Neon Lights

51

Telling Angelo about what he... what Draven had found was not easy. It was with great hesitation and confusion that Callisto relayed what he had been told to the other man, heart racing against his chest as he waited for a response.

Angelo was leaning against the wall, both in the small space in the emergency staircase. He was staring right at Callisto. The silence that had enveloped them both did nothing for his nerves. The silver-haired man in the end hummed, breaking the quiet that was threatening to suffocate Callisto.

"Right..." he said. "I suspected she to be doing something like that."

"You did?" Callisto frowned when Angelo tipped his head back and then smiled. "Of course you did."

"Of course I did." Angelo didn't hide the glee in his words. "I just needed someone to double check for me."

Callisto could almost throw hands at how infuriating this man was. The glint in those colourful eyes thought stopped him from doing just that. The last thing he wanted was to turn into an amusement circus for him. Shoving his hands in his lab coat, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"I guess my job's done then?" Callisto said, hoping that he was right.

Angelo shrugged. "I guess so. Thanks, little lamb."

"Not a..." Callisto decided to not correct him. It wasn't a good thing to correct him anyway. What if he thought they were friends all of a sudden? He didn't know how his mind worked. "I'm going to go."

Angelo had dragged him out of the meeting room, leaving Rye alone with Jean. And he was already nervous leaving his friend behind. Angelo hummed as he pushed himself from the wall and closed the distance between them.

"Hold on," he said, his piercing eyes stopping Callisto in his tracks. "Have you met Xiao yet?"

Callisto opened his mouth before he closed it. He tried to gauge why Angelo was asking that but the man was an expert at having a blank face when he wanted to. "No, not yet," Callisto said.

"You should be quick," Angelo said, the smile no longer on his face. The serious look on his face was uncomfortable. Callisto frowned. "Your sister is moving again and the longer you wait, the sooner you'd lose her track."

Callisto's heart almost stopped beating at those words. "Do you..."

"Have more intel on your sister?" Angelo said. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe." It was clear he wasn't going to give away the information. "Ask Draven to see me tonight... or any day this week. I need to discuss some things with him regarding the new location for my store."

"Me?" Callisto said, his throat drying when Angelo smiled.

"You." Angelo stood straight. "And if you do this for me, maybe I'll slip in the convo with him about your sister's next move."

"That's not fair."

"Fair?" The humour in his words were hard to hear. His sister's disappearance wasn't a funny thing to him. "No, definitely not fair. But that's not my problem, is it?"

"I did something you asked." Callisto curled his fingers that were in his pockets.

Angelo searched his face for a second before his eyes flickered into a different colour again. The smile was still on his face but there was something sharp in the way he was gazing Callisto.

"You did do something I asked yes," Angelo said. "But that's got nothing to do with this." He took a step closer to Callisto, his figure now looking intimidating. "Tell Draven this and we've got a deal, alright?"

Callisto almost stopped from saying 'If I don't?'. The warning look in those colourful eyes deterred him from running his mouth. In the end, he was left alone in the empty space without the other man's imposing aura. He released a soft breath, trying to shake himself out of that power play he had been subjected to.

He was always one step closer to his sister and then not.

Pulling out his phone from his right pocket, he opened his text to Draven. Once again, he needed the other man's help here.

'Angelo wants to see you tonight and... I think we should go see Xiao this week.'