206. WHO?

206. WHO?
KADE
I watched as Dante and Xavier took their turns torturing the guy before us. Zaley seemed utterly bored. Kai looked disappointed because men these days have become softened and hardly torture a guy.
I have no clue why these two people insisted on coming with me.
“I will talk. I will talk. I will talk,” the guy whose name is Phill sobbed after losing a finger.
Just a finger. In my view, the torture hasn’t begun yet.
“During my prime, I would break a guy in ten minutes. They took fifteen.” Kai shook his head in disbelief as if he didn’t understand how he recruited Dante and Xavier into his outfit.
I ignored him. Completely.
And walked to where Phill was tied down.
“I am just a part-timer there.” Phil started to talk.
“There?”
He nodded, “At the bar. Someone approached me. The job is simple. Offer some kind of coupon for a couple.”
“I am sure they erased all the CCTV footage in the bar,” Zaley muttered from behind.
“I am sure you will still have a way to find out who approached Phill.” He smirked in return.
“So you will pretend like you didn’t care about this incident?” He asked me.
“I don’t think it would work,” Xavier spoke for the first time after coming here.
“They would guess that you are trying to mislead them by posing as indifferent. They will become alert.”
“So, what do you suggest?” I asked him.
He thought for a moment.
“We don’t pretend. We search every corner, question every suspect, and find who made Seline go to that place, find their intent, and then, we punish them in the cruellest way possible. No one messes with our don. No one who touches his family is safe. We make a statement.”
Phil looked at Xavier in horror. Xavier looked stoic, built like a giant, and every word that came out of his mouth was how to torture a person.
Anyone would look scared.
Dante rested one of his elbows on Phil’s head and smirked, “Lad is trying hard to kiss your ass.” He commented.
Zaley sighed, murmuring how he hates dramas.
Two days later, he found out that the man who approached Phil was one of the Verricks.
Argh! I knew Alexander Verrick would become a pain in my ass. I never thought he would touch my family first. It’s high time I teach him a lesson.
The guy who approached Phil wasn’t the main guy either. That order came directly from Alexander Verrick’s uncle.
Just like Xavier had suggested, he died very painfully in his own territory.
That’s how I found myself, visiting Alexander Verrick in Ylumia for peace negotiations.
Ylumia would be perfect since neither one of us has control over the city. It has its own politics, and it has Zaley.
He thinks neither of us would dare to shed blood if it were a different area.

“I swear he looked like an anime character,” Dante whispered.
“He looks like he is twenty-five and not a year more or less.” It was Kirill. He became a bit chatty in the last week.
“He is eighteen.” Zaley silently said.
I snapped my head towards me. “He is what?”
“Eighteen.” He repeated.
“He is practically a kid. Why would you keep that kind of information with you? Why don’t you say a word before?”
Zaley looked bored. I swear, if I had run a knife through his face, he would still look bored.
“You thought he was nineteen. But he is eighteen. What difference does it make?”
“I am not negotiating with a kid,” I stated. I almost turned around when a black SUV approached us.
Dante grinned, “Time for drama. I wonder if he would whine.”
Four men stepped out of the SUV. Two of them were bodyguards. Both parties agreed that we would bring two guards with us.
Then an old man who looked over seventy stepped out.
And then came Alexander Verrick.
Damn it. He looked like an anime character.
Dante was grinning from ear to ear.
“Kade,” the old man was the first to meet. “I am Rowan Lennox. Alexander’s grandfather.” He stretched his hand.
For someone who looked so old, his handshake was firm and steady.
Alexander followed without uttering a word.
His grey eyes were sharp, cold, and far too observant for someone his age. He is just eighteen, yet he carries himself with the confidence of a man who has already buried enemies twice his age. There was no arrogance in him. No need to prove himself. He simply stood there beside Rowan Lennox with his hands behind his back, watching every person present as if memorising weaknesses.
I hated him immediately.
Mostly because Dante wouldn't stop grinning.
"Damn," Dante muttered. "The anime allegations were true."
I considered shooting him.
Rowan ignored all of us.
"Shall we?"
We entered the building.
The conference room had already been swept for weapons.
A pointless exercise.
Every person in the room was a weapon.
The old man settled into his chair slowly.
Alexander remained standing behind him.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
The old man folded his hands together.
"I'll start with the truth. The man who targeted your wife worked for us."
"The order came from our consiglieri."
I remained expressionless.
Inside, I was already deciding whether to start with breaking his legs or his hands.
"The man believed that your attachment to Seline Marcellous made you vulnerable."
The old fool wasn't entirely wrong.
"His intention was to create distrust between you. We don’t understand what happened there. It was your past, I am guessing. We are still investigating how he was able to know that before you killed him.”
"The consiglieri acted without informing Alexander. He really thought he could get to your wife."
Dante snorted.
Zaley looked bored.
The old man frowned.
"What?"
"You don't know Seline very well," Dante muttured.
The old man blinked. “We don’t touch women and children. The consiglieri is dead. The matter is closed on our side."
"No."
The single word echoed through the room.
The old man looked at me.
"The matter isn't closed."
"I know."
Silence followed.
"That is why I am here. The Verricks and your outfit have been enemies for decades."
"Generous description."
"The point remains."
"We need peace."
Nobody laughed.
Nobody mocked him.
Because everyone understood how much blood those two words could save.
"How?" Kai asked.
"Marriage."
The room became still.
Dante immediately grinned.
I immediately hated where this was going.
"Marriage?" I repeated.
"Yes."
The old man nodded.
"The oldest solution in history."
Alexander didn't react.
Not even slightly.
Like they had already discussed this.
"There are no suitable women in our generation." Dante pointed out.
"There aren't."
"There aren't any in yours either," Zaley added. He knows everything.
"There aren't."
The old man looked far too calm.
Which immediately made me suspicious.
Then Rowan looked directly at me, "Not today.”
I didn't like that.
Not even a bit.
"Then when?"
“When she comes of age."
The room fell silent.
A silence so heavy that even Dante stopped smiling.
Something cold settled in my stomach.
"Who?" I asked.
Rowan answered immediately.
"Hana."