It's her

Celeana barely heard them over the roaring in her head.

Blue eyes.....

long black hair....

No, it wasn't clarissa, justin's looking for, it's her. she didn't know whether to be happy that justin remembered her or worried that he will find her. But, she thought he would forget her. She hoped he would forget her and forgive her. But some small part of her was happy. After so many years, justin still remembered her.

Don't be delusional, a logical voice whispered inside her mind. What if he's looking for you, so he could have his revenge. You made a fool out of him after all.

She shut out that thought. she shut out everything related to him. Later, she would dwell on all that later. For now, the meeting is important. She watched helen open a series of voice recordings.

"I don't exactly understand why he recorded these calls" helen said scrolling through them. "Some of these are normal calls, with his family members, friends and colleagues."

"And the others?" cassian asked.

"Listen" she said, clicking on the recording.

'Hello sir' a gruff male voice said.

'Did you find anything?' Another male voice.

'No sir, as far as we know, steve didn't spend the money on lands.'

'Then what is he doing with the money? Such a large amount of money, but he isn't spending it on anything useful. He's not spending them on lands, he's not trying to buy small companies either and he's not even spending them on himself. Then where are the money going?'

'I too don't understand what he's doing with the money. We still can't track his bank accountants and the details about the funds are also being kept secret. There isn't a whisper of them in the company. But there's something going on sir. '

'Damn it. Master is already pissed since his return to america and now this. I don't think he'll like it if I say we haven't found anything.'

'We're sorry sir'

'Alright. Follow steve closely and his uncle too.'

'Yes sir. We have people waching them all the time.'

'good'

"By master, he means justin?" rose asked. Helen nodded.

"So justin wants to find out what steve's doing with the money." Cassian said.

"Why did he save these calls?" zayne asked, his brows furrowed. Helen shook her head.

"I don't know. These calls date back to 5 years."

"5 years?" cassian asked incredulous. "If it's 5 years back, then it probably has nothing to do with our mission. Didn't commander tell us this was a recent incident?"

"Commander found out about the recent incident" cristina corrected him. "Just because he found out about it recently doesn't mean it started happening recently."

"Besides, we knew about this slave trade a year before all this happened."

helen said " Who knows since how long this has been happening?"

"Did you find something in the calls that's related to our mission?" zayne asked.

"Just a guess, but listen to this first" helen said, clicking on the recording again.

'Sir'

'Yeah, I'm in a meeting. Is this important?'

'Yes sir. It's about steve'

'Okay wait'

Silence. The voice spoke again after some time.

'Tell me'

'The funds steve has been contributing to triumvirate aren't from heron entertainment.'

'What?'

'Steve's uncle is transferring those funds sir. We still don't know what steve is doing with all the money he is getting from heron entertainment, but I'm sure those aren't the funds he's contributing to the company. He's using the heron entertainment for something else while steve's uncle is transferring the money they're supposed to give.'

'But where would he find such large amounts of money? It's not like he has a job other than sticking around with steve.'

'We don't know sir. But there's definitely something fishy sir. Steve's uncle has been receiving a lot of money from some one. We traced it back to russia. But we couldn't find out who it was.'

'So steve's been lying to his father. That's why master's been so adamant about not giving heron entertainment to steve.'

'Maybe master can talk to the chairman? Tell him about steve's uncle and stop steve before he does something stupid?'

'Don't be ridiculous. If master had that much sway over his father he would've already kicked steve out of their family. But you know how it is in their home. The chairman would've happily handed over the triumvirate to steve, if the board members agreed.'

'Yeah. I'm sorry sir'

'Atleast we got to know something. It's better than nothing. I'll tell master about this, but keep on investigating.'

'Yes sir'

"I still don't understand how it's related our mission" Az blurted as the recording ended.

"Think about it az, to kidnap that many girls, and to keep them secured without anyone's noticing, they'll need a lot of people, and people don't come cheap. They need money for this, very large amount of money." Celeana said, her eyes on the screen.

"And heron entertainment is a very successful company, maybe he is using the money the to keep the girls" zayne said finishing her thoughts.

"But what will he gain from that?" rose asked.

This time it was cristina who answered, an edge to her voice.

"Maybe he's selling the girls and showing that money as heron's funds and keeping the remaining money to himself. Girls are expensive after all." helen glanced at her, though cristina's eyes are on the screen. After a moment of silence, rose asked,

"So, justin is out of picture then?"

"Of course not. This is just our speculation. we might all be wrong. Like I said, we have no way of confirming if what we know is right or wrong."

"At least one thing is clear. Wlliam favor's steve more than justin. At least now we know the herondales really don't get along." sam said. Celeana gave a nod.

"That's all?" she asked helen.

"There's another recording, between them but they only spoke for a minute. This department's head asked the other person to stop investigating and head back to USA, when he asked why, he just said 'master wants you back there, there's something going on over there'" helen turned around from the screen. "Thats all I managed to find out from that data. These are the recordings of two weeks. After that, none. There is other data on his phone about deals and all, but nothing related to our mission. Though there's a number in his phone under the name master but I don't know if it's really justin's number."

"So why don't we call and check?" az asked.

"No" zayne said, firmly. "I don't want justin to get any suspicions. He's dangerous." Celeana knew it cost him aomething to say that.

"I can try hacking his mail. It might be justin's or not, but it's worth a try." cristina offered.

"Okay, but be careful. Do not alert him at all." zayne said. she nodded.

"So, what now?" cassian asked.

"It all comes down to one question really." helen paused. "We find who's behind this, we find out the location of the girls, or the mission goes to hell." she said flatly.

Celeana's lips curved up.

"The question is how do we do that?" she asked aloud.