Isla
It’s well into the afternoon by the time we get everyone back to the house. The kids are in awe at the size of it and I remember when I first saw it and felt the same. I carry little Luis into the house while all the kids follow with little sounde of “ooooohhhhh!” coming from them, making me giggle. Tommy pops his head into the sitting room where we’ve gathered and he’s now sporting two black eyes and a fearful expression as he looks between Mom and Nico.
“What the hell, Tommy?” Nico whispers as he walks over to him and they share a hushed conversation that ends with Nico trying not to laugh as they look at Mom with her smug expression. Dad comes to ask where to put the captives and Nico tells me he’s going to direct him around the back of the house, so the kids don’t need to see them.
“Can you help get the kids settled in, please?”
I give him a nod and a kiss as I turn back
to
the
“Alright guys, who’s hungry?” I make eating motions with my hands and then usher them all into the kitchen. Mom and I get started making sandwiches, we lay everything out on the kitchen island and have the kids point to different things, so we know what they all like to eat and they each take a bottle or two of water. One of the staff come in afterwards with a few shopping bags and I know this was part of Nico’s planning, because she pulls out a few baby bottles and formula and tells me there’s bags of kids clothes out in the sitting area and a few of the female staff are ready to help the kids shower and dress. I make Luis and the little girl Mom was taking care of a bottle each and they chug them down happily. Thankfully a few of the staff speak Spanish and can explain to kids what we’re going to do next and that they’ll be going home tomorrow. I take Mom upstairs to my own room, and I draw a shallow bath for the two little ones, using a bunch of towels like Mom shows me to make little props for them to sit up on. Once we’ve got them clean Mom shows me how to put some fresh diapers on them and I choose a warm looking onesie for Luis. I’m just about to take him downstairs to find the other kids when my phone rings with an incoming video call from an unknown number. I answer it anyway and a woman not much older than me appears on the screen.
“Isla Donatello?”
“Uh, yes?”
“My name is Sofia Gonzalez; my husband Jose got your number from Nico.”
“Oh, you must be little Luis’s mother!”
She sniffles and nods slowly. I can only imagine the sort of pain she’s going through having her little boy taken away from her. Not knowing where he is, if he’s fed, warm or safe. I turn the camera around and face it to the bed where Luis is laying between a pillow barrier I’ve made, and I hear her gasp and sob.
“I have him, Sofia. I’ve made him a bottle, given him a bath, I hope that’s okay, but he really needed one…he’s got fresh clothes thanks to Nico and I was just about to go and make him another bottle as I don’t know when it was that he had one before today. He’s a very calm baby…”
I hear her cry a little more, and then a/males voice, I think Jose.
“We owe you everything for finding him, Isla.” She says through a hiccup.
“You owe me nothing, Sofia. I was just going to see the other children and how they’re doing. If you’d like I can send you photos throughout the night, so you know Luis is okay.”
1/2
Chapter 167
She says a few more sweet things to Luis before I hang up and go downstairs. The kids all look wildi‘ differen they’re clean and a lot more relaxed. Someone put finding Nemo on the Tv and a heap of pillows and Blankets brought out and sprawled around the loungeroom where they all relax for the first time in who knows how man desperately want to go and find Nico and help interrogate the captives, but I know that my place is here right now hope that when the time comes, Nico won’t leave me out of the loop, I quickly make another two bottles, handing on it Mom and the kids make space on the couch for us where we watch the movie.
A few movies later the guys rejoin us, and Mason offers to take Luis and the little girl so Mom and I can go into the kitchen where Nico and my fathers lead us. In hushed tones they explain what they’ve discovered from the captives. It turns out that Pedro took the kids about a week ago, transporting and hiding them at the warehouse and in two days time he’s due to move them again, or so he thinks. Which means he will indeed be at the warehouse. He was using the money from selling the kids as a way to pay his own men within the family to be loyal to him and not his father and this is how he was getting around so stealthily. He has a large group of his own followers and won’t be going anywhere alone and if the guards we have captive don’t check in twice daily, then Pedro will know something has gone a miss. Thankfully for us, Matteo has hacked into one of their phones and is able to make these check–ins without the captive’s cooperation. So, all we need to do now is prepare and execute a plan of attack, one of which Mom and I are apparently able to participate in.
