Chapter 106 Ren

Chapter 106 Ren
Ren

"Check the phones," I say. "All of them."

Alessandro takes each one and works through it at the table, scrolling call logs and location data while the rest of us wait. It doesn't take him long. Nothing. None of us leaked it.

"Then it wasn't us," Marco says, already turning back to the crate he's been sorting through. "Move on."

We move on.

The first report comes in a little after noon, three days into Matteo working every contact who owes this family anything. He's been on the phone since before sunrise, pacing the length of the warehouse with it pressed to his ear, and when he finally lowers it, his face has that particular stillness of a man who isn't sure yet whether what he's holding is good news.

"There's an outfit that moves people across the border for cash," he says. "No paperwork, no questions on either end. One of my contacts says they were used recently."

"Recently how," I ask.

"Three days ago."

Something in my chest goes tight and quiet. Three days isn't nothing. Three days is close enough that whoever handled that transfer might still remember details worth knowing.

"Get me everything," I say.

He sends the request. An hour later, a second report comes back, a different organization entirely, pointing at the same rough stretch of coast.

Valentino's been hunched over the map spread across the table for most of the morning, tracing lines with his finger, and he looks up sharp when I read the second report out loud.

"Two of them," he says. "Two separate people, and they're both pointing the same direction."

"That's not coincidence."

Alessandro pulls both reports up next to everything else we've gathered, the fuel logs from days ago, the shipping code Valentino recognized from his old deployments, a week of scattered guesses finally starting to line up into something with actual shape.

"If this holds," he says, studying the overlap, "we're not looking at half a coastline anymore. Maybe twenty miles of it."

"Twenty miles is still a lot of ground," Matteo says, dropping into a chair for the first time in hours.

"Twenty miles beats six hundred."

Nobody argues with that. Matteo goes back to his phone, dialing the next name on a list that's grown considerably longer than any of us expected it to. I watch him for a moment, this man who's spent a week threatening people on my behalf without a single word of complaint, voice never once cracking even as the hour gets later and later.

"You've earned something out of this," I say, once he sets the phone down long enough to rub his eyes. "Whatever it is. Name it when we're done."

He looks up, surprised. "I don't need anything, Ren."

"I know you don't. I'm offering it anyway."

He doesn't answer right away, just nods, something settling behind his tired eyes before he picks the phone back up and keeps working.

We spend the rest of the day chasing both threads at once. Nobody sleeps. Matteo's voice goes hoarse from talking. Marco cleans weapons that don't need cleaning, the particular restlessness of a man who needs his hands busy or his mind starts going somewhere darker. Alessandro barely looks up from his laptop except to eat whatever someone puts in front of him.

I pace. I've worn a path across this warehouse floor over the last week, the same stretch of concrete, checking my phone and checking it again, as if staring at it hard enough might make information arrive faster.

By early morning, exhaustion finally catches all of us at once. We end up sitting around the table with coffee Matteo brought back from somewhere, none of us talking much, just letting our bodies catch up to everything our minds have been running on for days. Marco's got his boots propped on a crate, eyes half closed. Alessandro's head keeps dipping toward his screen and jerking back up.

Valentino sits across from me, coffee cradled in both hands, and he's been quiet for a while when I notice he's staring at me instead of the map.

"Can I ask you something," he says.

"You've been asking me things for days."

"Not this."

I look up properly. Something in the way he says it tells me this isn't about the search at all.

"What exactly do you want with my sister," he says.

I know exactly what he's really asking, and I'm tired enough that my mouth answers before my judgment gets a chance to catch it.

"To put babies in her."

He stares at me. Doesn't blink. Doesn't laugh.

"That was a joke," I say.

"I know."

"You didn't look like you knew."

"I'm deciding whether killing you would make finding her easier or harder."

Somewhere behind me, Marco makes a sound like a laugh he's trying to swallow. Alessandro doesn't look up from his laptop, but I catch the corner of his mouth twitch.

"For the record," Marco says, still not looking over, "it would make it harder. Considerably harder."

"Noted," Valentino says, eyes still fixed on me.

"I've buried men who thought with something other than their head at the wrong moment," Marco adds, glancing over now with something close to amusement. "Wouldn't want that to be you. Bad timing."

Valentino doesn't crack a smile. He sets his coffee down on the table, slow, deliberate, and looks at me straight.

"I'm asking because I need to know what I'm bringing my sister back to."

That lands different than the joke did. I don't have another one left in me.

"Her," I say.

"That's not an answer."

"It is." I hold his eyes. "I want her alive. I want her home. And whatever she decides once she's there, I'll live with it."

He studies me a long moment, something working behind his tired eyes, weighing whether that's actually enough. Eventually he nods, slow, and picks his coffee back up.

"Good answer," he says. "Better than I expected from you."

"Don't get used to it. I'm not always this honest."

"I noticed."

His phone rings before either of us can say anything else. He checks the screen, and I watch something shift fast across his face, the tired ease from a second ago draining right out of him.

"It's my CO," he says, already standing, already stepping toward the door to take it.

I watch him through the gap in the doorway while he listens, watch his shoulders go rigid, watch him drag a hand down his face the way a man does when he's hearing exactly what he expected and still doesn't want to accept it. He gives short answers. Yes. Understood. I'll be there.

He comes back to the table with his jaw set tight.

"They want me back," he says. "I've been gone too long. There's questions being asked, and I can't keep dodging them without it costing me more than my leave."

"How long do you have."

"I need to be on my way as soon as possible."

The room goes silent at that. Marco stops what he's doing. Alessandro sets his laptop down entirely.

"You don't have to go," I say, even though I already know it's not that simple.

"I do." He drags both hands down his face. "If I lose my commission over this, I lose the one thing that actually helps her once we find her. Contacts. A way back into a normal life once this is over. I can't throw that away chasing every last mile of this search myself."

"Then go. We keep working."

He nods, though it clearly costs him something to do it. He starts gathering his things, moving slow around the warehouse like he's trying to memorize the place before he leaves it, checking corners, running a hand along the edge of the table.

"If I leave and you find her," he says, not looking at me.

"When I find her," I say.

He looks at me then.

"Bring her back."

"I will."

"No." He steps closer, something raw finally breaking through the exhaustion in his face. "Promise me." I've never seen him look more vulnerable.

I understand, standing there, that this isn't about tactics anymore. This is a brother asking the man who loves his sister for the only thing that actually matters.

"I promise," I say.

He holds my eyes a moment longer, then nods once and heads for the door. Marco offers to drive him to the airfield, and the two of them leave together, the warehouse suddenly quieter without him in it, some steady presence gone that I hadn't fully noticed was holding part of the weight until it wasn't there anymore.

I sit with Alessandro for a while after they go, neither of us talking much, both feeling the change in the room without needing to say anything about it.

"You meant it," he says eventually, not looking up. "The promise."

"I meant it."

"Good." He glances over. "He's not going to forget you said it. Neither am I."

"I don't intend to give either of you a reason to bring it up."

He almost smiles at that, tired and worn thin, and goes back to his screen.

I made that promise because a frightened, exhausted man needed something solid to hold onto before he could climb return to his command and trust three strangers with the only thing he has left. I intend to keep it exactly the way I said I would.

Alessandro and I keep working through the afternoon, and by evening the pieces finally start landing faster than they have all week.

One contact gives us a location, a property matching the coastline both earlier reports pointed toward. Another confirms unusual activity there, vehicles coming and going at odd hours, more traffic than a place that size should reasonably need. A third tells us the property skips every normal supply channel entirely, everything handled quietly, off the books.

"That's deliberate," Alessandro says, rubbing his eyes. "Somebody built that place specifically to stay invisible."

"Keep searching."

He does, and over the next few hours the picture sharpens further. Property records dead-ending the same way every shell company in this search has dead-ended. A construction permit filed years ago under a name that traces to nothing at all.

"Whoever's behind this doesn't leave paper trails by accident," he says.

"How long would something like this take to build."

"Years, probably. This might just be the piece of it we're finally seeing."

I let that sit uneasy for a moment, then push it aside. It doesn't change what I need to do tonight.

Marco gets back a little after dark, quiet the whole way apparently, and drops into the chair Valentino left empty without a word about how the goodbye went. I don't ask. Some things don't need saying twice.

We keep working, three of us now instead of four, and I catch myself glancing at that empty chair more than once, half expecting him to walk back through the door with some update before remembering he's somewhere over open water by now.

The last piece comes in close to midnight. A supplier who delivers goods along that stretch of coast mentions, almost in passing, that a property matching the description took an unusual delivery last week. Food. Medical supplies. Enough for one person, not a crew.

I read the message twice.

One person.

Alessandro and Marco both go still, watching me read it a third time like the words might change if I stare at them long enough.

"Ren," Marco says.

"I know."

It's not confirmed. Nobody's seen her. But something settles into my chest anyway, steadier than anything else this week has managed to give me.

"How far," I ask.

"Two hours," Alessandro says, already pulling up the route. "Maybe less if the roads are clear."

"We're going."

Nobody argues.

We leave within the hour, Marco driving, Alessandro in the back with his laptop and the coordinates already loaded, and I sit up front with a weapon across my knees, watching the dark road roll past, saying nothing for most of the drive.

Somewhere around the halfway point, I call Valentino. He picks up on the second ring, voice rough with sleep or exhaustion or both.

"Ren. What's happened."

"We might have something real. One person's worth of supplies delivered last week."

Silence for a beat. "Is it her."

"I don't know yet. We're driving there now."

"I should be there."

"You're not. You made the right call leaving when you did, and I'm not letting you throw that away over a lead we haven't confirmed."

"You already promised me something bigger than that."

"I remember."

"Then go find her." His voice cracks. "Whatever happens, call me."

"I will."

He hangs up, and I sit with the phone in my hand a moment before finally putting it away.

The road narrows the further we get from the city, streetlights giving way to headlights and dark stretches of brush on either side.

"You think it's really her," Marco says eventually, eyes still on the road.

"I think it's the first lead all week that actually feels like her instead of just fitting a pattern," I say. "That's not the same as certain. But it's more than I've had."

"Good enough for me."

The property comes into view a little before dawn. Marco kills the headlights well before we're close enough to be seen, easing the car off the road into a stand of brush. We go the rest of the way on foot, spreading out along a ridge that gives us a clear line down toward the building below.

It's bigger than the last one. Guards move in slow, deliberate loops around the perimeter, more of them than the last place had. I count six from this angle alone.

"We're not getting inside tonight," Marco whispers, scope up. "Not without more men, more of a plan than we've got right now."

"I know. We're not going in tonight."

"Then what are we doing here."

"Confirming it." I keep my eyes on the building. "I'm not walking into another one on a guess. Not after everything this week's already cost us."

We settle in and wait. Minutes pass, slow, the sky lightening bit by bit overhead, nothing moving except the guards on their loops. My legs cramp from crouching too long but I don't move.

Then a light comes on. Second floor, a section set apart from the rest of the building, curtains drawn but not fully closed, a thin gap of light spilling through.

I raise the scope.

Nothing for a moment. Then a shape crosses in front of the light, close enough that the gap in the curtain catches her outline before she moves away again.

I go very still.

"Ren," Alessandro whispers. "What is it."

I don't answer right away. I watch the window, waiting, and a moment later she comes back into view, closer this time, weight shifted onto one hip the way she always stands when she's working something out in her head. One hand lifts and presses flat against the glass, testing it, the way a soldier checks every exit in a room without even realizing she's doing it anymore.

I know that gesture. I've watched her make it a hundred times before any of this ever started.

"That's her," I say.

Marco lowers his own scope, studying my face instead of the building. "You're sure?"

I don't answer that.

I don't need to.