The news that Spider couldn’t make a dent in Ewan’s case left Athena gobsmacked. This ant Ewan was entangled in so deep ss, and worse still, he didn’t know a thing about what was going on!
She shook her head, her mind racing as she imagined how frustrated she would have been if the roles were reversed. Damn! How was that even possible?
So far, Spider seed to be the most competent person she had encountered when it ca to unraveling the threads of the dark web. If he couldn’t find anything, then there was truly a problem.
The resigned look on Ewan’s pale face confird that he understood the gravity of the situation as well.
"This is serious, Ewan. Are there no leads? Have you had any attacks lately?"
Ewan shook his head slowly, the weight of his frustration evident. "As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve had one since we got married, but I’m guessing that’s because Fiona was doing a good job of keeping stupid... or maybe I don’t really know what’s happening, Athena. It’s frustrating the hell out of ." His voice trembled as he paused, tapping the table harder than usual.
"I’ve thought and thought. I’ve tried making connections, but to no avail. It’s like I’m stuck in this tangled ss, and it makes no sense to , especially considering who I am and what I can do. It’s humiliating."
Athena could understand that frustration firsthand. Her mind raced through possibilities, trying to identify the actual culprit behind this chaos, but so far, nothing had surfaced. The fact that Spider had failed at this only cranked her anxiety up a notch.
She glanced towards Ewan, who seed almost defeated. "Let’s set this aside for now, Ewan. We will resolve this. I promise you, we will."
Ewan’s eyes glimred with gratitude, and a flicker of hope crossed his features. "You’re going to help with this?"
Athena looked at him incredulously, as if he had sprouted horns. "Of course I will. That’s what friends do for each other, right? And I can tell it’s part of what gives you sleepless nights."
Ewan chuckled softly, the sound shaky and imbued with relief, as though he had been holding his breath waiting for her answer.
A comfortable silence settled between them—different from the previous tension—perhaps because it allowed Athena to see another side of Ewan.
After a mont, she encouraged him to continue his story. They could tackle his attackers another day. If luck was on their side, they might even work on it alongside the Morgan situation.
Ti was running out; the governnt’s deadline lood closer. She hoped they would catch Morgan tomorrow—that would bring her so peace.
"Ewan..." She called gently, noticing he was hesitating.
"Alright, I’ll get on it." He inhaled deeply, gathering himself before resuming. He began to tap on the table again, punctuating his words with a nervous rhythm. "I joined the gang straight out of community service—bad decision for soone who had just promised to live right..."
He chuckled at the irony, sharing a mont of reluctant humor with Athena.
"But I was at my wit’s end," He admitted, his expression shifting as he recalled his troubled past. Gaze locked on hers, his skepticism flared. "The gang was just as the public knew it—terrible. I lost count of the number of tis I vomited when I first joined. I couldn’t stomach a lot of what I witnessed. It was another side of life I didn’t know existed."
"Did Zane and Sandro join you imdiately?" Athena inquired, leaning in with genuine curiosity.
Ewan shook his head. "They ca in a few months later after realizing I had been missing from so of our usual hangouts. I was beginning to attract so rough-looking friends who didn’t belong to our school community, so they grew suspicious. One night, they followed to an operation, and the rest is history."
"What operation was that?" Athena asked, her curiosity peaking in earnest.
Ewan shrugged. "It was just to deliver a package to another group on the other side of the city."
"What package? Don’t tell you didn’t open it?"
Ewan’s smile held a sad grimness. "You know the story of gang rookies. I had seen too many instances where gang mbers were shot in the head or tortured for reasons as petty as stealing. I was too scared to beco another statistic. So, I just made the drop at the location and ca out. You can imagine my shock when I saw my friends waiting outside the building in an old beat-up truck.
"They were never targeted; whoever had asked them what they were doing in that part of town so late at night, they claid to be friends of mine." He paused, his voice thick with nostalgia. "That was the night they joined the gang, after hours of discussions about what was really happening my life."
Athena raised her left brow in disbelief. "They joined you just like that, instead of trying to convince you to leave?"
Ewan shrugged again. "Yeah. But you should know that it’s not easy to leave the gang once you’ve joined. Leaving is like attempting suicide."
Athena nodded slowly, deep in thought. Of course, she knew. But Sandro and Zane... she shook her head. No wonder their friendship was so tight; the three of them were all blind to the dangers of their choices!
Shouldn’t one of them have stayed out to keep an eye on the other two? But that wasn’t her business. She sighed, wishing for a mont that things weren’t so complicated for them.
"So, how did you beco the leader of the gang at such a young age? Did you make the highest number of kills or sothing?"
Ewan’s laughter bubbled up before he could stop it, a sound rich with irony. "Not really. I actually didn’t kill anyone who didn’t deserve it."
"What? So you got to decide who lives or dies?"
"Of course not. What I ant was that whoever died in my hands was soone filled with greed and corruption, soone stained with the blood of innocent people."
"Ah, the Robin Hood complex, huh?"
Ewan chuckled again, the laughter mingling with the din around them. "I don’t take their money to give to the poor." He shook his head at her, lightening the mood. "I think the leader at that ti chose because of my lineage—because of how I was managing my family’s empire. It amazed him that, at my age, I understood the ins and outs of the company, handling it like a true professional and even doubling the revenue by the end of that particular year."
"And they never thought of robbing you or causing trouble?"
"No. We made a pact before I joined the gang. The company was off-limits. The boss was a man of his word."
Athena pursed her lips, nodding slowly. "So that’s the only reason why you were made the boss?" She continued, declining to comnt on his brilliance—after all, how many people had the temperant to manage the Giacomti empire at the age of twenty?
If she were in that boss’ position, she would have handed it over to him too!
"Not really. Since they honored the pact to stay away from my company, I honored mine as well." He paused, contemplating his next words. "Let’s just say I was a dutiful worker. I went the extra mile. I was selective about the cases I worked on, but I executed them impeccably, as I would handle matters within the company."
Athena could see that commitnt. "So all the killings in the news... you were behind them."
Ewan nodded without hesitation. "I was. But if you looked into those individuals, you would discover that..."
"They weren’t innocent. That they were full of corruption. Yeah, I know—I followed your history when I joined the CIA."
A comfortable silence settled between them, unfixated by judgnts.
"So what about the drugs? The trafficking? Were all the victims corrupt too?" Athena quoted with her fingers, emphasizing the word "corrupt" while wearing a twist of annoyance on her face.
Ewan sighed, reclining further into his seat. "I didn’t partake in those operations. It wasn’t my gang, so I had no say in it. However, if you must know, I sabotaged most of those operations."
Athena’s eyes widened in disbelief. "You did what?"
Ewan shrugged again, a mix of defiance and regret on his face. "If you paid attention to the gang, you would have seen so police raids, reports of trafficked girls being rescued... well, that wasn’t a coincidence. I was behind all that, along with my friends."
"Wow. And they never found out? The gang, I an?"
Ewan shook his head, causing Athena’s astonishnt to deepen. "Well, except for Spider."
"Because he was your friend too?"
Ewan snorted gently, bemusent in his eyes. "Not at all. Because his sister had been one of the trafficked."
"What!!" Athena exclaid, her voice louder than intended. Thankfully, the restaurant buzz drowned her out.
"He didn’t know at first. But I did, considering I took care of the girls I was able to get out. In the process, I discovered her na. So when he threatened to report after finding out, I laid her file before him. And the rest... is history."
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