Page 14 of Marked

Chapter 8

Alena

I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this Hell I’m going through.

After all these years worrying about her, taking care of her, and putting my own life on hold to make sure she gets to make the best of hers, I find myself paralyzed with concern once again.

My sister has been missing for a week, and I have absolutely no idea what happened to her.

No, that’s not true. The awful truth is that we have an idea what might have happened to her, but this suspicion is neither confirmed nor denied.

I’m sitting on the larger of the two couches in our living room with my legs tucked under me and a purring white cat named Salwa resting in my lap. She has lived in this house longer than I have, but she befriended me the moment we met. My eyes rest on her as she peacefully naps in my lap with not a care in the world, just a calm, happy cat cozying up to a human in need. Salwa knows when I need her comfort the most; she always has.

Raad is sitting next to me, worry lines standing out across his forehead. His concerned gaze flits back and forth between me and his brother, Nate, who is sitting in a big armchair opposite of us. He looks concerned, too, but more than that, he looks angry. Very angry.

“This stinks of the Covey,” he hisses. It’s not the first time he’s said that, but the words still make my blood freeze every time he mentions the name.

The Covey. A year ago, I would have had no idea what it meant, that name or the danger that comes with it. Of course I’ve heard of the New England Mafia and the intricate crime network that spans across the whole area, but it never felt real to me. It might as well have been an urban legend because it had nothing to do with my life.

Until now.

Both my husband and his brother seem to think that my sister’s disappearance has something to do with this renowned crime syndicate, the Covey. And they should know. That’s what frightens me about this. They know the Covey, especially my brother-in-law, Nate.

Because he used to be one of them.

“We can’t know that for sure,” Raad insists. He has also said that before. The two of them have been having this conversation for hours, and I’m sure Raad only smooths over his brother’s suspicion because of me. He doesn’t want to worry me. I can see on his face that he agrees with Nate because he, too, is familiar with the Covey’s business. They almost destroyed him years ago, and it’s only because of Nate that it never happened.

“But why Riley?” I wonder out loud, absentmindedly petting Salwa, who closes her eyes and lolls in response. “What would they want from my sister?”

“Maybe the same thing they wanted from Malia—”

“Nate!” Raad reprimands his brother. They exchange a tense look, and I hate the way Raad raises his eyebrows in warning toward his brother. I love him for wanting to protect me, but this is one of the situations when his attempts are not only futile but unwanted. I need to figure out what happened to Riley so I can help her—even if it means facing such an ugly truth.

Nate knows what he’s speaking of because his wife, Malia, was taken by the Covey a while back. In fact, she was taken by him for the Covey, to secure some fucked-up deal with a Mafia family. He knows their twisted little system of using women for their needs, in every sense of the word.

“Just look at it,” he urges Raad again, supporting himself on his elbows as he leans forward. “The company she interviewed for wasn’t real, she couldn’t tell Alena any specifics about the interview because she said she was forbidden to, and they lured her out of the city to some random coffee shop for the interview. And then… boom! Gone!”

Raad throws his brother another warning look, but he doesn’t disagree.

“If she really was taken by the Covey, chances are high she’s still alive,” he argues, now directing his attention to me. “But it also means that we can’t rely on the police to find her.”

The goddamn police. I want to scream every time they are mentioned. Of course, the first thing I did after realizing that something must have happened to Riley was contact the police. And while this is probably the most horrible thing I could imagine, the police officers I talked to didn’t seem to be fazed at all. Vocational disease or not, even if this was an everyday occurrence to them, they shouldn’t have treated me like a woman trying to schedule a hair appointment. They took down some notes while questioning me and they accompanied me to her apartment searching for clues, but after the missing person report was filed, they did very little else.

It wasn’t even thanks to them that we figured out where Riley was last seen. We were able to track down Riley’s last whereabouts because the staff of the coffee shop contacted the police after her disappearance had been made public. They told us that someone bribed them to keep an open seat for a girl matching Riley’s description on the day she disappeared. But they couldn’t tell us who it was—or else they didn’t want to tell us. The waitress who served her said that my sister came in, very rudely ordered a tea, and then opened her laptop. No one could tell us what happened during the few minutes Riley spent there, but she didn’t stay long and never drank the tea.

“She seemed tense and on edge, very crude,” the waitress said. “I don’t know what she was doing here, but she definitely didn’t come in for our menu or the atmosphere.”

No, she came for a job interview. Or so she thought. She only spent a few minutes there, giving an ungracious order to the waitress and staring at her screen before she reportedly jumped up rather abruptly and hurried out.

And that’s it. Despite all efforts, neither we nor the police were able to find out what happened to Riley after she left the coffee shop.

“Yeah, fuck the police,” Nate agrees with his brother. “Even after all that happened to them, the damn Covey is still out there giving law enforcement the runaround.”

Salwa stirs in my lap, as if she’s as troubled by those words as I am. I can’t help but wonder whether all of this is my fault. If the Covey really did capture my sister, why did they do it? Was it because of my relationship with Raad—and subsequently his brother, Nate? When Nate left the organization, it was not on their terms. He betrayed them, and his betrayal was only covered up by the fact that the last operation he was involved in failed so horribly. Horribly for the Covey, that is. Nate saved his wife, Malia, from their grip, even though he was the one who kidnapped her for them in the first place.

Is this the Covey’s way of revenge? Are they trying to get to Nate through me?

Did I put my sister in this position?

“If it really is them…” I ponder out loud, hesitating while both Raad and Nate turn their heads in my direction in anticipation. “If the Covey really took Riley… do you think it’s a coincidence?”

My question is directed at both of them, but my gaze remains lowered, watching Salwa while I tenderly ruffle her fur.

Even without looking up, I can tell that the brothers are exchanging a suggestive look, neither of them willing to confirm or deny my suspicion.

Are they as afraid of the answer as I am?

---