Matthias eyes his men, who all shake their heads.
“I’m not sure.”
“Great,” Kenzi huffs. She grabs her phone from her pocket and hits speed dial.
“What’s up, Kenzi?” Mark’s voice fills the alleyway on her speakerphone. “Kinda busy.”
“Aren’t we all,” she drawls. “When you were monitoring the comm lines near the club, did you pick up on anything?”
“Nah,” Mark denies. “There wasn’t any chatter on any frequencies in the area. Just the hangar and the bar. Why?”
“You’re sure you didn’t hear anything at all?” Kenzi questions further. “Not just voices. Any kind of tapping or tones that didn’t quite make sense?”
Mark’s silence is all the confirmation we need.
“Well, there was this kind of…beeping sound that was embedded in the radio frequency, but it was random. It sounded like it anyway.”
“Did it sound a little like Morse code?” she asks him. “Long beeps and short beeps.”
“Yeah, a bit, but I thought it was just static,” he tells her. “I thought it could have been Morse code at first, but none of the words would have made any sense.”
“Perfect. Thank you for your help.”
“Wait—” She hangs up on him.
“They’re called Timbres,” she breathes, one hand white-knuckling her cell phone while her empty hand clenches and unclenches at her side. Kenzi is scared. “I don’t know much about them, just that they’re deadly. Rumors floated around that they’ve wiped out whole corporations in bloody massacres, leaving no trace behind.”
“So what?” Vas scoffs. “Only mutes can apply? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Those soldiers aren’t born mute, idiot.” Kenzi’s eyes darken, lips turning up in a sneer. “Their tongues are cut out when they’re recruited.”
“By choice?” Maksim balks, licking his lower lip.
Kenzi bobs her head. “Some of them,” she concedes. “Others are forced into recruitment depending on their skills evaluation.”
“But why cut out their tongues?”
“When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it,” Kenzi recites.
Dante smiles down at his daughter. “Jean de LaBruyère.”
“I am so confused right now,” Vas admits.
“It means that whoever employed them ensured they wouldn’t be able to spill their secrets,” Dante explains. “That must be why Mark heard the beeping sound over the comm frequency. It’s how they communicate.”
“I’m not sure what it is, but Mark was right when he said it wasn’t Morse code.”
Matthias shrugs. “Morse code can be easily changed to meet someone else’s needs as long as the people who are receiving it know it as well.”
“Great,” Maksim grumbles. “Now we have to worry about someone powerful enough to send deadly mute assassins after us. Just what we need.”
“What you all need right now is to shower.” My father shakes his head. “We can discuss everything later. These bodies need to get taken down to the funeral home to be burned, and I need to get boards up over the windows in the front.”
“Come, Ava.” Matthias takes my hand and pulls me along beside him toward the door that leads to the kitchens.
“Jaysus,” my father hollers. “Can’t you take the back stairs and not track blood through my bar?”
“Bill me for it, old man,” Matthias hollers back, but I don’t miss how he veers off to the left toward the back stairwell.