The Sigma Asset 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022

45: The Birthday Party

Teresa's voice rang dull and worn out in my phone speaker, not even a sprightly Hi sweetie! or a round or two of our silly game of guessing what plastic neon jewelry she was wearing before getting to the topic in hand.

I immediately panicked, guessing that the sting had gone wrong and that someone had hurt Eomma. Teresa rushed to assure me that the sting had gone perfectly, Ana Maria Santiago just desperate enough to arrange a phonecall hours after Nuna had left a message on her voicemail asking to pay the ransom. Nuna and Eomma had called Ana Maria at nine a.m., Sofi sending two arresting officers to wait outside the Embassy while Nuna recorded the entire conversation on her phone.

"So what happens now?"

"Well, your Mom and sister were fucking stellar. Sofi's buzzing because this has opened up so many new leads for the case. Oh yeah, and she's also happy that your Mom isn't gonna lose one and a half million dollars down the toilet." I wasn't offended. Sofi didn't have to pretend that Eomma's finances were anywhere near the top of her priorities. "You noticed that Ana Maria has the same surname as Eduardo Santiago, the dude who took your friend Raheem, right?"

"No."

"Well, start noticing shit like that, Zeph." Something was wrong with Teresa; she usually loved testing her sleuthing theories out on me, not bemoan me for not having any of my own. "Ana Maria is Eddy Santiago's daughter. Turns out he's run out of cash, which probably explains why he was prepared to do some security jobs for Sigma recently, and why his daughter was on this ransom job."

"I thought that Jones gave Eddy Santiago a ton of hush-money for turning on Chavez during the coup?"

"That was two years ago. Looks like he's broke now. Ana Maria was told to apply for the receptionist job at the Embassy, steal your case file, pose as your Embassy contact, and tell you regularly that your Mom was untraceable until the ransom was paid. Then she had to contact your Mom and get her to deposit the ransom money into an offshore, no doubt Sigma-affiliated, bank account. The Korean Embassy is going crazy at the moment, reviewing their entire security system."

"Which Sigma manager led the ransom project?" Like I didn't fucking know already.

"Ana Maria is claiming that she doesn't know which gang she was working for."

"It was Noah," I whispered into my phone, like Noah was somehow able to hear me conspiring from wherever the fuck in Maria he was hiding with the remains of Sigma's scattered men. "It had to be Noah. I was his triple-whammy, Teresa. That's what he called me. I was a passport, a rental asset, and a ransom. Cal and Ollie were totally against a ransom. Chavez too. But maybe Noah's been holding out for my ransom for years."

"Woah, woah." Teresa warned. "This is all speculation."

"It must have been Noah! He must have seen in the Korean national press that my Mom got a payout from L.K., and figured that it was worth collecting a ransom even though I'd already escaped. All he'd have had to do was make sure that I couldn't find my Mom, and that she couldn't find me."

"It doesn't make sense," Teresa mused. "You said that Jones was cautious. Would he expose Sigma to risk by giving Noah the order to ransom you, even after you'd already escaped?"

"Maybe Noah's working alone now. If he's not taking orders from Jones, there's no way in hell he'd take orders from anyone else in Sigma. Has Sigma gotten split up into factions because of this turf war with El Nube?"

Teresa sighed, like she was way past done with Sigma shit. "We're just making up crazy theories right now. I need to talk to Sofi. We'll find out more once we trace the bank account number that Ana Maria gave your Mom. In the meantime, I'm gonna fucking kill her."