Everyone Has Secrets
(Back in London, night time)
Ding!
The sharp sound of a notification ringtone rang out accompanied by a buzzing vibration came from Snow’s clothes, startling him from his thoughts.
Instinctively, he reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his own phone. Dead. The screen was black and lifeless.
“What the hell?” His brows pulled together.
If it wasn’t mine, where did the buzz come from?
Ding!
The vibration thrummed again through the fabric of his clothes and Snow stilled, stopping in his tracks. Although Snow held his dead phone in his hand, he still felt a vibration coming from his clothes. Unless…
He quickly shoved his phone back in his trouser pockets and tapped around the coat Sulien had draped over him earlier that day which was still faintly warm around his shoulders. His hand stilled when he tapped against a hard surface in the lower left pocket.
Snow dug his hand deep into the pocket, his fingers pressed into the lining until it came in contact with something smooth and hard. He pulled it free and his breath caught.
It was a sleek black phone of XY brand, much heavier than his own. And of course, none other than Sulien’s.
Snow gently turned it over slowly, his throat tightening. Why the hell is this with me? He flipped it over again. Don’t tell me he actually forgot this? How the fuck can he be that careless?
He tapped the screen and it lit up at his touch. A lockscreen appeared. What he saw was different from what he had expected. If he really was the Sulien Vexley from the underworld, the great don, then wouldn’t that reflect in his things? Instead of an intimidating wallpaper as his lockscreen, what greeted him was quite ordinary. A normal picture of Sulien… feeding a cat.
Snow’s stomach twisted in disbelief, apart from the small cat in the picture, he couldn’t believe that Sulien would use his picture at the wallpaper. Wasn’t that screaming ‘hello, I’m Sulien’s phone’?
A banner slid across the screen. It was a message from someone.
Orlov Fox: Evening
“Orlov…?” Snow muttered under his breath. For some reason, the name sounded familiar.
Without much thought, he swiped up. Locked. Of course it was. He didn’t believe a person could be that careless. He looked at the pattern pass-code that prevented him from accessing the phone and tried a generic pattern.
A square. Wrong. An L shape. Wrong. A zigzag. Still wrong.
“Motherf-” Snow cursed and huffed a faint, mocking laughter under his breath.
He was about to power it back down, toss the phone back into the coat, and forget all about it for now when it buzzed again in his hand.
Orlov Fox: I may have lead to the ghostheir. Still don’t want to meet up?
Snow froze. His blood ran cold. He stared at the message long and hard, his finger still hovering over the screen even after the screen turned black. The word ghostheir seemed to burn itself into his mind.
His heart filled up with curiosity. What did Orlov Fox mean by that? Did they know something? Someone?
Snow exhaled shakily, forcing himself to move. He chucked the phone into the coat pockets and walked quickly to his apartment, looking over his shoulder every now and then, half-expecting Sulien’s pale eyes to appear from the dark.
By the time he stepped into his flat, the streets had become very dark. Inside his home, the first thing he did was take off his shoes and shove his own phone onto the charger. The glow of the screen flickering to life calmed him down. Notifications flooded in. He scrolled through them absently, most of them were from Jamie and the others were from classmates or spams. He ignored them all.
Snow typed out a quick message to someone and didn’t reread it before hitting send. Only when the delivery tick appeared did he let out a sigh of relief. He dropped the phone onto his desk and leaned back against the wall, his hand unconsciously brushing the coat again, as if to reassure himself the other phone hadn’t simply vanished into thin air.
“Found a lead to the ghostheir, huh?” Snow scoffed while rubbing his temples.
He placed Sulien’s phone on the side along with his and shoved the card Sulien gave him in his trouser pockets, then took off the coat, tossing it aside. Snow walked over to the living room’s sofa and sank in it. He lay back, exhaustion pulling at his limbs, but his thoughts were restless. Eventually, his head dipped, eyelids heavy, then he fell into an uneasy sleep.
Snow didn’t sleep for long when the shrill buzz of the doorbell dragged him back to consciousness.
He blinked lazily. Still a little disoriented, he dragged himself up and towards the door. He opened the door to find a man waiting. The blonde man stood almost a head taller than Snow, with arms tucked in his puffer coat, the man inclined his head.
“Sir,” the man greeted softly.
“Oh, you’re here.” Snow paused, rubbing his eye. Then he jerked his chin toward the desk. “It’s over there. Get it done.”
The man nodded once and slipped inside, setting a sleek laptop down on the desk. There was a slight scraping of a chair and then the soft clacking of keys on the keyboard as he worked, the glow of the screen painting his face in cold light.
Snow shut the door behind him, walked to the kitchen, and poured himself a glass of water, the coolness soothing against the dryness in his throat. On his way back, he caught a glimpse of the man at the desk, his fingers flew quickly across the keyboard, the glow of a laptop screen flickering against his face. The screen shifting with data too fast for him to read from a distance. He didn’t stop to pry. He let the man do his job without disturbance.
Snow lingered for a beat, then said evenly, “I’m going to bed.”
The man gave a brief nod, not lifting his eyes from the work.
Snow turned away, walked down the living area and into his room. He shut the bedroom door, set the glass of water on the nightstand, and collapsed onto the bed.
He lay with limbs stretched out on the bed. He dug his hand into his pocket and brought out Sulien’s card. Looking at the card in his hand, he thought: tomorrow, he would go to the Vexley estate. The phone would be returned, along with the coat.
“I didn’t expect I’ll be giving you a visit so soon, Sulien. Vexley.”
The Author Has Something To Say
XL: Your carelessness baffles me. How can you leave your things behind?
Sulien: Help me return them.
XL:…You want me to return them?
Sulien: I want you to return yourself with them.