Page 36 of The Air You Breathe

“We will find her.” Cal sounded confident.

“I hope so man, you guys seem so much happier with her. It's good to see you smiling,” I said, picturing him scowling at what I said.

“Whatever, man. Look, I’ll see you later,” he responded.

“Sure, don't be late,” I said, hanging up the phone.

I rested my forearms on my desk worried he would be alone tonight. He usually had back up just in case he did go down, Aiden was also his medic, helping him with whatever injuries he may receive. I knew he wasn’t a big fan of Dev, but I called him too, hoping Cal would just accept the help. He was definitely going to need it tonight.

* * *

It had beena few days since Cal had won his fight against that nobody. It wasn’t an easy win, but he managed to escape getting hit too many times. Lucio was back to his cheerful self now that he had won some money. He still thought Cal lost on purpose, but that he had learned his lesson, he was also pleased he was alone. I was thankful I had called Dev to watch Cal’s back. Lucio narrowed his eyes as they both walked out to the cage, but didn’t think too much about it when Cal had won. It was a relief that something was finally going our way.

I walked into Misfits on a night that was usually low key. It was on these days that I checked inventory, audited our books and processed payroll, among other things. The club was fairly busy as I made my way down to my office. Once I got to that hallway, I knew something was wrong. Giovanni looked at me like he was ready to blow a gasket.

“What happened?” I asked worriedly.

“They are sending the girls tonight,” he said, through clenched teeth.

“Girls? What—” I cut myself off when it dawned on me what he was talking about. “I thought they hadn’t responded to him, that communications had stopped.”

“I don’t know what the fuck happened, but he called me when I was at home, telling me they came through and we needed to go pick them up.” He ran his hand through his hair.

“Fuck,” I breathed. “This is bad, how do we stop it?”

“I think we are way past that, we need to figure out something else.” He walked to my office, as I followed, going straight for the whiskey I kept in here. I closed the door and immediately turned on my anti-surveillance gadget.

“Maybe we can let them go?” I said, sitting down as he passed me a glass that was way more than two fingers of whiskey.

“We should call the police,” he said, as I choked on my spit, making me cough.

“Excuse me,” I said, once I caught my breath and stopped coughing.

“We send an anonymous tip and once we see them there, we bail. I’m sure he wouldn’t think twice about what happened other than the feds were tracking those other guys,” he said seriously.

“What if we get caught?” I worried about this plan and the endless possibilities that could go wrong.

“We won’t, we will make sure we have a clear exit and leave as quickly as we can.” He downed his whiskey. “It's the only plan we have and it's the only plan that is going to work.”

“I think we really need to think about this first, there’s a possibility that he will find out and then what?” I asked, as all these scenarios went through my brain.

“He won't, I have a burner phone. It can’t be traced back to me,” he said quickly, almost as if he were convincing himself more than me.

I stayed silent as I tried to think of something else, other than us possibly getting caught. Once I looked at him, he shot me a desperate look.

“I’m not going to let him do this Evan, we agreed to do whatever we could so that this wouldn’t happen,” Giovanni argued.

“We agreed to derail his plans but without the possibility of getting caught. What’s going to happen to your family if that happens?” I asked, as I really came to terms that this might be our only possibility.

“Vittoria knows what to do if I die or get put in jail. I have a contingency for everything because I know that every day that is a possibility,” he replied, like it was common sense. “Don’t you have a plan?”

“No, I don’t, I never thought I would need a plan, to me this was always temporary,” I said, feeling like an idiot that I never thought that I would need to have one.

“After all this shit tonight, you need to make a plan because it is a possibility and leaving your loved ones to suffer in ignorance is worse.” He poured himself another glass.

“Fuck, ok,” I said, running my hand through my hair and then rubbing my neck to release some tension that had been building.

“Are we in agreement about what needs to happen?” he asked, looking at me with pleading eyes. I knew sex trafficking was a hard no for both of us, but we wouldn't be able to do shit from jail or six feet under. What other choice did we have?

---