Shattered Relations | Aru Shah AU |

XVI

ARU
Aiden and Rudy were taking much more time to process this piece of information than Brynne and Mini had.

Rudy opened his mouth, and sighed, "I need food to digest this conversation."

Mini raked a hand through her hair. "We need to start digging again. Those people forced Kara into hiding, threatened Aru at knifepoint—"

"WHAT?!"

"—and then pulled a gun on Rudy and me, not to mention several threats, both online and offline."

Kara sighed. "Please, for the billionth time, tell me exactly what happened. I may be able to tell you how serious they are."

And they told her. Aru saw Kara's eyebrows float higher and higher, until they were threatening to disappear into her hairline.

Then, Rudy and Mini took over for the Linguini Debacle (they all had been hungry when they had nicknamed him that). Kara winced in sympathy.

"Lenguine. Nasty dude. I'm still wondering how he's still in the NYPD."

"You aren't ready to hear about Leslie Grant," Brynne grumbled, crossing her arms. 

"We aren't exactly fond of Leslie," Mini explained. 

Kara frowned. "Everything they've done is predictably on-brand—I don't exactly know how much farther they'll go, since I left after the first few threats. But..." she swallowed hard, and looked at them. "After what they did to Shakhuni, there's no telling what they won't do. They've done horrible things; extortion's just the tip of the iceberg." 

"What do you mean?" Aru asked, her attention trained on what her sister was saying. 

Kara let out a deep breath, and said, "When I was interning there, I found various payments of large amounts of money being sent out to secure accounts, to the bank for withdrawal, etcetera. I questioned my superiors for it, but never got a straight answer. My colleagues also began questioning it, and I never saw them again." 

Aru frowned at her. "Are you just making that up for dramatic effect?" she asked, with a nervous laugh. 

"Nope. Which is why I stopped asking. For a few years, I stayed quiet, but, then, I got more and more suspicious. I had to do all my work underground, but... I managed to get ahold of their bank records. All that money they were spending? It was on drugs. Cocaine, benzodiazepines—like Xanax—you name it." 

"But why?" Aiden asked, twisting Shadowfax's lens cap. 

"Power. If they supplied to most of the gangs in the cities of America, that would give them protection. All their money was supplied through racketeering, extortion—they made millions." Kara said darkly. 

"I spent years trying to get out of there, but I just kept getting pulled back in. And then came the news reports. Anybody who questioned them just... disappeared. Vanished off the face of the earth. That's why I was scared. For Aru, for our father. Then, they found out I was investigating them. The threats came in, and I had to leave. The Atlanta and Brunswick PD were useless, the cops had been bribed, so I had to leave." 

Aiden's voice was sharp when he said, "Where did they send the threats?" 

"Some were online, I had destroyed the physical letters." Kara had pulled out her phone, and typed out something, before handing it to Aru. 

A few emails filled the screen, all of them threatening. 

"Stop digging, Shah." She read out. 

She scrolled down, as the others joined her, and began reading them over her shoulder. 

"God." Brynne said, running her hand through her hair. 

Mini frowned slightly. "This... this was the same email they used to send Leslie the picture." 

Kara raised her eyebrows, and said, "Can you track it?" 

"I tried, but the IP address was blocked." Mini sighed. 

Aru's stomach let out a monster-worthy grumble, and Brynne shot her a reproachful look. 

"We had to skip dinner 'cause we were worried about somebody being missing," she grumbled, glaring at Aru. 

"Sorry," Aru sighed, before saying, "should we go to the café?" 

"I can't," Mini said. "I'm gonna try tracking the email address again, or look for another way. I may have an idea..." she trailed off, before sitting before Aru's laptop, and opening it. 

"I'll help." Rudy announced. 

Aru, Brynne, and Aiden shot him suspicious looks, and Rudy scowled. "What? I'm very helpful when I want to be." 

Aiden scoffed derisively, and said, "Sure."

Kara snorted. 

Mini was immersed in what she was doing, and was ignoring them. 

Aru got up, and smirked at Mini and Rudy. Just as they were leaving, she said, "Alright, have fun," drawing out the last word, before slamming the door behind her.