Chapter 11

Aliyana takes the drink and shoots it down. "Usb? Not me." He frowns, and I see he knows nothing about it, which leaves 2 people left. "How did you know Salvatore is here?" "Cameras, he wasn't that discreet about it." She shrugs it off, "It wasn't a secret." "Now that we are all on the same page, I have a job for you two, call it an extraction." "You want us to kidnap Dylan Creston." Gabriel says already knowing the plan I was yet to inform the others on. "Did, as in the past tense. I have a new person in mind." "Who?" They both ask in unison. "Your friend, Romero." "I'm not kidnapping Mero, forget it," Aliyana starts to get up but Gabriel stops her, holding her arm and they exchange another fucking look. How the hell is Aliyana going to marry a man one day, if the made-men she calls her friends touch her as if they own her. Or maybe she owns them. "Why would you want us to kidnap Mero? He is our friend," "A friend that could have killed my brother." Gabriel rolls his eyes and releases Aliyana who sits back in her seat, looking at me like I'm crazy. Little do they know I have proof. "Mero is not the killer, he loved Ren like we all did. There must be reason to whatever you think makes him a perpetrator." I pour another glass of brandy and swallow it, in one big gulp. The burn is nothing like the smouldering evil eyes Aliyana is so inclined on giving me. "Maybe you should take a second to let that brandy sink in, it might give you a brain." "Aliyana," Her name comes out like whip through my lips. "No Liya." Gabriel is wise to read the signs of this meeting getting bad fast. "Many men would never talk to me like that." "I am not many men. Asking us to spy on some guy is one thing, expecting us to kidnap our best friend is not just another thing, this is serious and it has no grounds. Mero is not the one who killed Ren." "Are you trying to convince yourself of that or me?" The truth fears nothing but secrecy. "I don't need to convince myself, or you, I am not going to be an accessory to my friend's death." Aliyana gets up and leaves and this time none of us stop her. "If you want to kidnap Mero why don't you just get it done yourself, why get us involved?" Gabriel asks me a question I normally wouldn't answer but I do so now, because he has to learn how this life works if he is going to stay on the top once he is handed a small thrown. "I was curious to see the extent Aliyana would go to protect her friends." "So, you knew she wouldn't agree to it but you asked anyway." I smile at the young soldier, my small cousin with so much potential. "Yes, loyalty and duty are different in our world, sometimes one outweighs the other. The question is which one do you fall under cousin?" He casts me a look that I'm sure one day would make men and women shake. "I'm here aren't I?"