Page 13 of Tristano

“Tell me more,” Bash demands with a frown on his face.

Greer sighs as she clicks on the New York map. Instantly hundreds of dots fill the screen. Some colored blue while others are colored green, identifying each family’s respective area. “If you look at the dates, they hop back and forth. They grab a girl from next to La Cosa Nostra territory one night and then hop over next to the Westies. After about ten days, they basically come to a halt.”

“None of the girls look alike. We can’t profile their types,” I say, rubbing a hand over my jaw. “They don’t discriminate when it comes to ethnicities, body types, lifestyles, or ages.”

Enzo picks up where I left off. “The only thing we can say for sure is the girls range in age from about fourteen to twenty-five.”

“That’s one hell of a gap,” Conor, Killian’s right-hand says.

“What about that downtime?” Giovanni asks.

“That’s when they hop to a new city,” Greer says as she brings up another map. “They hit all over again in the same pattern in Chicago and then in California.”

“We have suspicions that they hit other areas too. I have found some connections to some of the areas managed by other organizations, but without reaching out to them directly, we can’t be one hundred percent sure they’re connected. We get a few weeks of reprieve, and then it happens all over again. The worst of it is they never hit at the same time during the month. We can’t tell women and girls to stay home and keep the doors locked during the second week of every month because it’s always changing,” I add.

“It’s a shitshow,” Greer says as she rubs her stomach.

“Thank God we’re having a boy,” Killian mutters under his breath.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Greer reach out and smack her husband in the stomach, making him grunt.

“Not the time,” she hisses.

“Forgive me for being blunt, but you guys have been working on this for over a year, and this is all you got?” Conor says.

“Do you have any idea how many people go missing every day in this city?” Greer demands. When he stays quiet, she continues. “There are over forty reports a day made over a missing loved one.”

Enzo cuts her off. “While not all of them are legitimate reports, we still have to look into them all. Where this person doesn’t have a type, it makes it hard to narrow down. Everyone is a victim. These are just the girls we know about too. So many of the lower-income or working girls won’t ever get reported. So the numbers could be significantly higher.”

“Add in the fact we’re weeding through not only our city, but Chicago and Veles, and we’re in over our heads. Even with Declan, Yamato, and Alexei’s help. Nikolai has his men out on his streets working hard on shutting it down as does Callum and Haruaki, but it’s not enough. Just two months ago, Nikolai shut down a Ukrainian organization stealing women from his territory to harvest their organs. That adds a whole other layer. Now we know there is more than one group kidnapping girls for different reasons.”

Greer hits another button, and a collage of missing women come up.

“Look at those faces,” she demands, pointing at the screen. “None of those women deserve this, especially those kids.”

Conor looks properly scolded and holds up his hands in surrender. “Sorry.”

I look at the screen and something catches my attention. Pushing back my chair, I walk closer to get a better look.

“Motherfucker,” I mutter under my breath.

“What is it?” Enzo asks.

I look down at my watch and see the date. Sure enough, tomorrow would be the day we normally check in with each other. Looking back at the screen, I swallow hard.

“Greer, can you pull up this girl’s information?” I ask, pointing at a photo.

Without asking a question, Greer does what I ask, and what I see takes my breath away. I hear everyone talking behind me, but I can’t make out the words.

It can’t be.

Not her.

Not again.

Beautiful brown eyes stared up at me from her prone position in the road. The rain pours on her face as she looks up at me with fear.

“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

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