Chapter XVI

His name was Marcus and he had a small silver ring in his eyebrow. He loved to play with it a lot, at least that was what Aelin figured . They were upstairs in his office for about 20 minutes already and all they spoke about was about women, booze and business , they seemed pretty close .

- So who's the kid ?

Aelin got pulled out of her inner thoughts and now faced a quite curious Marcus and an could-not-be-bothered Caib . He nodded like in response to an unspoken question . It was safe .

- I'm Aelin Mercer and I would love for you to share with us what we came here for .

He chuckled and puffed his cigar in the air .

- Bold, I'll give you that given your circumstances, but you're lucky me and Caib go way back .

- Long enough that I believe you wouldn't have called me all the way to Cuba for some useless shit, right Marcus ?

Caib's tone was amused yet cold, he was serious. Marcus gazed at him like he was on full display, trying to read into him more than he tried to read into his words.

- We cool man, don't worry, you've got my back 6 years ago, it's the least I could do for you .

He leaned back in his chair and opened a drawer from his desk pulling out an envelope. He cut it open with his pinky nail, quite a view if she may say , and spread the content on the table .

- Fresh out the oven my old friend !

The pictures revealed a group of people gathered in several places, parking lots, markets, airports and so on . Through the photos Aelin managed to match a few faces in all of them .

- They were taken 2 weeks ago, if you could pin-point on the map, we talking about Berlin, Madrid and Chicago . The fat man is called Ricchie Toscano, a crook , owns a casino in Milano , the Asian guy was your contractor, may he rest in peace and the tall blonde guy who looks like he got beaten up by his father with a belt in his childhood is Willhelm Grath, you can guess where he's from .

Caib searched through the photos, trying to get whatever was on his mind out of them but seemed to fail so he asked.

- Any updates ? I think we're missing something .

Marcus laughed like he knew he was going to ask that.

- You sure know how to hit the bull's eye every single fucking time homie. The german dude is gone . He disappeared from his own damn house on Friday and was found on Sunday, chopped up in a barrel . The funny part is that no one saw shit. Now I know I should go sometimes to church and pay my respect to God but I think that in this case, he's the only one that saw what happened and I believe that it would not benefit me to speak to him so soon, which means that out of three leads , two of them are off but our fatty gambling one seems to be alive. If you take the first flight tomorrow you might get to him first but you better move fast enough, fast enough to catch him and get out of there alive . We don't know who's after you guys but they sure move well, just like the good old times, fast and clean .

Aelin was thinking long and hard at what could be the reason for all of this but couldn't find an answer . It felt like a dead lead , she had so many question so she chose one to bring up at the table.

- I'm ok with not knowing who did it for now, it's too early for that, but what's bugging me is why kill them ? If they are so good, why not go after us and spare them the long run ?

- My contractor knew too much and shared it to the wrong guys . If we could put it like that, we are the eyes that saw what we shouldn't have and the other guys are the brains that hold the information regarding it . Two of them are gone so they'll be on the hunt for the third one . They don't want us to link, it's dangerous. We have to get to the Italian before they do, it's the only way.

- And it's getting late Caib, you've been here for long enough, more than I can hide it.

- No problem Marcus, we'll be on our way, me and my lady in here loved our vacation, spread that around, ok ?

Caib grabbed my hand and stood up . Marcus laughed and tapped two fingers on his forehead, farewell .

- Got you brother !

They stormed out of the club heading straight to their motel. The night was cold and the streets were empty this time. Their short trip was over and they were about to head to another one. Caib said he was going for a walk and that it would be best to lock the door until he came back , he went to call his contacts and get rid of the phone afterwards . The small break they had came to an end and the clock started ticking again. Aelin covered herself with the blankets and thought that if she could ever dream of getting out of this alive she would come back to Cuba . She would go back to La Rosa . She would ask for the same drinks she had that night and after the alcohol would start to kick in and she would wobble in the crowd towards the dancefloor, she would find him waiting for her so they could dance again , with no heels this time so he would have to hunch over her. She laughed to her own thoughts, Aelin believed now more than ever that what was going on must be a dream . But it wasn't .

From dreams, at some point you wake up .