Page 39 of Infinity Chronicles 2
Ares shakes his head. “Mamma, I can’t shadow walk you here from Italy.” He tells her like hejusttold a child Santa isn’t real, all delicate and sweet.
“You must. I need to be there. See, I told you we should have stayed.” Rosa switches over to Italian, and her words are rushed. William runs his hand over her shoulder and shrugs at us through the screen in awhat can youdogesture.
“Mamma,” Dante calls. “Mamma!” he tries again, Rosa looks at him, her face pinched into a frown. “Mamma would you like to say hello?”
Rosa slides him a glare, and if I thought she was talking fast before, her words are a blur now. Dante winces and sits back to let his mom ream him out. I keep my mouth firmly closed, there is no way I want to be on the bad side of this fiery woman.
Reaching over I grab Dante’s hand and as her eyes track the movement, her words stall. Her gaze finally lands directly on mine. Rosa sucks in a deep breath. “Amanda?” I startle hearing my mother’s name from a woman I’ve never met. Ares leans forward, his face filling the screen again, and all traces oflightness gone from his tone. “You know her mother?” He sounds accusatory.
I watch Rosa’s head bob around the screen as she tries to get a better look at me. “Is she Amanda’s daughter? But that cannot be. Ares let me see her.” Ares leans back and he wraps his arm around the back of my neck, his fingers touching his brother’s shoulder. Dante squeezes my hand reminding me he’s here as well.
“Dio, you look just like her,” Rosa mutters, her eyes eating up my face. “How can it be?”
“Mamma, do you know something about Laura, about her mother?” Ares's voice isn’t as harsh, and he almost sounds like he can’t believe what’s happening.
“Ihad no idea.” Rosa’s fingers lift to cover her mouth and a look of absolute horror covers her face as her eyes grow glassy.
“Mamma,” Ares snaps, “do you know what’s going on, or where her mother is?”
“NoTesoro, I haven’t seen Amanda in,” Rosa's eyes lift to the ceiling, “almost eighteen years when I helped her escape Leon.”
Her words hit like a lead weight. She helped my mother escape who? And eighteen years ago? That would have been right before I was born. It’s Ares that finally speaks. “I need you to tell me everything you know.”
“Not like this.” Rosa looks around like someone might be listening. Both of her men are standing by her side and she reaches up, grabbing their hands. “I’ll be there soon, do not let her out of your sight.” With that ominous warning the screen goes black. The only problem is, I don’t know if she was warning themaboutme, or warning themforme.
Ares slams the lid of the laptop down and springs up from the couch. I can sense his frustration, nowthat he knows someone hasinformation, he’s going to go crazy until he knows everything. He spins on me. “Did your mom ever mention a Leon?”
I shake my head no on instinct, but I’m trying to think back, did she? “Not that I can remember.”
Dante pulls me in close and Ares is stomping around the hotel room like the floorpersonallyoffended him. He stalks over to the sofa and I sink into Dante. I’m unfamiliar with this side of Ares, he’s angry and maybe even a little volatile. The lights in the room dim, casting long shadows on the carpet.
Ares drops back onto the couch and opens the laptop. The left corner is a mess of black spider webs when the welcome screen pops up. “Shit,” he curses, and it looks like someone dripped paint behind the glass, but most of the screen is still visible. He enters his password quickly. Moving his fingers on the trackpad, he highlights one of the lower icons.
It pulls up another login screen. He pounds the keyboard harder than necessary. Once his informationis accepted, he hits a pull-down menu with a tiny magnifying glass. He types the name Leon into the search bar before hitting enter.
Several items pop up, all with the name Leon, and he scrolls down quickly, only glancing at the information beside each name. “This is ridiculous, there are one hundred and seventy-two Leon’s. It will take me days to run these down, by that time they’ll be here.”
Taking a chance, I reach out and place my hand on his shoulder. Ares flinches, but relaxes under my touch. His head falls forward into his hands. “Now we have something to go on, it sounds like your mom mightgive us some answers.” I hope he sees that as a good thing.
Ares turns his head, looking at me. “It also means my mom might have something to do with why you’ve been living out of a fucking RV your entire life.” He says the words like they’re taste bad in his mouth, like he couldn’t think of a worse fate than that. I take my hand back, feeling hurt for some reason.
If Ares sees the hurt splash across my face, he ignores it, choosing to pace again. Even without any pants he’s still intimidating. Coming to an abrupt halt Ares digs his phone out of his front pocket. Putting it to his ear after hitting one button he says, “Hey doll, I need your help.” He looks at me, but quickly averts his gaze. “Yeah, I need you to perform your magic.” I listen to the one-sided conversation, growing angrier by the second. There’s not a hint of anger or frustration in his tone. In fact, he soundsflirty. I would bet my last hundred dollars I know who’son the other line.
“I want you to log in to the Infinite database, yeah you know all my information. I’m looking for someone specific, but I can’t remember his last name.” Dante tangles his fingers with mine.
“Right, so the name is Leon.” he pauses and listens. “Yeah, I know there’s alot of them, but that’s why I’m asking you. You’re the best at getting me what I need.” I bristle because he doesn’t even have the decency to leave the room. I know exactly what he’s doing, he’s using her to get what he wants. But it still infuriates me to hear him talk to someone like that, to use that teasing voice.
“You can rule out anyone under thirty, no make that twenty-five. Give me any information that’slisted on their pairs, whether they have them and names.” Ares turns his backto me,he lets out a low chuckle and adds, “You’re the best… anytime.”
I dig my nails into my palm, well past angry and into the furious zone. Dante drops his head to my shoulder, his hand still in mine, but he’s no longer trying to distract me. He knows Ares went too far, we all do.
Ares puts his phone back in his pocket, and he still hasn’t turned to face me, but I don’t think I even want him to. He’ll look at me with those dark pleading eyes and I’ll feel like I’m overreacting, that what he did wasn’t so bad, and I should just let it go.
“We’ll seeif anythingcomes up in the next few hours.” I don’t say a word to acknowledge Ares. After a few more seconds of him stalling, he eventually turns around. It’s not like there’s much else for him to do, we’re stuck in this room that I thought was huge a little while ago, only to discover it is truly small.
Ares doesn’t take the seat next to me, he doesn’t sit at all, and instead he busies himself by looking over the laptop, like it’s even a concern. He could probably buy two a day. “Are yougoing to pretend that didn’t happen?” I question him when I can’t hold it in any longer.
“What?” His tone is already defensive.
