Wicked Game

Chapter 11

            "Human trafficking," Natsu announced as he threw himself into a chair.

The last minute meeting Makarov had called after Natsu gave him the news had a hand full of Fairy Tail's key players sitting around a long table in a conference room at headquarters. Most of them had tall black coffees near at hand to help fight of the exhaustion brought on from being torn from their beds in the middle of the night.

"Are you sure?" Erza asked from his right. It may have been late, but Erza still looked impeccably put together. Her silky straight crimson hair fell in curtains around her neck. She wore a fitted grey suit jacket over a pair of perfectly tailored navy blue slacks.

"Positive." Natsu rolled a hand over his face, wiping away the sleep in his eyes. "Ivan's selling his dancers like slabs of meat on the black market and disposing of any of the girls that try to get in the way."

The thought of it made Natsu ill. The idea of something like that happening to Lucy... A raging fire burned through his whole body. He needed to get Lucy and the other girls out of there before something happened to them.

"Do you have any proof?" Gray asked skeptically.

"I will," Natsu said flatly. "But we need to shut it down, before any more girls go missing. Let's bring the feds in."

Erza shook her head apologetically. "We're bringing them in for Tartaros, not Ivan. If we move without having anything on them, we'll be on our own."

"So you're saying girls getting sold like slaves aren't important enough for the feds to care about? What kind of fucked up shit is that Erza?"

"Back off flame brain," Gray snapped from across the table.

"I'm sorry Natsu, I don't make the rules." Erza said simply. Erza's ability to maintain a cool exterior was what made her so good at her job. She was detached. But Natsu knew that underneath it all she was just as passionate about protecting people as he was.

"Well then screw them." Natsu scoffed, unable to take a lead from Erza's example. "We'll go in ourselves. That was your idea anyway Gray, wasn't it?"

"It was, but that was when we thought this was about drugs. This changes things."

"What the hell man?"

Gray shook his head. "There's hard evidence to find if we did a drug bust. With trafficking they either need to be caught in the act or we need to find a paper trail, preferably both. We need to know exactly where the girls are being sent and who they're being sold to."

"Are you seriously that cold hearted Gray?" Natsu's eyes flared at him. "We can't just sit here and let more women disappear. The girls at the club are innocent. They're fucking prisoners. We move, today."

"It's not a unilateral decision, Natsu," Erza said calmly, unaffected by Natsu's fury.

"It's my op," Natsu shot back.

"Actually it's my operation." Makarov's voice spoke quietly from the head of the table. "And you are all supposed to be working as a team."

"Tell that to the ice princess over there," Natsu quipped, flashing Gray a scowl.

"Enough!" Makarov boomed. For what he lacked in stature the old man made up for in his presence. He was a giant among men, though not literally.

Natsu leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Fine then. What's our move?"

"If we don't want to wait for Ivan to make his next sale," Erza started, "then we're going to need hard evidence. Natsu, can you get back into Ivan's office?"

Natsu nodded.

"As long as he doesn't get distracted again," Gray said under his breath.

"You wanna say that again, Gray? I dare you."

Gray shrugged as if Natsu's words meant nothing. "Just seems an awful lot like you're spending more time with the girl than you're spending doing your job."

"She is the job," Natsu retorted. "Without that connection I wouldn't have gotten as deep as I have."

Gray simply shrugged again. "Just saying."

"Good," Makarov stated, ignoring the young men's banter. "Natsu will get into Ivan's office- today. Freed," he said turning his gaze to the tall, svelte man watching quietly from the other end of the table. Freed Justine's sharp features mirrored those of his pristine ash grey suit, his pale green tie matching the color of the long hair framing his face. "Can your team go back into Ivan's computer system, see if there's something there we were missing before?"

Freed hummed thoughtfully. He was the head of the Intelligence Department, which included Cyber Security. "His system is more sophisticated than one would have expected for a small time nightclub owner, I suppose that makes sense now though." He sighed. "I'm sure we can get back in. Everyone was so certain it was drugs I'm afraid we must have gotten tunnel vision. I hate to think my team would have been so lax to have let that happen."

"Mistakes happen," Makarov said patiently. "Even in our line of work, unfortunately."

Natsu noticed Gray shift his weight uncomfortably, like Makarov's words meant something more to him than to the others.

"I'll look into it myself," Freed continued. "And I'll have Levy start searching the dark web, see if she can find a trail that leads back to Ivan now that we know what he's dealing in."

"Natsu," Gray chimed in, "do you know when Ivan is planning to move the next group of girls?"

"No idea," Natsu replied more calmly. The group did make a good team when they needed to. He was relieved to hear them finally seeming to take the case as seriously as he was.

"So then there's no way we can catch him in the act. Not if we plan on moving in so quickly," Gray stated.

"Actually," Erza spoke up. "I have an idea about that," she paused. "But you're not going to like it," she said looking at Natsu.

Natsu felt a cold wind blow through his lungs. He had a feeling he knew what Erza was thinking, and no, he didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit.