Shadows

EPISODE 10: TAKEN

“Don’t die here Tobias.” “No family members visited.” “Stephen, Stephen Maxwell.” These 3 thoughts keep going on and on inside Tobias’ mind.

“Don’t die here Tobias.”.. “I’m pretty sure I heard that voice somewhere..” he uttered.

As the water poured down from the shower to his body he couldn’t really focus or arrange all the information he had as of the

moment. It feels like he already knows something but could not really say it or discern it on his mind. It seems like he’s missing something. Just one last piece to solve everything. He turned off the shower and dried himself up with a towel. After a few brushes on his hair using his hands, he then used the bathrobe he readied before he went outside of the bathroom.

Upon opening the bathroom door he saw Emilia already laying on one side of the bed and then there’s a pillow in the middle part, which kind of serves as a divider between them. The Captain just smirked and then went on to lie on the other side. “What do you think will happen?” Emilia asked. Tobias was surprised because he thought she was already asleep. “What do you mean?” Tobias answered.

She felt Emilia letting out a slight sigh and then Emilia said “After we catch this Black or whatever this guy is called, should we really arrest him? What would be your questions for him? Is he really the bad guy or does he just have a different way to bring people to justice?”. Tobias was baffled by this question because he was not ready for this, since the question is coming from Emilia. “I’m sorry I was spacing out, I’m just excited to meet this guy. To know his reasons.” She continued.

Tobias just smirked and said “I have a feeling that I’ll be meeting him soon, you’ll get your answers. I promise.” Emilia just let out a smile before she fully went to sleep. As soon as Tobias noticed this he went out of the room to go to the penthouse’s balcony to light up a stick. He was already in the middle of his second when suddenly his phone vibrated because of a text message. “Craig has been on leave for 2 days now. Large chance he’s in Mersham. Stay safe.” This message was from Jimm. Tobias’ eyes widened as he did not expect this to happen.

He could use this to his advantage if he could just locate and follow General Craig; he may get information about what really is happening in the underground of Mersham. He finished his last stick and quickly went back to his room after.

Upon opening the door

he laughed slightly as he saw Emilia almost occupying the whole bed with her arms and legs spread like a starfish. Tobias covered her body with a blanket and he just set up a comforter on the floor to sleep. He suddenly woke up and he was surprised it's already morning.

He looked at his wrist watch and saw it’s already 9 am. He checked the bed and saw Emilia wasn’t there already. He felt a slight panic and quickly got off of bed to find

Emilia. Upon opening the door he already heard Carissa and Emilia laughing while preparing breakfast in the kitchen. He just breathed a sigh of relief and laughed a little to himself. His attention then focused on Emilia as she was supposed to go inside their room with two cups of coffee.

“Hey you’re up! I thought you were still asleep. I was supposed to wake you up and give you this.” Emilia told him while offering the other cup to Tobias. Tobias just smiled and then accepted the coffee before saying “Craig is here at Mersham, Jimm warned me. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”.

“So what time are we going out?” Emilia answered with a smile. “We’ll hunt in the evening, like the old times. I hope you still remember the directions to the building that Craig usually goes to”. Tobias added.

Emilia just answered with a nod then told Tobias “So any plans during the day?”. He then remembered that there was a spot on Mersham that was set up after the Venice Grand Canals, a place where you can go boating around with tons of Italian restaurants to choose from. He was about to suggest this but he got cut off due to his phone ringing. “Hello?” He said after answering the call. “Captain? Captain Tobias Bristle?” the guy on the other line answered. “Yep you reached the right number, may I know who is this?” Tobias asked.

“Detective Marvin Gourdon sir, MCPD detective. You gave your contact card to me if you remember.” Marvin answered, then he continued “I have big news I think you might want to hear this.” “Where can we meet you

today?” Tobias said with a smirk. “I know a place here in Mersham, great food. I’ll send you the address I’ll meet you there at lunch.” Upon telling this to Tobias, Marvin instantly hung up and sent the location to Tobias. Upon receiving the message, Tobias then looked at Emilia and said “I know a

place, great food. We’ll go there at lunch.”

“Yeah sure.” Emilia answered with a smile and after saying that she went back to the kitchen with Carissa. After a few hours Tobias went on to take a shower and dress up to go to the address Marvin sent him. He has his usual white polo and brown

trench coat on partnered with his signature red tie. It's already 11am at this point and he is trying to find Emilia to check if she has already readied herself as well.

He found Emilia with just a simple white shirt on and skinny jeans as her bottom. “Why are you so dressed up, partner?” Emilia asked in which Tobias just smirked to. “Let’s go, we have someone to meet today.” he replied. Emilia just shrugged off her shoulders and then went on to

follow Tobias to the elevators.

They hopped on a taxi after a long elevator ride again to go down to the grounds of the tower. And after 30 minutes they arrived at the said address. Tobias paid off the cab then followed Emilia inside.

Upon entering the door they found Marvin at the corner already waiting for them. “I was right not to assume this was a date” Emilia jokingly said in which Tobias answered “After we solve everything please try to assume, Em.” Emilia’s eyes widened after hearing those words from Tobias. Tobias just patted her head then said “let’s go we have to talk to him. Seems like the detective has information for us.” Emilia just nodded

then followed Tobias towards Marvin’s table.

Tobias quickly sat in front of Marvin then reached out his hand to Marvin. “Detective.” Tobias said. Upon seeing this Marvin quickly shook hands with Tobias and answered, “Captain.” with a nod to Emilia as well. “So what is this news you are talking about Detective?” Tobias quickly opened the topic. “Are we not going to at least order something first? I’m kinda hungry.” Emilia asked cutting off Marvin who was about to answer. “Their T-Bone Steak is the best here, almost too good for Mersham food.” Marvin answered.

Emilia just smiled and called the attention of the waiter. She ordered 3 sets of T-Bone Steaks for them. They just waited 5 mins for the order to arrive and then Emilia quickly munched off on her order. “She’s usually like that, kind of cute right?” Tobias told Marvin then the 3 of them laughed off.

After finishing their meal, Marvin suddenly uttered “It was a file. A case file.” which baffled both Tobias and Emilia. “Detective?” Tobias said which was quickly

answered back by Marvin, “Nothing disappeared from the headquarters except for a single case file sir.” “Do you know the content of the file?” Tobias asked. “Case file of Marina Cerrone shooting.” Marvin answered.

“You know some details about it Detective?” Emilia asked. “I do,” Marvin answered, then he continued, “It was my assigned case study when I was still in the academy. It’s about a random shooting which occurred in one of the small alleyways here in Mersham. Never a big story though, the only big name in that case was the murderer.” “Which is?” Tobias asked which

Marvin quickly answered, “Marco Leone.”

“Why would Marco Leone commit a random shooting of a random girl? I mean it does not make sense with Marco’s profile.” Emilia asked. “On the reports, yes it was made to be a random shooting. Of course it was Marco himself. Media won’t report it,

and the police won’t convict him. Based on my findings when I was still in the academy it was never a case of random shooting. First off, the girl’s surname was Cerrone. They were once a rival mafia to the Leone Family. The whole Cerrone family was wiped out in a very violent fashion and on their downfall, that was the only time Leone family was able to control Mersham.”

Marvin answered. “So this girl is connected to the Cerrones?” Emilia asked which Tobias answered “I’m guessing no, she’s not connected. She just had a very bad luck by carrying the same surname, correct?” in which Marvin nodded, then he added “Very unfortunate.” “How are you so sure it was taken by Black though, I mean there’s a chance it could have been burnt on the fire caused by the explosions right?” Emilia

asked.

“It’s one of those cases being buried by our department. It's not on police files on our website. It doesn’t even have a typed soft copy in our system. So a copy of that case file is stored in a specific room in our

headquarters, which coincidentally was left untouched due to the explosion being far from that specific room. If you know what happened both bombs were inside 2 bodies. One was on the interrogation room, one suicide bomber was near the entrance. Both of those locations were on the east

side of the building, the room was on the west side. And no one bothered looking at all the files in that room since those are the files which are not known by the public. But I looked and discovered that this specific case file was missing. Kind of surprising to me though, I can’t think of any

connection between that case and Black.”

There was a few minutes of silence after that. As if all of them were trying to think and make sense of this information. “Any other names on that case file?” Tobias asked Marvin. “Ehhh, I can’t remember everything on that file.. I’m sorry.” Marvin answered. There was a few minutes of silence again between the three of them when suddenly Marvin looked at Tobias and said “Marina.. Marina had a brother named Steve.”

After hearing that Tobias face just went pale. He did not know how to react. One thing just echoed at the back of his head. Mer Valkovsky said that name. “The heir of the Leone Family.”