“Why didn’t you ask where my brother is?” I glared at Aaron, who was focused on something on his phone, and I nearly ripped that thing out of his grasp and threw it away.
“We need to find out if he’s the one who has Tony,” Aaron said. “And if he is, where he could’ve taken him. But there was something in his eyes when I mentioned your brother’s name that...”
“Well, why did you let him go then?” I raised my voice. “You could’ve just fucking asked him! But instead you figured out from one look into his eyes that he doesn’t know where Tony is? Really?”
“Do you think he would’ve told me the truth? I doubt it. If he wanted to use your brother to get something from me, he would’ve mentioned it. But if he’s planning to use him to get something from your family, then he’ll want to make sure we don’t find Tony before he makes his move. That means he’ll have to rush to make sure we haven’t already found him. He doesn’t know how I figured out about him and Tony. He was surprised about that.” Aaron tilted the screen of his phone toward me. “Marco managed to put a tracker on him while his guard couldn’t see.”
“He’s going to figure that out,” I said. Although, maybe Aaron was right. If Sebastian had Tony and he didn’t want anything from Aaron, then he wouldn’t have told Aaron he had my brother. “You should’ve said I was here too and wanted to talk to him. If he wanted to make a deal with my family for Tony, he could’ve told me.”
“He’s very careful when moving around here and hard to track down, but he doesn’t have many guards with him and he can’t risk contacting them. So if he wants to make sure I or anyone else haven’t gotten to Tony already, he’ll have to go himself to check if Tony’s still where he’s hidden him. If we follow him, we can figure out where that is. Come on.” Aaron glanced at the phone and then slid it into his pocket. He pointed at a motorcycle that I hadn’t noticed before that was parked near one of the trees. Someone must have brought it here while Sebastian and Aaron were having their meeting. We ran toward it, and Aaron handed me one of the helmets, which I immediately put on.
“I hope you’re right about this,” I said. If we lost Sebastian and Aaron’s plan didn’t work, I didn’t know what I’d do. Sebastian probably had big plans, and he wasn’t going to allow anything to mess them up. How my brother figured in all of that was still a big question.
We hopped onto the bike, and I wrapped my arms around Aaron as tightly as possible. A few moments later, we were rushing through the streets and weaving around the cars. Aaron’s phone was vibrating in his pocket, and I realized it vibrated twice shortly before Aaron turned left and once before he turned right. That was how Aaron knew where we were going.
I looked around, wondering where Sebastian could be going. There weren’t many places where he could safely keep Tony around here without anyone seeing him. It still had to be somewhere in the free zone. Aaron slowed down as we neared the biggest park in the free zone, and then he stopped.
“Why did you...?” I started to ask, but then I spotted Sebastian’s bike parked not far from us. “Did he ditch the bike and the tracker?”
Aaron pulled out his phone. “He’s here. At the park.”
I climbed off the bike and slid off the helmet, then turned to see if I could spot any building around here that would be good for keeping my brother hostage. There were too many apartment buildings and a few restaurants, but all the entrances were clearly visible. If Sebastian had wanted to drag Tony into one of these buildings, he would’ve had to do it in plain sight or to find another way in, and a secret entrance surely wasn’t at the park. Maybe he was just here to meet someone... I blinked at the street name that was right across from me. “What time is it?”
Aaron lifted the phone toward me, showing me the clock, and my mouth fell open. No, it couldn’t be.
“Tony was supposed to meet with him here at this time,” I said. “Do you think...?” But Tony wouldn’t have just run away and let us all worry so he could meet with Sebastian in secret, which meant... “What if someone else has my brother? What if they got to Tony before Sebastian could?”
“Let’s find out.” Aaron started toward the park and I ran after him, my pulse speeding up. We slowed down and hid behind one of the trees with a bulky trunk.
“There.” Aaron pointed at a figure who was pacing up and down and looking at his phone.
“What’s he doing?” If I wasn’t wrong, Sebastian looked... almost worried.
“I don’t know.” Aaron turned his head and pushed me aside, stepping in front of me. I looked over my shoulder in the direction he’d moved and realized Sebastian’s guard was standing across from us, a gun peeking out from under the jacket that he had draped around his shoulders, and it was pointed at us.
Aaron mumbled a curse. “Where did he come from? I swear he wasn’t there when I looked a moment before.” He lifted his hands up as I contemplated trying to reach for my gun, but I was sure the guard would see me and shoot Aaron or me before I could do anything. Fuck.
“What are you going to do? Shoot a guy for walking around the park? In the free zone?” Aaron said to the guy, who was approaching slowly and glancing around to make sure there weren’t any witnesses. “You’re leaving your boss unprotected.”
“I’m not the only one protecting him here,” the guard said with a smile. “Turn around, both of you, and walk toward my boss. Slowly. If you try to run or make a wrong move...” He waved with the gun.
We had no choice but to obey. Sebastian lifted his head when he saw us, and his face turned into a mask of fury. He strode toward us and jabbed a finger into Aaron’s chest.
“What the fuck did you do to him, huh? Where is he?” he yelled.
“Where is who?” Aaron asked calmly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Her brother!” Sebastian’s eyes met mine, then flew back to Aaron’s. “Where’s Tony?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snapped. “You have my brother, don’t you? What do you want with him? Stop playing games!”
Sebastian blinked at me and stumbled back. “Oh, Aaron. I underestimated you. You figured it out and you took him, and now you want something in return, don’t you? And your lovely girlfriend has no idea about it.”
“What?” My mouth fell open. “Aaron wouldn’t do that.”
“She’s right,” Aaron said. “I wouldn’t.”
“Am I supposed to believe that?” A vein throbbed in Sebastian’s neck. “You’re just like your father. You stop at nothing to get what you want. You kill whoever you want to without blinking. Cut the crap and tell me where he is!”
“I don’t know. That’s what we’re trying to find out. We thought you took him,” Aaron said. “Just let Octavia go. If you want me, take me, but let her go.”
“You thought I took him? Why would I do that?” Sebastian gaped at us.
“Um, plenty of reasons,” I said. “You came here to claim Roberto’s little empire. Why should we believe anything you say? Maybe this is all an act so you can convince us you’re on our side.” Although the desperation in Sebastian’s eyes was really hard to fake.
“Your side?” Sebastian eyed Aaron, then me. “Maybe you trust my nephew, but I don’t. Not after what I’ve seen him do and heard about him.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Right. You agree with Roberto that Aaron’s a traitor or whatever. Although I don’t really get how this thing you have with my brother... well, my brothers, since you seem to mingle a lot with my family... is fine and Aaron being with me isn’t.”
“It’s not about you,” Sebastian said. “It’s about him.” He raised his finger toward Aaron. “He’s a cold-blooded killer. What kind of a person kills his guards because they said the wrong thing?”
“Is that what you think?” Aaron asked incredulously. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what really happened when you were conspiring with my father the whole time!”
“I wasn’t conspiring with him. I merely took the opportunity that presented itself.”
“Whatever you say.” Aaron bit out.
I stared at Sebastian’s flushed face and wondered if he was telling the truth. We only knew he’d been in contact with Roberto, but we couldn’t know how much Roberto had told him. Surely Sebastian’s sexual orientation was of less importance to Roberto than Aaron’s betrayal, so if Roberto knew a Viteri had to inherit his empire, he’d rather have left it to Sebastian than to Aaron. And if Roberto hadn’t known about Tony, or if Sebastian had met my brother after that...
Did Sebastian even know he was about to inherit everything, or did he merely come here to fight because he thought he could win over the support of Roberto’s men instead of Aaron? There was just no way for us to know, and I wasn’t about to reveal that piece of info to Sebastian, although he probably already knew that.
“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “We need to find Tony.”
“Tell your men to stand down. We’re attracting too much attention, and I know you’re not going to have me shot here like this. That would put a kink in your plan of world domination,” Aaron said, eyeing the passersby who were watching us from afar.
Sebastian dipped his head, and one of the guards that had been peeking from around the tree shifted, probably holstering his gun. “I swear, if I find out you had something to do with Tony’s disappearance, I’m going to kill you,” Sebastian growled at Aaron, then turned on his heel and strode off before anyone could say anything else. The guards eyed us carefully and went after him. I turned toward Aaron, who was looking after Sebastian with a frown on his face.
“Do you believe any of that?” I asked. “Do you think he really cares about my brother, or is he trying to play us?”
“I don’t know.” Aaron had his phone out. “We should have someone watching him. He’s probably going to find the tracker soon.”
“Yeah. Maybe my family had better luck and figured out where Tony was taken.” Considering the lack of messages and calls, they probably hadn’t found anything yet, but maybe they at least had a clue, because after this, I no longer knew anything. “I guess we have to seriously consider the possibility someone else has my brother and not Sebastian.”
Aaron nodded, and I stared off in the direction Sebastian had gone.