Bloodbound: The Alliance

Simon POV 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"This... can’t be possible."

I check my phone for the fourth time. Avara did me a favor by sending me her father’s number because now I can track him whenever I want. Even to places he has been, including the restaurant that Avara followed him to that... doesn’t exist. It’s gone. The doors are locked with a chain, metal shutters are sealed over every window like no one was ever here, like there wasn’t a fully operating restaurant just under twenty-four hours ago.

I call Avara. After a while, she picks up.

"Not a good time."

"It’s gone."

"What is?"

"The restaurant where your dad went into... it’s gone. No one and nothing is here."

"That’s impossible." Disbelief lathering her tone. "That place was filled with dining customers, a sketchy cooking crew, but it was packed in there. There is no way they could’ve shut everything down in less than a day?"

I walk around the place, assessing it, looking for any inklings. "Well, they made it happen. What happened after you saw your father get into this place?"

A strain of silence.

"Well, I followed him in." She pauses, collecting her thoughts—locating lies. "Went through the restaurant full of people eating. My dad went out back and escaped through the alley."

"Then what?"

Another lapse of silence.

"That was it," she says with an inflection in her voice. Then she clears her throat many times. "I followed him around the corner and... he was gone. He just vanished. After that I lost him and I went home. I don’t know why he lied about his whereabouts and drove in circles for two hours only to enter a restaurant, then leave it at the same moment."

I look around desperately, eyes darting everywhere, until it falls on a boutique right across the street and directly opposite the deserted restaurant. And the boutique has cameras on the outside. Without a badge, I don’t have the authority to demand to review the footage. Legally.

"Simon?"

"I’m going to have to call you back."

"Please do. After what I did, they’re going to put me on house arrest. So I’ll have much more free time than usual."

"Wait, why?"

"Long story. Be safe, Simon."

I end the call, and I make a new one. After two tries, he finally answers.

"You have no business calling me, cop."

"I need a favor. And you’re going to help."

***

After an hour, Dylan Park arrives. He was a former CI of mine back when I was on duty. He got pinched during a raid because he was the cyber protector of a cartel boss. I made a plea agreement with him, immunity and means for his expertise. And my plea was swiftly granted, and even now his immunity deal still holds because of the work he does for the department. His skills are too valuable to be wasted in prison, even if it got people killed. Gotta love the justice system.

Dylan hops out of a glossy turquoise Mclaren, casting a superstitious look around him as he approaches.

"What do you want?"

"To cash in on your debt. If it wasn’t for my testimony, you’d be rotting."

Dylan swipes his awfully long bangs out of his face. "No. My skills saved me, not you."

"They preserved you," I correct. "If I wasn’t advocating for you. They wouldn’t even know how much of a talented hacker you are. The DA wanted you to be persecuted, but the feds." I huff out a dry scoff. "They were going to throw you in a blacksite and bleed you dry to learn what you did for Gaza."

He yields, rolling his eyes. "That’s why I’m here. What do you need, cop? Besides a job, since I know you got fired."

I step over the comment. "See that boutique." I point to it. "I need you to hack into their surveillance system and download the footage for the last twenty-four hours. I want every shot of this place." I toss a hand at the abandoned restaurant. "I want to know who came in and who went out."

"Easy," he says with a casual shrug. "As long as you show me your warrant."

I glare back at him.

He flicks his bangs out of his face again. "No warrant. Right, because you’re not not a cop, cop."

I crush the flare of anger, looking away. I stare past his shoulder. "Nice ride. Mclaren Senna, right? Tell me, how does an informant with a government salary afford a high-performance sports car that costs over a million dollars?"

His face blanches, pursing his lips to the side. "I won’t ask you why if you don’t ask me why."

"Deal."

"With me."

We walk back, and he unlocks the car. I slide in first, noticing the laptop. He takes it and puts it on his lap as he settles down, flipping the lid open.

"Your employers don’t find you driving a Mclaren strange?"

"As long as I do what they want and help fortify national cyber security. They turn a blind eye to my...acquisitions. And how I acquire them."

I swing over a look.

His eyes widen. "Nothing bad. Mostly. Just private contracts."

"Yeah, okay. How you getting in?"

"Using the one thing every store has." His hands type rapidly on the keyboard, barely needing to look down. "Wireless network. Since the boutique doesn’t have a VPN, it made getting the IP address that much easier so I can use all those ports to brute-force a connection."

"How long will it take?"

"Done."

Live feed starts streaming through his laptop. Real time. I watch a customer who’s just paid for an item is now walking to the exit. I lift my gaze to look outside and the woman departs from the store with a pink coloured shopping bag in hand. Dylan transfers a folder to the flash drive. Once it’s done uploading, he ejects it from the USB port and hands it over to me.

"Do I even want to know what you’re into?"

I pluck it from his hand. "Not if you like breathing."

***

I fix my Lenovo laptop on my kitchen table and sink onto the stool. I insert the flash drive and the tab pops up instantly, along with the singular folder with the surveillance feed. I click into it and I watch everything, patrons flitting in and out of the restaurant, all Asian.

I fast-forward until Mayor Du Pont himself descends onto the scene. He trades a few curt words with his driver and strides into the restaurant. A few short seconds later, Avara spurts into a view, drawing on her hood and creeps near the restaurant. She lingers outside, surveying for a bit, then she enters. And she never comes back out and neither does Mayor Du Pont. Minutes and hours pass, but there is still no sign of her. She said she lost him around the corner when he went through the alley. I understand he vanished; it was intentional. How come she did? How come she didn’t come back out and return to the car?

Even more time passes and there is still no sign of Avara. Until late at night.

A black Range Rover emerges into view and stops in front of the restaurant. Shortly, Botan Kiyosaki walks out. Ice splices into my veins. Avara hangs over his shoulder, deathly still but still conscious by the look of her head whipping from side to side, but she doesn’t try to escape—too afraid to even try, I imagine. But she doesn’t fight back, like at all. He walks over to her car to the passenger side that’s facing the boutique’s outside camera. He places her gently inside and she sits back with unnatural calm and poise, like she isn’t afraid of him...

He gets into the driver’s side and the car speeds off. The Range Rover follows. Promptly, a huge moving truck trundles into view and obstructs the entire view of the restaurant and road. For the entire night. And only in the morning when traffic starts trickling in does the truck move out of the way. And when it does, the restaurant is a ghost town. Those twelve hours became a complete blindspot.

I reverse the footage. Fortunately, I’m able to get a clear image of the license plate of the Range Rover. The Wolf’s pack can lead me to their beta, and eventually, their alpha.

But what piques curiosity is why would Avara lie?

She said nothing happened after she lost her father, but something did happen.

Botan AKA the Wolf took her. And she never mentioned it. At first, I thought it was fear that compelled her to comply with him and let him carry her out. But going over the footage, watching how calm she was and how gentle he was being with her. I don’t know.

It looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.