Page 73 of Blackmailed to the Altar

“Good. I’m hoping this won’t take too long. I’d rather be vacationing in the Maldives.”

Daniele chuckled. “Yeah, babysitting duty is never any fun. However, this college is strange. I’ve seen fewer and fewer students on campus.”

“Really?”

Daniele nodded, and we climbed inside his utility van. No clue why he was riding around in one, and I really didn’t give a fuck. I had one job. Find the Nina girl. After that, I could head out to take a well needed vacation before going back to Italy.

“It’s like last year when that serial killer was on the loose.”

I grimaced, knowing he was referring to Eden’s uncle. “Can you believe they let that fucker out?”

“It’s voting season. Of course, they let him out,” Daniele scoffed.

“That’s the problem with living so close to the capitol.”

“Yeah, but who has the time to move?”

I chuckled. As if Daniele was going to move himself. We were richer than any men had the right to be. I whipped out my phone, and pulled up the surveillance footage I’d last seen of Nina Torres.

She was bundled in a huge jacket, her naturally curly hair braided in cornrows, with her gold hoop earrings on. I couldn’t see her face as her back was to the camera. She was huddled outside of the library with her phone in hand.

A dark vehicle pulled up alongside her, and she climbed inside. There was no hesitation, nothing to showcase foul play. However, that call Dr. Mya got from her friend was enough to terrify her.

Nina wasn’t even supposed to be at the college on the last night she was seen. She’d been off the schedule for the library, and should’ve been back at the sorority house overseeing her charges.

The girls reported her missing, after she didn’t show up to help them get the house ready. She was not only a house mother, but she sponsored one of the girls in the graduating class.

Stormy Danvers, another missing student.

I was supposed to find her little and interrogate her, to see if she knew anything about Nina’s whereabouts. If I could find her.

“Do you think it’s a trafficking ring?”

I shook my head in response to Daniele. “Silas swore they were taken down last year.”

“But they are like snakes.” Daniele’s grip on the wheel tightened. His own sister had been stolen in the dead of night from his home, and sold like chattel to the highest bidder. We never found her.

It took several hours to get to the bunker. Daniele spent the time singing along to his music, while I searched through Nina Torres’ life. She was a big advocate for African American studies. I’d found an old sorority picture, her thick ‘fro combed out and taking up most of the frame. Her face was tiny in comparison.

Her tiny body set my blood on fire, but what red-blooded man wouldn’t get hot from a picture of what I suspected was a beautiful woman. I just didn’t understand why I couldn’t find any recent photographs of her.

Who didn’t have some form of active social media?

It seemed, after college, she’d disappeared offline.

“You think you have an active trafficking ring in your territory?” I glanced at Daniele, and his jaw clenched.

He shrugged.

I was surprised. “There have been a few missing persons cases in the last year that don’t match up with Eden’s uncle.”

“Maybe he wasn’t the only serial killer in the area,” Daniele mused.

“What are the chances that there would be two at the same time, in the same vicinity?”

“Slim to none.”

I snapped my fingers. “Exactly.”

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