33. June 17th

JUNE 17TH

Sylvan

"I don't meanto be disrespectful," she murmured, eyes down. "You hear about people going missing all the time, but it's in the news, never someone in your own space. It's difficult not to be nervous. And I'm already nervous enough to be here."

TB looked down at her, murmuring against the top of her head. "I've got you, little Flame. I promise. There's no need to be nervous. Just careful."

It was a dual message to her, which she appreciated.

Sylvan looked back to Medusa. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course," the woman replied.

"Do you…" She stopped, then restarted. "I'm sorry. This is probably forward of me, but… how does your triad work in public?"

"That is forward, Flame." TB grabbed her chin with his fingers and turned her face to his. "If I have to speak to you again, we're going to have words in private."

"It's okay, Lobo," Medusa assured him.

"I appreciate your openness, Medusa, but she needs to learn what she can and can't say and do here."

Flame nodded at him. Dual message.

Understood. Keep pushing.

"I'm sorry," Sylvan apologized. "I've just never met anyone in an actual triad before. Not judging or offended by it." She offered a smile. "Blame it on all this concern for the missing women. I guess I babble when I'm nervous and don't think things through. I overheard Lobo tell someone all the girls had red hair and, well—" She gestured. "I suggested I color it, and I thought he was going to go through the roof. Men are more touchy about their girlfriend's hair than the women are, I guess."

"It's fine. Really. And yes, they did all have red hair, although oddly enough, Fleur is blonde. Perhaps that was a coincidence up until now."

"As for the relationship," Loki replied, "we work together, so we're always together. Unless we ran into a client here, though, no one would probably be the wiser as to how we're connected." Loki turned intense eyes to Lobo. "Extra eyes on our women is always a good thing, though. Same thing for friends, both here tonight and others farther away. We'll make sure to keep a continued eye out for yours, as we know you would ours."

The three men paused and weighed each other in the silence.

She felt TB tense beside her, and when she looked down, the hand that he'd had resting on the tabletop next to his drink was now clenched into a fist.

TB nodded. "Appreciated."

Gilgamesh picked up his drink and asked a question that seemed to come out of the blue. "Have you ever traveled to Egypt? Particularly Sallum?"

"I was there not long ago on business, but I was focused on Cairo."

Loki waved him off. "Larger cities are no good for seeing the real Egypt. If you really want to get a good feel for the country and what it has to offer, Matruh is the place. We were there in April, as well. It's a Bedouin village just shy of the Libyan border. A fishing village, primarily. One of the oldest ports in the world is my understanding. Nothing of real historical significance other than that, but no tourists floating around clogging up the street life either, so you get a real sense of how things are there. Very interesting."

"Being so close to Libya, I would have thought that was a place tourists would stay away from."

"We had business there, so it was easier for us to move around. It also helps that we didn't stay long. Westerners are always looked at suspiciously in non-tourist cities, but if you take care to blend in, it's easy to move around there."

"And you're in the fishing industry?"

"Our work entails a number of things. Fishing is one of them," Gilgamesh inserted.

"And was the fishing good in Sallum?"

"Most of what we caught wasn't… useful. But we did hear that the season was over for what we were hoping to catch and that the schools had moved on from that area. Since then, we've been traveling the country here, looking for leads on other opportunities."

TB looked hard at them both. "Thank you for the info. Next time I'm in Egypt, I'll have to check it out. Maybe I'll be luckier."

TB lowered his mouth to her ear. "No need to push the questions about the girls. I know what I need to know. Sort of."

With that cryptic comment, the hand around the back of her neck moved to rest around her shoulders, his fingers idly playing with a strand of her hair.

They sat and talked about inconsequential things for a short while longer, and then TB made their excuses. Instead of taking her around the club further, he escorted her out to the parking lot and took her home.

"You didn't need to ask more questions?"

"Not tonight. That triad we spoke to isn't who we think they are, and I didn't want you to ask more questions of them and put them in a bad spot."

"Well, sassafras. I had more questions about triads. And I didn't get to earn my punishment research either. What a bummer."

He flashed her a look she didn't understand, but it was a moot point anyway. The whole evening seemed rather anticlimactic until they got to her house, and he booted up his laptop, opening a video link. Then she understood why they'd left so early.

"Conversation with the triad came through loud and clear. Interesting discussion," Waters said when he came online.

One by one, the others popped up from their various locations. Waters was driving in his truck. Demon had drawn watch duty tonight and was sitting in his Jeep a short distance from Flame's house. Nemo, dressed all in black, including a balaclava pulled down around his neck, was sitting side-by-side with Midas in the back of a panel van they'd had parked down the street from the club. God's soundwave was present, and who the hell knew where Steel was, but it was pitch black except for the light of his watch screen reflecting up on his face.

TB tagged her around the waist absently and sat her on his lap. Sylvan saw that the others noticed. None of them seemed surprised.

"There are more eyes on the club and these girls than just one undercover cop. I don't know who they are, but Loki, Gilgamesh, and Medusa are clearly not who they say they are. However, they're also not responsible. They're clearly looking for the girls or whoever took them. Their focus was definitely in the bar tonight, though that could have been because they were watching for someone to come in from the outside. They waited specifically for a particular booth to clear, and it was one with a direct line of sight to the main entrance."

"I'm still near the club, and they haven't left yet," Steel piped in. "I'll try to follow them."

"If they split up, follow the woman. She may be posing as the sub, but I'd be willing to bet my paycheck for a year that she's in charge."

"Roger that."

"So we still have nothing?" God asked.

"On the girls, no, but Waters, where's Kubrick?"

"She had a meeting in Napa Valley. What's up?"

"Good. Don't want her to hear this just yet. You catch what I catch?"

"Yeah. A lead on Ka-Bar. It appears your new friends have seen him as recently as April. He was in Sallum, Egypt, just off the border of Libya."

"It's a port," God confirmed. "Whoever has him is moving him somewhere else."

"And maybe moving other things," TB added. "I got the impression that our friendly triad has been casing The Library the same way they've been casing other nightclubs. They mentioned being in some major cities between then and now. They said they were in the fishing business."

"Sounds like they're intel gathering," Steel interjected.

TB agreed. "That's what I thought, too. My guess is they're some sort of mercenaries, like us, but they're following traffic patterns, one in particular that runs through Sallum."

"Sex trafficking?"

"That, and he mentioned they were in the business of other things, as well. I'm guessing any sort of supplies people are trying to move that they don't want out in the open."

Midas chimed in, "I've already got another search running on the dark web for anything and anyone looking for particular traits, like hair color. That's going to be a lot to comb through though."

"Hardee har har, Midas," Nemo said, elbowing his brother. "How long have you been waiting to use that line?"

"About a week."

"Okay, girls," Waters interrupted, "you can joke all you want once our work is done here. All right. We'll get on this from here. Steel, start looking into Sallum. Once we get a handle on that, you and Nemo will go scout it out. For now, Demon, Nemo, and Midas will work with me to watch over you and Flame."

"Copy," each of the men replied before clicking out of the video link.

Flame had been silent the entire time, but now she had questions, most of which she was afraid to ask. "Are you going to tell Kubrick about possibly finding her brother?"

"That's up to Waters. Most likely, he'll tell her there's a lead, but it's likely he's been moved by now."

She nodded. "I think she'd want to know."

"I'm sure she would, princess. Kubrick is pretty tough. The thought that there's any bit of progress would make her feel better. I'm sure Waters will share it with her."

She ran her fingers through his unruly locks up front, trying to smooth them back.

"I have words to finish."

He grabbed her hand as she slid out of his lap, and he kissed her fingertips. "I'll be up shortly. If you want me to, that is."

She smiled. "Silly man. What do you think?" She went upstairs, and he swore her hips were swinging a little wider to the left and right than normal.

He grinned.

Tease.