Page 103 of Unspoken Promises

“But she was kept in captivity for years,” Rio refutes. “Her father couldn’t have known we were going to open that contest when she was eleven.”

“No, he couldn’t.” I have to admit. “That part I can’t understand. Maybe she was kidnapped. Maybe her mother and father are both criminals. That much is still unclear.”

“That doesn’t make anything else you said less plausible.”

“All I can say is that Ava is so talented, that promise would have been growing exponentially since she was younger. She’s so talented, it made me keep her here, too, despite all our suspicion. She’sthatgood. She’s too good not to keep. Any person with a use for a hacker would hang on to Ava forever, let alone fourteen years.”

How did she end up in that man’s clutches? Did her mom know about her talent? Or was Ava just an unlucky child with a crime lord as a father? My knees go weak thinking of her as a vulnerable eleven-year-old, innocent… being used and kept as a tool.

I don’t know what the connection is, that, we need to find out, but it’s just… there has to be a greater long-term use for a captive like Ava. It seems plausible that use would be criminal, that perhaps the use for her changed and morphed over time as her skill did. The more I let this theory take hold of me, the more strongly I feel we’re wasting precious time looking for human trafficking.

My brother’s gaze is stony, like his blood has run cold.

A metallic vibration courses through my veins.

We have to get Ava back before she’s dragged back to her father’s compound. She won’t cooperate easily in turning against GhostEye and she does know enough to succeed in obliterating this business. I work hard not to let my mind wander to what they’ll do to her to force her hand. My stomach roils with a pain so deep I have to close my eyes to gain composure.

I hope like hell I’m not grasping at loose straws. Something about this feels like I’m on the right track.

Rio asks, “Do you want me to keep Chelsea and Gary on the hacks?”

I start running our software and glance up at my brother who has deep concern etched all over his face.

“Get them looking for any connection between Mexico and Oregon. FBI will already be triangulating signals so we can get a location on Ava. But knowing who is behind all of this… if her father or Anton take her back to their compound, we need to find it. We can make a search area if we do. Map out the routes.”

“So about the hacks. Should the search be Mexico? Or Ensenada?” he says carefully, knowing this is opening a tightly packed box of trauma for me.

We’ve known since GhostEye’s inception it would be a target for takedown. But Ensenada? It makes the hacks personal pointing to the place that formed my every ambition.

My thoughts turn darker considering the target the hackers have drawn.

I need to get Ava back. “Yes. To Ensenada.” I swallow thickly. “And to me. Tell them to search my name, too.”

Chelsea and Gary will find the story about Diego. This private, painful part of me will be out for everyone to know. If it gets Ava back, my privacy is a small price to pay.

Rio stands and heads to a corner to make the call more discreetly. Penelope and Callum have probably already overheard enough. They’re smart and might put it all together, but right now, I don’t give a shit. If we lose our investment, even our reputation, but we save Ava? So be it.

I run our tools on the web, and I have no choice but to revisit Ensenada in the results that blare at me like a relentless midday sun. Stories about the cartel terrorizing my parent’s hometown over twenty years ago emerge. I trawl deeper and deeper, sifting through years of data, searching for a photo of a man I’ve been wanting to find for ages. I’venever been able to use our software to find him. He was nothing but a nameless person. I can try now, if only I can find a photo of Diego’s killer.

Do the hacks around Ensenada have anything to do withmypast? I’ll do anything to find a reason why someone might want me, or GhostEye. I’ll flay myself endlessly right down to my bloody bones if it means keeping her safe.

Ava is truly innocent. She’s done nothing to deserve this life she’s been given, and when I get her back, I’ll be the one to give her what she deserves. I’ll give her anything and everything she asks for.

Newspaper articles emerge on my screen, and our software breaks through some of the first digital communication of the cartels in Mexico. I read of synthetic drugs and people trafficking and heinous crimes against humanity. Diego’s killer was never caught, there wasn’t anything but my witness sketch to go on to find him, and the police down there weren’t motivated, thanks to the many bribes handed out by the Baja Cartel. I come across the sketch I dictated all those years ago, and cold fire burns through my veins.

I searched for this man many times before. Could he have been looking for me, too? But why?

All I need to do is find some connection. Maybe there isn’t one, but I upload the sketch of Diego’s killer into our new tool and run the search with the image. I need this image to match with another, somewhere, anywhere on the internet…

Ineedto zero in on something.

Finally, the tool finds a match somewhere behind the crimson X of a site that’s been encrypted.

I use GhostEye to decrypt, and there is the Baja Cartel’sWanted Dead or Aliveboard from nearly decades ago. Five minutes of reading through bounties and seeing thedisgusting pictures of heads and hands and successful retrievals, I find what I need.

A photo of Diego’s killer, and the bounty offered for his head.

DEAD OR ALIVE—$10,000. ENSENADA ENFORCER. JUAN SÁNCHEZ. SUSPECTED TO HAVE CROSSED USA BORDER. LAST REPORTED IN MIAMI. POSSIBLY GOING BY THE ALIAS FATHER.

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