Ray

Austin signaled me to check my phone, then followed Ha Ri outside. Behind me, April spoke, her voice barely above a whisper from weakness.

“Get out,” she whispered softly. I disappointed her again, actually, I didn’t, but my dear friend did. No wonder how much he told her.

“Gave a thought to my proposal,” I spoke, and she smirked in the answer.

“I’ll never marry you! So, take that proposal with you and just get out.” she said in a weak voice, curling up on her stomach. She is in pain. She had no energy to even raise her voice. I stepped out of her apartment and pulled out my phone from my pocket, and a message from Austin bleeped on my screen.

“Lighthouse, 12’o o'clock”. Before I go, I called some of my men to guard her apartment. She will not take my help, but I can’t leave her alone.

I drove my car to the hospital where Gimema had been admitted. I want to ask her something. My intuition is bugging me. I entered the hospital room where I found Sheng dozing off on a chair, and Gimema, sitting on the bed, watching cartoons on the screen. As her body was covered in bandages, her head was completely covered with a scarf. I always respected her beliefs.

She didn’t meet my eyes, but I knew she knew that I had come. I took a quick look at her condition, and she seemed fine. 

I recall that I told Sheng to shoot her if she tried to run away, but I didn’t expect him to cuff her with one hand in bed. It makes me smile at the view. 

“It makes me so happy to see that you're receiving princess treatment,” I said while stepping closer. She took a long, deep breath and answered me without meeting my eyes.

“Do you think these cuffs and your lousy bodyguard would have stopped me if I tried to run away?” she said in a low voice. It makes my lips curl up in a smirk because I know what she is saying is true. 

“Then why didn’t you?” I asked.

“I deserve princess treatment,” she said, and we both fell into a soft chuckle. The sight of her covered up in bandages made me recall the first time I saw her at the meeting with Barry Smith, along with my uncle, many years ago. She was serving everyone as Barry's mistress, a 17-year-old girl. She and her mother flew from Afghanistan but got sold off to Mr. Smith. She went through a lot. I share my sympathies with her, so that’s why I made two great deals that night with Mr. Smith, including her. Then I brought her to the training headquarters in Moscow.

She chose this path to hunt down all those who raped and killed her mother, as well as Barry. I built my personal allies within the organization; it was necessary. Gemima was the second loyal friend of mine after Austin and also one of the kind in our organization, she is skilled with knives and moves like a shadow. That is what my intuition is bugging me with, that she could kill April in the first blow, then why did she drag the fight?

It was a strange silence in the room when she whispered,

“You saved my life once, Ray,” she said and looked at me with the corner of her eye.

 “And so I’m returning this favor to you.” She stopped and told me to grab her phone for her. I handed the phone to her, and in seconds, my phone buzzed with notifications. 

“I was planning on telling you after we made the deal in Tokyo, but before that, this all happened,” she said, and my anticipation rose. 

“Miller, He knows something about April. He sent April to my party because he knows that I have all the information on every person who is invited to my party. I knew who April was, so I realized there must be someone at the party who was keeping an eye on me. So I drag the fight to the basement to give him what he wants.” She said, and I immediately reached for the answer she’s about to add.

“he’s been working with someone else outside our society for years. I was in doubt, so I put a tail on him and found out that he was blackmailing someone over phone calls in search of some kind of boxes. I dug in deep and found out that he was the one who caused Mr. Diego's death, and there was another person who might be related to April”. She stopped, and my head was puzzled even more. My throat froze at the realization because it was my uncle who killed April’s aunt, and he didn’t know about Miller; he doesn’t pay attention to small members like Miller. Besides, he didn’t pay attention to anything now since I took over his succession. He only keeps an eye on me. Then, how come Miller was blackmailing her? On whose orders? I am missing something, A piece of the Puzzle. 

Who is it? Who is involved with Miller? Not my uncle, then who is it? Someone was tailing her aunt way before, and I didn't know. Fuck how can I miss these things? I tightened my fists and clenched my jaws to keep it under control. 

“Where is he now?” I asked her

“After the last FBI raid, he was pissed off, didn’t attend the party, must’ve been with his family,” she said, and I walked towards Sheng, who was sleeping like a snail on the couch. I woke him up with a light kick, and he jolted awake in seconds.

“Sheng, let's go, we are going” I said and turned to leave in hurried steps, then recalled something and turned towards her again.

“Thank you,” I whispered. She nodded and smiled. Before we came out, Sheng stopped and remembered that he needed to uncuff her.

“It’s okay, go on, I uncuffed it 2 hours ago already,” she said, and Sheng looked towards me with puffy eyes. Sheng hit the road towards a lighthouse, but on the road, I called Arthur. 

“Find Miller and bring him to the lighthouse,” I hung up the call. He attempted to kill April without getting involved. That Asshole, I will kill him with my hands! Suddenly, a wave of concern washed over me about April. 

I shouldn’t have left her alone.  

We reached a lighthouse and we left our car way farther than it. It's an abandoned lighthouse built in the 90s for navigation, but later on, my father bought this little piece of land, and it's now the Wallace group’s property. 

“Sir, what are we doing here?” Sheng politely asked me, but my temperament was not in its place at the moment.

“Bar B Q party sheng” I replied sarcastically, and he got annoyed. He hates suffocated, dark, wet places.

I reached the base of the lighthouse, where the rocks were wet and slippery with saltwater.

“Turn on your phone’s torch,” I told him. As the light cut through the dark, a hidden detail appeared—a moss-covered steel panel. Behind it was a keypad.

I typed in the code. The numbers felt heavy with meaning, but the keypad responded with a soft beep. The ground rumbled, and to Sheng’s shock, a hidden elevator rose up, its door sliding open with ease.

I glanced at Sheng and saw his face light up with surprise. It was his very first time stepping into our secret hideout. “After you” I gestured to him and he got excited and nervous at the same time. He and I stepped in, our reflection staring back at us from the glass walls. The descent began, and the world above faded away. This hideout was made by Austin’s father and mine but what we turned this into is totally our work. 

The elevator was silent except for the faint hum of its mechanics. Outside, the ocean came alive. Pale light filtered down from the surface, growing dimmer with each passing second. The deeper we went, the darker it became, until the glow from the elevator was the only thing illuminating the water.

When the elevator stopped, the doors slid open with a hiss, revealing the hideout. We reached into the hallway and after a few steps approaching the hideout, I saw Sheng’s eyes brighten up in surprise, which made me smile. The walls were lined with screens, some as large as the walls themselves, others smaller and more compact. Streams of data flickered across them, satellite feeds, maps, encrypted codes, and news from all over the world. I stepped inside, my boots clicking against the metallic floor. 

In the middle of the room was a circular console that felt like the heart of the place. Floating screens above it showed all kinds of information, glowing softly in shades of blue and green. Around the console were chairs with headsets, touch-sensitive keyboards, and glasses that looked high-tech.

On the left wall, there was a giant map of the world. Bright dots moved across it, showing satellite paths, ship routes, and weather patterns. Every movement, every change, was tracked here;  the whole world was at my fingertips. To my right, there was a wall full of hacking systems. Screens showed endless lines of code, like flowing streams. Some zoomed in on data, while others displayed intercepted messages. The quiet hum of machines filled the air, making the power of this place feel alive. 

“Long time no see, Mr Wallace,” the teasing voice came from the hacking systems, a person in an oversized hoodie, messy hair twisted in a bun and secured up with a pencil, with heavy-tinted glasses sitting on the chair with a coffee cup. She was a twin of Austin. Elena, also known as “Ghostbyte,”. She was one of the world’s most elusive black hat hackers, and she earned this title because she slips through systems like a phantom.

“Hello, El, I thought you were dead, but here you are wasting another cup of coffee,” I said, walking towards her. She is still the same.

“I thought you’d never come. Did the world finally run out of disasters for you to cause?” she said and looked at Sheng behind me, “Who is this cute guy?” 

“Liu Sheng, he’s my bodyguard,” I said while looking at the screens. 

“Ooh, Asian, they didn’t look that good in porn.”

“Then you must take a look in person.” It was Sheng who replied to her, and his feisty reply made me smile, too. 

I turned to interrupt and said, “Would you let me have a look at my…”

“Your girl?” she completed and turned to sit down finally on her hot seat and her fingers started running on the keyboard like insects and a few minutes later she hacked into the CCTV camera of April’s apartment. She fell asleep on her couch, without any blanket. Careless! 

“Don’t do nasty things now that i’ll be watching” she whispered

“Do you think I would do in her apartment now that I know you’re watching?” I said and she glared from the corner of her eyes. 

“Jerk!” she said with a pout.

I was taking another look at her when Austin appeared behind me.

“Miller has not been found, nor his family” he informed me and I turned to see him. I noticed scratches on his hand.

“What happened?”

“Nothing” he said and I felt concerned but I have something else more important to be concerned about. With a swift sound, I heard the sound of boots coming from behind. 

“He is working with Nevan” it was Arthur's voice, that sounds weak. I turned to look and his condition shocked me to the core. He got injured by a bullet and blood was dripping from his arm. Austin ran to hold him as his steps got weak, and face got pale white. He drove in this condition and he lost a lot of blood. I ran towards another compartment where I kept all the medical essentials for aid, I'm barely holding on to my beating heart.

I take a look and gladly the bullet only injured his tricep muscles. Arthur was the youngest among us, it’s the first time he got injured like this then it must have really been Nevan’s men. I walked out of the room while they gave him the aid. That name was still ringing in my ears. 

“Who is this Nevan?” Austin asked me. He doesn’t know about it, only the members of crown organization knows who Nevan is. Each side of my head starts getting congested and painful, i took a long breath and answered him,

“Nevan Patrov, One of the many enemies of mine” i said and added “Uncle made a big deal with the CIA a few years ago, they wanted help from us to find a russian spy from whom the President of America was threatened and it may lead to a nuclear war, and in exchange, they gave us a great amount of money. My uncle assigned me to that, and I located him in Venice. My assignment was to find out about his plan and whereabouts. I managed to become friends with him, gained his trust, and figured out his plan of assassination. I found out that there was a girl in his life, and he wants to live with her if he stayed alive after this mission. I delivered the mission, and he draw his plan and managed to escape. Few months later, my uncle assigned me to kill the daughter of a Russian party spokesman, which I later found out that she had a love interest with Nevan which was quite secret." I stopped as the guilt was still fresh, “I didn't know about her” I said in a low voice that barely came out of my throat. 

“Why did he do that?” he asked. “Your uncle? Why did he do that to you even though you carried out his given orders correctly?” he asked me and i lifted my head to see outside the ocean from glass walls. I have the answer to that question and so does my uncle. I looked at him and seconds passed, his forehead lines eased up as he summarized everything.

“You gave the CIA wrong information about him? And your uncle knew” he answered his own question.

“yes I somehow divert from the orders and developed sympathy for him so I gave CIA the wrong orders so they won’t be able to catch him. He wants me to correct my mistake because I go against his orders,” I said and exhaled as did he.  

“We need a plan” he said while taking support with the glass wall. I know I need a plan because there is so much on my plate right now and I have a very precious thing on stake, that I can not afford to lose. 

“Guys miller’s family was on vacation and i guess they’re just about to land” El announced from the inside and we both headed towards her. One of the screens was showing records of flights that were about to land. 

“Your move Ray” Austin said and I looked at Arthur who gathered as well. 

“Me and austin will carry out only”

“Sir, come one! I’m fi…”

“Shut Up arthur you're not moving until you recover.” I cut him off because I could not take the risk. Nevan had grown his alliance, he is not just a spy anymore but I know how skilled he is. 

I turned to Austin.

“Okay here is the plan…” i said and take a pause because something else just popped up in my head so i cut in between and gave orders,  “Arthur i need you to find everything about Nevan, every tiny detail from all the past years and El “ 

“Yeah,” she quickly responded.

“Make sure we don't get caught in security cameras.”

“A glitch would do it” she said and got to work.

“Austin” I looked at him and he smiled, this asshole can never work without making a commotion.

“Strategic and no mess” I said by making it clear and obvious, and he showed his teeth. 

“Fine “ he responded and we walked out from the lighthouse.