Page 94 of Blood in the Water

“My mother taught me,” I smiled, picturing her bright blue eyes, the same ones I inherited. “I didn’t have many friends. I didn’t like to speak, and I was always awkward and nervous. I got made fun of a lot. But my mother was a computer analyst. She taught me computers.”

Leona smiled. “Is she proud of what you do?”

The smile slipped from my face as I relived my greatest shame. “She died with my father.”

“Oh,” she reached out and squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry to hear that. Can you tell me what happened?”

“They were murdered, most likely by an opposing cartel.” I stared at her hand on mine. “Want to know the worst part? I don’t even know who did it.” I shook my head. “I was so young. The cartel wanted to throw me out because with my speech, I struggled to communicate, and I hated interacting with people; plus, all the other cartel kids hated me, but the security director and his son took me in. By the time I was old enough to do anything meaningful, the trail was cold. I’ve spent so much time and effort trying to track their murderers down, but I only find dead ends.”

“That’s so terrible. Ciel?—”

“I’m the best hacker in the world.” My hands clenched into a fist beneath hers, but she didn’t let me go. “And I can’t even find who murdered my parents.”

Being around Leona brought all the memories back to the surface, especially since she knew her father’s murderer and she was on a mission to get revenge. That was exactly what I wanted but could never get.

“I’msosorry.” She pushed forward even closer, rubbing her thumb along the back of my hand. “But being unable to find them doesn’t mean you’re bad at what you do.”

I looked up and blinked.

“You can’t fault yourself for that. You were a child. Whoever did it has had years to cover it up. Maybe they’re even dead themselves. You’re doing the best you can do.”

I heard what she said, but I couldn’t make it ring true inside my head. I could find a needle in a haystack. I could access footage from cameras all over the world. I had tracked cartel members across the globe, cataloging their every move. I wasalwaysrunning programs in the background, searching for clues. But if I couldn’t even find the men who murdered myparents, how did I deserve a place in the most elite organization in the world? When would the best I could do not be enough?

“Ciel, I’m serious.”

An alert flashed across the screen of my computer, drawing my attention.Pattern recognized.

“What?” I replied absentmindedly as my eyes tracked an image across the screen. I pulled my hand from hers and typed more code to bring up the comparison images.

“You’ll find them. I know you will.”

I shrugged, half distracted. “Hopefully.”

She watched as I worked to narrow down the pattern. “What’s that?”

“A hit on something.”

“What are you doing?” She looked down at my fingers, and they flew across my keyboard. “It doesn’t just pop up with ‘Here! It’s who you’re looking for!’and then give you everything you need?”

“I wish. The software picks up patterns, but I still need to discern the data. Basically, the computer searches through the images, making a database of each different face. Then, it analyzes new images, trying to determine if there’s a match to any face that’s already in the database. Images are converted to data, and data is compared. But it’s still not perfect. Sometimes, some images look similar, and it’s hard to analyze their differences. Sometimes, the data markers it uses end up being incorrect. So, I’m currently sifting through the data to confirm that the pattern it found is accurate. We have to refine it through certain commands.” I showed her how to direct the software. Line by line of code flew up the screen, slowly but surely returning data.

“Huh. That’s interesting. Reminds me of like a captcha tool. Computer shows you a bunch of options, and you have to select what’s right,” she murmured, eyes following everything I did.

“Mhmm, that’s close. Except the computer isn’t testing us right now. It’s helping us narrow down thousands of potentials, and I’m verifying its work.”

A loud ding accompanied an alert window that readRecognition Confirmed.

The software finally returned a grainy picture with 22 matching markers confirming our target’s identification.

Leona gasped. “Max.”

It was him. Volpe. The cheekbones, the nasal structure, and the hair were a 93% match. In the image, he was walking out of one of the other locations where the tracker had stopped. Not the same building where I’d tracked Elio, but very close to it.

My fingers flew across the keyboard, bringing up the nearest street camera feeds.

“Oh my God,” Leona breathed as the feeds showed a group of foot soldiers dragging out a man with his hands zip-tied behind his back. The video feed wasn’t high definition by any means, but the man had been tortured. His face was swollen, one of his shoulders hung limp at an odd angle, and his clothes were covered in blood. The foot soldiers quite literally threw the man in one of the SUVs, and Volpe got into the one behind it. The convoy then took off.

“That’s him,” she said as she leaned over my shoulder. Her fingers dug into my shoulder, her little breaths puffing air on my cheek. “Cas. Max has him.”