Chapter 80: Her guts

“Do you really want to hear what I’m thinking?” Hazel asked while staring at Damien.

Damien gave a low laugh, “I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t want to hear.” He replied calmly.

But, Hazel just stared at him, not saying anything for a second.

Damien did not avoid her gaze and with that, they began a staring contest and the first to lose was finally Hazel.

She coughed awkwardly and averted her gaze, “Well, I just noticed that you’ve been smiling a lot more recently.”

Although she couldn’t see his face, she also wanted to add that he seemed better looking when he smiles. Because when he does, his heavy aura always softens, making people willing to finally get closer to him.

Of course, she wouldn’t say that out loud.

Hearing that, Damien, who didn't even realize that he had been smiling, was slightly surprised, but the surprise only flashed in his eyes before disappearing.

“So, will you tell me now?” He asked, intentionally ignoring her last statement.

“I think…”

Hazel was abruptly cut off mid-sentence when the doors to the halls opened again to reveal Killian.

“Alpha, I found someone who might know something.” Killian said, before turning sideways for a guard to walk into the hall.

“Bring him.” Damien gestured calmly, and Hazel also turned to look at the guard.

She doesn’t find him familiar, so she was curious to hear what he has to say.

Killian approached and as usual stood behind Damien, and the guard stood fearfully in front of them. He was a rough-looking man, with a slightly bronze skin.

“Speak, what do you know?” Damien addressed the guard in a calm tone.

The guard wrung his fingers together, seemingly nervous.

The guard’s name is Ben, and he was a friend to the guard who just died. To some extent, they are close and so, they share some information together.

After hearing that his friend had died and it was because of something that happened the previous night, Ben could not sit still.

Even though he knew that the consequences of sharing what he knows might come at the expense of his life, he still had to do it for his demised friend.

Ben steeled his mind and began firmly, “Alpha, I have an idea of what happened last night.”

It turned out that last night, Ben and Joan were together in their shared room doing their things when a maid came to call Joan and they left together.

Joan was a social butterfly, so Ben had not really thought much about it until Joan came back seemingly in a good mood.

Ben could remember asking him, “Jo, what makes you so happy? Could it be that Joselyn has finally agreed to be in a relationship with you?”

It was a known fact that Joan loves Joselyn, a young maid who was brought into the mansion with Matilda that year, and he is pursuing her. But Joselyn never gave him a response.

Joan had replied to him with, “Soon, I am very sure that when I make some achievement, especially with the one I’m planning now, she will see my potential and will not hesitate to choose me.”

Joan had boasted about this so-called achievement that Ben had been unable to resist asking him what he meant and what he had done.

“Let me tell you, I got a very good opportunity from Lady Mireya. If it works, I will introduce you to her.”

Ben had been very happy for long after that. For lowly guards like them, who had no real skills and prowess, they would remain guards forever but some of them were unwilling to resign to such fate.

So, they would look for opportunities here and there whether legal or illegal, in as much as it didn’t cross the boundaries of their morality.

Ben had curried favor with Joan that night, hoping Joan would remember him when his plan finally works out. That same night, they had already gone to sleep when another maid came to call Joan.

This time, it was Joselyn, the same woman Joan had been pursuing for years. Ben didn’t know what happened, but that Joan left with Joselyn. Ben had faintly heard Joselyn saying that Lady Mireya wanted to see them.

When he came back, he was drunk and completely disorientated, but as it was a normal thing for guards like them to vent their frustrations most of the time, Ben ignored Joan and continued sleeping.

Until this morning when a few maids and guards were summoned and Joan was part of them. The first thing Ben thought about was that what Joan did the previous night had boomeranged and he told Joan about it.

But Joan wasn’t so worried, saying that nothing could go wrong.

Yet, Joan lost his life to a poison.

When Ben heard the news, he was so shocked that he broke out to cold sweat. He had been with Joan for a while and he would be lying if he said they were not some good feelings between them.

Everything that happened was because Joan took a job from Lady Mireya. Ben, who had always been smart, linked some dots and concluded that his friend’s death had something to do with Lady Mireya.

And the best person he could tell the matter to was the Alpha.

It was only when Ben had made up his mind to come when he heard the truth about what happened last night and how Hazel was almost assaulted. Ben had almost hesitated to speak, he was afraid that he would be used as an example or something of such, but after that, he still made up his mind to come.

When Ben finished explaining, the whole hall fell into a strange silence that even the sound of a pin drop would be heard.

“Are you saying that the person Joan worked for is Mireya?” Damien asked, his voice slightly cold.

He had suspected that Mireya had something to do with the matter, but he never knew she had such guts to go to the extreme.