The Good Bad Girl

Chapter 11 Gala and a Tattoo

There's a time and place for everything in life. Some people like to go to church on Sundays, some have plans for a pizza night on Fridays, and some plan a girl's night out on Saturdays but my schedule for the coming week is work, work, work, and a gala that I am dreading going to. 

It's not only excruciatingly bad that I've been invited to this event even though everyone in the social class knows how much I despise small talk and any events that lead to them. But, my secretary and my right hand think it's important for me to attend this one gala. 

"I am not going, no matter how many times you rub my dick. Luca," I say closing the Excel sheet on my laptop. 

"I didn't and please refrain from saying that." He clears his throat, "But I think you should go to this one boss. It's pretty important,"

I shut the laptop down and looked at him. "Give me one good reason why I should attend a fucking gala on Friday night when I can be hunting Benedict's steps. I just found out he's in the country, probably even New York. I need to find him before he disappears again,"

"That's what I am telling you. The gala," he pauses, "He's attending,"

My blood freezes. "How sure are you?"

"Pretty sure to report you about it,"

"Give me the stats."

For the next hour, I and Luca talked about Benedict's sudden appearance at the New York Gala. It was pretty surprising that he chose to show himself up when he did a pretty good job at hiding himself. He went underground for nine months. One would think he died or something because no activities relating to him was captured but now, after all those months of finding intel on him, he purposely showed up. 

I am quite eager to learn about the reasons that made him commit such suicide. I wonder if Mi Zorro knows but then again she's a sharp little fox with lips that still haunts me whenever I close my eyes. There's a chance she already knows about this and is already flying to New York. 

The thought of her being alone with that snake fury me. I can't let her be in the same room as him. He did too much damage already, if Mi Zorro found him before me then the repercussions would be catastrophic. 

"Get the jet ready and ask our men from the New York branch to meet me tomorrow." Luca nods his head and leaves. 

I take this moment to form a plan. There has to be a certain gravity of a reason that snuck the rabbit out of his hole. For someone like Benedict, crawling out of the shadows would only indicate two options. Either someone has something on him that points to our first guess; Blackmail, or it's a trap and his reason for showing up is completely different. 

Whatever it is, I won't relax until I get my hands on it. 

Today is Wednesday which leaves me with tomorrow to narrow down the probable possibilities. I try to relax my shoulders on the chair, rotating it toward the wall size window on my right. The beautiful industrial view of California sparkles under the darkness of night. The skyscrapers are lit with yellow, white, and red colors. The slow traffic of office hours floats along the line of palm trees by the beach and far to the north I can see tiny letters that speak Hollywood. 

I have a lot of offices around the globe and every one of them knocks my breath out. Besides being the owner of DarkWeb; A software for information security, I have developed several other programs that disintegrate others from hacking but give me the advantage of conducting one myself.

I got up from my chair and quickly pulled my other laptop out. I scooch down to the carpeted floor, tie my hair up in a messy ponytail, and entered the password. I am not going to relax until I find out where she is. 

I need to know if the news of Benedict's appearance has got to her. If it did then where the hell is she right now and what is she planning? I open DarkWeb and provide my private ID before working someone buttons on the keyboard. 

The neon flash of the laptop screen sparkles in front of me as page after page opens. Fifteen minutes in and I finally found a lead on her. She may be slick but I am slicker. No matter how many bar codes she uses to hide herself from me, there isn't any code that I don't know about. 

I open a relative account related to her, someone name Samara Shiffer who posted a picture on social media just five hours ago. Mi Zorro was in the picture but her back was showing. Her dark brown hair was tied in a high ponytail, a baseball cap on her head with a tote bag down her right shoulder. It was a single selfie of Samara Shiffer alone but I managed to figure out Mi Zorro. 

She can't hide from me, now that I discovered one of her identities. A small tattoo on her wrist that translates some number. I zoom on her, brushing past other people in the picture and focusing on the wrist. 

The same wrist I had held a few nights ago. I saw the black ink on her but couldn't see it properly figuring I was too immersed in her face and lips. 

The picture zooms and I quickly clear the blurriness. Some numbers as I predicted were marked on her inner wrist. I rotated the picture from horizontal to vertical when I saw it.

13th December 2016.

Our wedding day.