible while they are doing it.

Rob a bank or assassinate someone; take your pick. It’s just the kind of thing Robert and I would have dabbled with back in the day.

I give him credit. He wouldn’t have come up with that type of idea on his own, though. He was good but not that good. We both went to M.I.T., but I was offered a scholarship and a placement when I was sixteen. That is the level of difference between us.

Someone highly intelligent helped him come up with that, and he would have been heavily funded too. Probably from his Camorra friends.

“I created a sophisticated virus to break down the algorithms,” he adds. “That’s how I was able to get the recording. I also found over a thousand instances where the code has been used in various countries over the last two years.”

“Two years is exactly where my trail cuts off.” I’m sure when Robert found out I was rescued, he took comfort in his technology to keep him safe. Motherfucker.

“It makes sense then. I don’t think the device is working though, according to how it works, I shouldn’t have been able to see the code, much less hack in with any virus. I just tried it on a whim. When I analyzed it, I noticed it fragments over time and fades away. That’s why we can see it now and hack in. Whatever is wrong with the device is weakening the coding.”

“Are we able to use the virus again to track them?”

“No.” He shakes his head with dismay, and I feel a stab of disappointment. “Because it takes some time for the code to fragment, we can’t track them live. That means everything we get could be weeks late, just like this video. They could be long gone by the time the code shows up, and we get any footage.”

“So, we don’t know if they’re still in Monaco?” I check.

“We don’t. I will point out, though, that for me to see a record of it in use from fourteen days ago means it must be weakening and fragmenting at a faster rate than the records from before. We’re still roughly over two weeks behind, though. That’s still a lot of time.” He drags in a staggered breath. “Obviously, the best thing we can do is devise something that can locate the code while it’s being used. I’ve thought of everything I can, but it’s not working. I think this might be more in your lane of expertise.”

Fucking hell, if he’s admitting I might be able to do better than him, it means he’s tried everything. My expertise and skill are only slightly different from his. At Markov Tech, I design new-age weapons and anti-virus software.

I’ll figure out something though. This is an opportunity I can’t afford to miss out on.

“I’ll do it.” I sound more positive than I should, given the fact this is new to me. But I’m going off the basis that there’s nothing Robert can make that’s better than what I can do. “Isn’t it worth still going to Monaco?”

“Not just yet,” Aiden cuts in, and I snap my gaze to him.

“Why?” I can’t imagine having a location and not heading over there.

“That’s where the girl fits in,” Massimo says, speaking for the first time. “She might provide a quicker route to finding both Robert and Micah. I know you already have a personal stake in finding Robert, but now that Micah is involved and Alejandro is one of our allies, it’s Syndicate business, so I will need your help to find him too.”

“You have my help,” I assure him and I look at Alejandro at the same time. He dips his head, showing his gratitude. “How does the girl fit?”

“Go back to the recording, Dominic,” Massimo says. “Start from the

beginning.”

Dominic returns to the recording. This time he takes it back to a hysterical dark-haired woman in the room. It takes me a second to see it’s Summer. But there’s something different about her.

Suddenly Micah comes into view. Robert then rushes past him, and the recording picks up from what I previously saw.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she screams, but when Robert gets to Summer, he pulls out his gun.

“Sorry, Summer Reeves, there’s no point begging. You were dead the moment you saw and heard too much.”

One last scream, and he shoots her in her head. As she crumples to the ground, I wonder what the hell I’m watching. No fucking way is that Summer Reeves, the woman at my apartment. Unless she’s some kind of mutant with a head made of steel like the fucking Terminator, she wouldn’t have survived a bullet to the head.

I return my focus to the recording when Micah walks up to Robert and strikes him across his face with the back of his gun.

“You better hope she didn’t talk to anyone and ruin our plans. If she did, you’re dead,” Micah snarls, and my interest piques even more than it already has. “We can’t let them find out something’s wrong.”

“I’ll make sure they don’t,” Robert promises.

“Sort her out.”

Dominic ends the footage, and Alejandro focuses on me again.

“That’s not Summer Reeves,” I say.

“No, it’s not. It’s her twin sister, Scarlett,” he explains, clearing up my confusion. “But they think they killed Summer. From this, it’s clear she saw Robert do something that could ruin Micah’s plans. Whatever the fuck it is, it’s something huge enough for Micah to accompany Robert personally to make sure he killed her. A man like that doesn’t just do house calls or clean up a mere loose end. Her death was important to both of them. Now that you have her, she could give us information on how to find them. That’s going to be a fuck of a lot quicker than going to Monaco and searching the place. Or worst-case scenario, when they discover they killed the wrong woman, they’ll come here looking for the right one.”

“Either way, we get to them,” I fill in, seeing where he’s going.

“Yes.”

He said ‘when.’ He’s right to assume it’s when and not if because if we found out, they will too, at some point. We’re just several steps ahead of the game. I’m definitely on board. I’ll get whatever intel Summer has on them, and I have no problem in using Summer as bait to lure them here. This is the fucking door of opportunity I needed to open to give me answers and by God, I am seizing it.

“How did you find her?” I direct the question at Dominic.

“After I watched the video, I checked her out. I found details of her father, and my bots picked her up outside a convenience store in San Bernardino. When we contacted her father, he gave us the address Aiden sent you to.”

“I want you to focus on this, Eric,” Massimo cuts in. As a Syndicate leader, any job he gives me takes precedent over my Bratva duties. “Alejandro has to go back and forth to Brazil, and I need Aiden and Dominic investigating Micah’s plans with the Camorra a little deeper. It would be good if you could deal with this.”

“I can. I’ll take care of the girl and work on tracking the code.”

“Good. The other problem is her father. When the Monaco police notified him of Summer’s death, he knew straightaway it was Scarlett who was killed. He’s been trying to get the police over here involved. Since that’s a problem for us, I intercepted his requests and spoke to him. I need you to see her father before you do anything else and let him know the situation is in hand.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“Great. Let him know we’ll return his daughter once our business with her is over, and make sure you let him know what will happen if he doesn’t comply.”

“Don’t worry. I will.” He knows I will; I just want to assure him for the sake of the others. I might be silent and observant most of the time, but that’s because I’m always planning. And always plotting death.

I’m no more ruthless than he is.

Sometimes I think I might be worse.

I’ve learned to control my emotions. That makes me more dangerous.

People can’t figure me out.

So, they have no idea when I’m going to snap.

* * *

John Reeves lives in a contemporary two-story home in Santa Monica.

Aside from the paleness in John’s skin when he opens the door and sees me, I take in the wooden cane he’s resting on and his haggard appearance.

“Are you Eric?” he asks, nervously looking me over. “They told me you were on your way.”

“I am.”

“Did you really find Summer?”

“A little over two hours ago,” I confirm, and his shoulders loosen with relief.

“Please tell me how she is. Is she hurt?”

Of course, I’m not going to tell him that I’ve chained his little girl to my bedroom wall.

“She’s okay. My men are watching over her.”

“Thank you. Please, come in.”

He looks grateful but wary, very wary as he should. The ‘they’ he referred to is either Massimo or Aiden, so he knows what to expect from me.

He steps aside for me to come in. I do, and he leads me into the living room. We sit opposite each other on the leather sofas, and I look over the less is more design. It fits in with what I expect from an artist and photographer. But the tension lingering in the air screws with the ambiance the place is supposed to have.

Summer has his eyes, but that’s as far as the resemblance goes. In fact, if I saw the two of them, I would never guess they were father and daughter.

Maybe it’s because he looks more like a man in his eighties, not someone in their late fifties.

I’m like a fucking shark. Aside from the worry in his eyes, there’s something else I detect in his demeanor that looks like weakness. He’s doing his best, though, to stave it off.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, getting the condolence out of the way before I launch into telling him my expectations.

“Thanks. I foolishly asked to see the video and watched it.” His voice shakes. “I just wanted to know what happened. I wanted to see if I was right. They’re twins but they could never fool me, so I knew it wasn’t Summer when the Monaco police contacted me and sent me pictures. The girls also have matching tattoos on their wrists, but Scarlett’s is on her left. I didn’t need any more confirmation than that. The police did nothing.”

Probably because nearly the whole force in Monaco is being funded by Micah. Dominic filled in a few other details before I left D’Agostinos Inc.

“I’ll be handling things from here.”

“What does that mean? Does that mean you are going to catch the people who did this to my daughter?” For a brief moment, he allows his rage to show. “Cause I have this feeling I’m about to sell my soul to the devil.”

“That’s an interesting thing to say, Mr. Reeves, considering I just found your daughter.”

“You found her, but you didn’t bring her to me.”

“No, I did not. I’m not finished with her yet.” I give him a crude smile, and a flicker of trepidation washes over his face.

“You’re from the mafia, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” I’m not going to disrespect him with a bullshit answer.

“So, I might have thrown my girl from the frying pan straight into the mouth of Hell.”

I can’t refute that. Summer Reeves has been passed from the lair of one beast to another. I just don’t want her dead.

“How do I know I haven’t done the wrong thing?”

“The simple answer is you don’t,” I reply in a flat, emotionless tone. I think he wanted me to assure him that he was doing the right thing. “But I can tell you this; your daughter got herself in trouble with some seriously dangerous motherfuckers who want her dead. They already killed her sister, and the only thing keeping her alive right now is their mistake. Don’t believe they won’t figure it out eventually. When they do, they will kill Summer. So, what you need to ask yourself is this; go with the devil you’re getting to know who needs your daughter alive, or cause trouble and make things worse.”

“You have an ulterior motive in this,” he states.

“I have a personal stake in this, Mr. Reeves. Your daughter has information I need to find the man who murdered her sister. I’ve been after that man for a long time. He has wronged me in more ways than one. Believe me when I say my mission is to end him. So, I think we have the same goals in mind. Am I right?”

He stares at me a long time before he nods. “Yes.”

“Good, then it looks like we’re on the same page.”

“What will happen now?”

“She will stay with me, and I will return her to you when it’s over. That’s providing you don’t fuck with me and try to contact the police.”

“I’m not stupid enough to fuck with you.”

“Good to know.”

“Why can’t she stay with me?”

“Because that’s how we’re doing this.”

He doesn’t like that answer, but I don’t give a fuck.

“Can I at least see her?”

“I don’t think it’s wise you get involved.”

“I’m dying,” he cuts in, and sadness washes over his features. “I … have a brain tumor. I had it before and did the surgery, but then it came back with a vengeance. I don’t have long left, and it’s getting to that stage where I’m getting worse by the day. I didn’t have this cane a month ago when her sister came to visit. Now I need it every day.”

That was what I detected when I first saw him—a sickness that will eventually lead to death. “I’m sorry to hear that. How long did the doctors give you?”

“Three months. If I’m lucky, I might make it to six. But that’s just an estimate. My deterioration rate is rapid. So, anything could happen in between the time they’ve told me.”

“Can I tell her?” I wouldn’t normally ask for permission to do anything, but this is different.

“Yes.” His shoulders tense. “Neither of my girls knew. I’m not sure if knowing would make a difference to the horrendous relationship Summer and I have, but I just want to see my little girl for whatever time I have left. Even if it’s just to make amends on some level.” He presses his lips together.

“I’ll try and arrange something.” I won’t be a bastard and rob a dying man of seeing his daughter. Besides, I’m sure regardless of the type of relationship he and Summer have, she should know about his health.

My family had a unique situation, so my grandfather helped raise my sister and me. Olivia and I were the children of an affair that never stopped. We weren’t allowed to be in our father’s life, and I felt he never fought hard enough to be in ours.

My last conversation with my father before he was killed was an argument where I told him I hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. That came after years of trying to be in his life. I’d had enough. Now there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret not making amends with him.

“I’d really appreciate that. We haven’t spoken in eight years,” John explains.

“What happened?”

“We said terrible things to each other at her mother’s funeral, and like everyone else, I blamed her for her mother’s death. She committed suicide.”

I glare at him. I’m an asshole at the best of times, but even I wouldn’t be that cold.

“It wasn’t her fault,” he says quickly, seeing my reaction. “But she left the family believing that. Will you protect her? I wasn’t there to protect her when she needed me most.”

Desperation emanates from him, and something about seeing a father in that state reaches my cold dead heart. Protection hasn’t even crossed my mind yet. But I suppose I will be protecting her, just in a roundabout sort of fashion.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

I stand. “I think we’re done here.” I pull out one of my business cards and hand it to him.

“Thank you.”

It’s time to go and finally get that information from Summer.

I hope she didn’t bruise her wrists too much.