Special Agent | ✓

Sixteen

SIXTEEN

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They decided to leave Paris the following day. An Agency jet would ship them to Venice, landing at the Venice Marco Polo airport before shuttling into the city center by boat. Quinn had never visited Venice before, which thrilled her immensely.

There are no skeletons in my closet, here. I'm free!

Paris haunted her with memories. She'd been a confused, young woman — one who hadn't found a solid footing in her own identity until Hypatia had basically raised her. She had them to thank, glueing together the broken pieces from her subpar childhood. Otherwise, she would've been lost in a word of 'La Lettre R', succumbing to booze and drugs. It was not a nice place, though it displayed itself as a semi-classy burlesque club, it offered more .. private dances.

Quinn did not want to go back. She'd untangled herself from that web seconds before it was too late, only moments from becoming one of the girls employed in the dark net of prostitution.

Don't look back, Quinn. You're at the Agency now. You're Quinn O'Reilly.

And now, Quinn O'Reilly was in Venice. They'd chauffeured themselves to the Charles-de-Gaulle airport, and the jet had flown them to Venice. Quinn spent the plane ride eagerly draining a large cup of black coffee, eyes shifting over thousands and thousands of words from the Venice Files.

She knew it was an economical trace. They'd found suspicious transactions, ones Jaeger had attempted tracking. She'd one a bloody good job, better than Quinn would've done, but all of the pieces were not entirely put together. Not yet.

Whatever we're looking for, it's in Venice.

They could track down the actual banks, and force the identities of the account holders. In an ideal world, they would do that online, but most crooks made accounts upon accounts upon accounts to keep the money within reach but out of sight — everything to protect their names. No one wanted to be traced back to dirty money, after all.

Quinn was busy finding out how to trace someone from dirty money, but had come up empty as of yet. As they landed, she relayed that information to Gavin.

"We're going to the banks, then."

"Yeah. You speak Italian?"

"Davidson does," Gavin noted. He tilted his head Scott's way, and the other Special Agent had shoved his hands in his pockets, a gruff look on his face, "Don't mind his expression. He's had some bad experiences in Venice."

"On a mission?"

Locke's grin was brief, but blinding, "No. On dates."

Quinn blinked, eyes darting to Scott. She slowed unconsciously, studying the buff agent who looked splendid in a leather jacket and low-slung jeans.

A hand on her lower back nudged her, pushing her forward alongside Gavin again. His jaw was tensed as he spoke, throat bobbing:

"So, what're these banks?"

Quinn rattled off the names of a few, in what was probably a very bad version of Italian. She'd tried reading up on the language, had caught the basics, but wouldn't dare insult any Italians by attempting to stretch her abilities any further.

"Most of them are just shell banks, connected in a large web of fake-front accounts and institutions to keep the money moving at all times." Quinn continued, keeping pace with Locke with quick strides, " — this usually means they're operated by one main guy, so it's a low chance you'll find anything at their listed addresses."