Chapter 3: Mancini

"Sh*t, this is harder than I expected it to be." Now that they were all here, spread out around the room looking at me expectantly, I found that my well-planned words weren't as easy to say as I thought they would be. I should've remembered that I was dealing with men who are basically just like me to the core and what that would mean in a situation like this.

F*ck, I might as well start with the most difficult and work my way down. "Lyon, front and center." He was leaning against the wall, looking disinterested when not sneering at Thorpe, not sure why the fact that Gideon was dressed for the boardroom was bothering him, but then again, it doesn't take much.

"This isn't about the pandemic, is it?"

"No, sorry to get you here under false pretenses, but it was the best I could come up with on such short notice."

"Okay, who do you need me to kill?" There were more than a few snickers around the room, but I'm pretty sure he was serious.

"No one, I need you to listen to me without interruption." The room fell silent. I had all their attention. I never gave much thought to how this moment would feel; all of us gathered together under one roof for the first time since our ancestors were scattered around the world. I looked at all of them before my eyes came to settle on Colt again.

"Do you remember I started to tell you something back at your home? Then I said I needed to speak to your mother's friend first?"

"Yeah, what about it?" He was already getting edgy.

"Well, I'll finish the story now. What I'm about to say does not leave this room." I looked around the room until each of them acknowledged me with a nod of understanding.

"Give me a minute." I turned on my highly secure computer and tapped on a sequence of keys until the screen on the wall came on, and the faces came into view. The kids from California who wouldn't be here for another few days were gathered around a table in a secure location that I'd sent them to.

"Hi guys, thanks for answering the call."

"What's up, Mancini? Sorry, we couldn't get there with the others; Alex has a thing." Jace looked at his buddy Alex who just rolled his eyes and took a sip from his water bottle. They didn't know that I knew that his problem stemmed from him not willing to leave his girlfriend behind, and he couldn't bring her with him because her sixteenth birthday was still a few days away.

"It's no problem; everyone's here, so I'll get to it." I opened the drawer and removed the stack of folders I had hidden there. I passed the lot to Creed, who took one and passed the rest behind him until each of the men held one in their hands. "You boys can go ahead and open yours as well," I told Jace and his crew. "I'll wait for all of you to look them over before explaining further.

The grumbling started not five minutes later, and of course, it started with Lyon. "Dafuq, is this motion picture f*ckery Mancini? You been talking to Mengele and her little friends, I see."

"No, but it's funny; you should mention it. The group they stumbled upon coincidentally has something to do with the group you're now reading about. In fact, they were hunted by them back then the same way we're hunting this new group now."

"It says here that my maternal ancestor was part of this elite group. I've never heard my mother mention this sh*t before. They have the same deal in their little folders?" He nodded his head towards the others who were reading their own family history.

"Track!" I turned my attention to the screen. "As you can see, your ancestor was the best tracker of his time; not sure if that's why your dad gave you that name. He was also a direct descendant of the wealthiest man in the world and used his wealth to combat the theft and sale of human flesh back in the fifteenth century."

"It's not something history speaks of, but there were many who tried to combat that atrocity with their wealth. He was inducted into the group not only because of his extreme wealth but also because of his uncanny ability to track anyone and anything anywhere in the world."

"At a time when his people were being enslaved, he lived and moved among the world's elite doing his part to free as many stolen souls as he could." Another round of murmurs went around the room while on the screen, Jace and the others were high-fiving Track.

"Jace, it's good that you two found each other since, as you can see, one of your ancestors and that particular ancestor of his were pretty close as well. They were an oddity to some, being best friends the way they were back then, and traveled the world under many disguises and false pretenses in their bid to end the flow of human trafficking."

Now came the hard part, the part that has kept me up nights ever since I learned of it. "Lyon, according to hierarchy, your seat is here, at the head of the table. But since your mother's friend had a change of heart when she was sent to bring you in, you weren't given the training you were supposed to have. That, coupled with your temperament, is why I was given this seat. You have one year to take over, at which time I will be more than willing to give you your rightful place."

I turned my attention to the SEALs, who weren't saying anything. "I know that each of you had had a hard upbringing that your lives were sh*t before you joined up. If you all remember how you came to be in the Navy under your CO, then you'll see that it's not a coincidence that your forefathers were also a part of this elite group of men and women."

"I don't understand, how did we all find each other?" Tyler didn't seem convinced, and I guess I can understand that. The sh*t does seem a bit farfetched, but each of the men in this room was a descendant of the original Guard.

"There are no coincidences. You all gravitated towards each other in one way or another because of the bond that has transcended centuries."