Dry Your Tears

Twelve

The night sky was clear and calm, the serenity in its lucid blue-black colour contrasting the turmoil and worry that clouded Elias' mind, he took a drag of his cigarette, moments later releasing a puff of smoke into the air as he fought to stay on top of it all, to stay afloat in the deep waters that were his emotions but it was hard, days passed by and they were yet to find something concrete, and he felt hopelessness and despair pull at his ankles, wanting him to give up and drown, but he wouldn't. Luca had done a tremendous job in staying hidden, all traces of him erased but Elias knew men like him, he couldn't and wouldn't stay hidden forever, they would find him and if fortune was on his side, they'd find Olivia and Alexia as well, alive, but sadly he was sure that they would not be found unharmed. 

"Elias! Elias! Elias! I've found something." Sander's voice called from inside the base and Elias quickly threw his cigarette to the ground, stomping on it before rushing back into the building. 

"What? What have you found? This better be fucking good!" Elias exclaimed, breathless from how fast he had ran from where he was outside to the main office where James, Sander, Adam, Jonathon and some of his other most trusted men had been camping out for several days now. Fast food boxes were strewn all over the place and the room smelled slightly of sweat, and Elias was sure he was worse for wear but, he didn't care. 

"We're finally on to something." Adam said and James nodded with a yawn. Elias' head moved up towards Sander, impatience more than evident on his expression, all eyes were on Sander and he stammered to get his words out, not at all able to work under such pressure. 

"S-so basically, I scoured the database and anything computer wise I could get my hands on, I looked for any places in Italy or around that area for illicit activity or anything out of the ordinary during the moments leading up to what happened. No luck there so far but I'll keep looking, I'm focusing on any large houses that have suddenly been inhabited in the past few months-"

"Right, right Sander, get to the point." Elias egged on and Sander nodded quickly.

"I remembered Alexia saying something about Luca going crazy trying to find Olivia, killing recklessly and such, so, I figured before he ultimately found her, he must have done something around this area that lead to him finally finding Olivia." 

"Yeah, Matteo snitched." Adam intervened with an eye roll.

"Yes, ultimately. But, I still went ahead and asked a few of our men to do some good old-fashioned word to word research. And, turns out Luca and the rest of the Barletta family attacked a gang in Birmingham, apparently completely unprovoked." Sander explained and Elias sat down on a chair, trying to understand what that meant for them.

"Ok, but how does that help us?" Jonathon asked, voicing Elias' thoughts. 

"Technically it doesn't, unless we go further to find a way it might. The attack happened three weeks before he took Olivia, which means he must have found something vital from the gang whether or not Matteo snitched and that was also before Olivia rejected Matteo. And even if there's nothing to be found there, Luca outnumbers us by a mile, if we can convince these guys, who probably hate Luca as much as we do, to join us, we'll have a larger team and that might help speed up the search and ultimately defeat them." 

"Which gang is it? Do we know them?" Elias asked, and Sander's eyes widened slightly, a hint of fear in them.

"They're a part of the Birmingham Boys-"

"They're real? I thought that was just fiction." James muttered.

"Oh no, they're real and their crimes are so horrendous and sadistic, it's almost hard to believe that they're real. Anyway, this gang is under the Birmingham Boys but they're their own section, if you get what I mean, they're ironically called the Gray Crime Family."