The Life - Rebirth (The Life 4)

“It’s right there; read it again.”

“Where? Where is she?”

“Come home, and I’ll tell you.”

GABRIEL

The bastard just logged off, leaving me with a mountain of questions. How does he know Gianna or that she was missing? Does it matter? I grabbed my stuff and packed my bags in haste, not caring what went where which is far from my usual style. I called Pop on my way out the door and didn’t even take the time to tell Sal that I was leaving. “Pop, we have to leave right now.”

“Why what’s happened?”

“It’s Gianna, I think, I don’t know, but I think she may have been found. I’ll meet you at the plane.” Where is she? And who the hell is he? How did he find her when I couldn’t? Memnon, I’m almost certain now that it’s either him or someone he knows. What had the hacker said that first day? I heard you’re smart. I heard someone else had told him, so it's definitely not Mem. But I’m leaning towards someone he knows.

ANONYMOUS is known for finding people, but I know if any one of my fellow hackers could find her, so could I. But the organization Mem works with is even better, more advanced if the nuggets he’s dropped over the years can be believed, and I have no reason not to believe him.

Pop got there before me, and he looked even more surprised by the news than I did. “Where did you get your information?” That’s the first thing he asked when we boarded. I’d sent Gramps’ plane back days ago since Pop was here and had no intentions of leaving, so there was no need for two planes just sitting here waiting.

“I don’t know him; someone has been contacting me for a while now, I don’t know why, but I believe him.”

“So, where is she? Where has she been?”

“He won’t say until I go home.” I think I’m about to get the shakes, which is new for me.

I wanted Pop to tell me I wasn’t catching at straws, that I wasn’t going to be disappointed once this plane landed. I felt like that little kid before the innocence was ripped away. The one who ran to his Pop, expecting him to fix everything. As if he knew, he leaned across the aisle and squeezed my shoulder. “You need to put your head between your knees or something?”

“What?”

“Your eyes are dilated, son!”

“Adrenaline, I’m fine.” Though that sounded like too much of an easy way to describe what I was feeling. It’s almost like an out-of-body experience where my body and mind were trying to split. My training was trying to kick in, but my heart was doing its own thing, an altogether new experience for me, except when it comes to her, always her.

It wasn’t lost on me that I’d dropped everything, that nothing else mattered at the moment but getting to her. Not Ricci, not Sal, not my long thought-out revenge. Everything else took a backseat as soon as I heard that she was found. I want her in front of me this second. I almost wish I could go to sleep and awaken when the plane landed because it was going to be hell enduring this flight.

I’m not a rash person, never have been, but just hearing that there was a way I could see her again made everything else disappear, and even now that I’d had time to calm down from the adrenaline rush, I still wouldn’t have changed a thing. I don’t care where Ricci is. I’ll think about that after I see her; once I have her in front of me, then I can wrap my head around everything else.

It means that I’m leaving too many things up in the air, but I can’t even drum up the will to care about that either. Consumed! Like Pavlov’s dog, just the mention of her name and I come running. How did he know that? How could he possibly know? “Pop? How did you know to follow me here? How did you know about my passport? Where did you go off to that last day I was home?”

I could see the wheels turning. I knew he wouldn’t lie to me, but the fact that he wasn’t saying anything spoke volumes. “Who’s the hacker?”

“The what?” From his ready response, I could tell I’d given him an out. He didn’t know him as a hacker. “The person who sent you after me, do you trust him?”

“Yes!”

“Good enough!”

DRACO

This boy’s mind, where did he get it? I’m sure it’s not from that fucknut Alonzo and Sofia for all that she’s the love of my life couldn’t trap a fly. Methodical, vicious, diabolical. He’s done Machiavelli proud. Nineteen, almost twenty, thinks he's worth less and yet has so much. Just before Mancini and Lyon called me earlier, I’d got the word that Salvatore Ricci was about to stir up the business world by changing his heir and passing on his shares in his holdings to a grandson no one had ever heard of, except for a handful of people who’d met him in the last year or so.