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The fact that a mole existed within my organization only fueled my anger and determination to unearth the traitor who had jeopardized our operations and risked the lives of my employees.
My journey through the city led me to the underground club, Sinner’s Paradise, a place known only to those who operated on the fringes of society and interestingly enough, the place where I had first met the innocent Audrey Sanders.
As I entered, I was greeted by a diverse group of individuals—my personal network of informants, The Whisper. These were people I had helped in the past, individuals with ties to both high and low society, who had become invaluable sources of information.
Their leader, Akira, who I’d learned was an acquaintance of Audrey’s, led and mediated the conversation. His access to information slightly surpassed that of Anton’s Aryol or Vlad’s news networks.
My interactions with The Whisper were always efficient and calculated, each word chosen with care as I sought their insights. They had been the ones who provided the names of the leaders of the Bianchi factions. When I posed the question of Salvatore’s whereabouts, their response was grim—he had vanished from their radar. His attack on my compound had been a calculated maneuver, a bid to slip away unnoticed. This wasn’t a good thing. If The Whisper knew nothing about his location, no one in the city did.
The revelation that Mario Bianchi, Salvatore’s older brother, was leading a manhunt for his sibling wasn’t lost on me.
“The attack on my compound was too significant for Mario to ignore,” I muttered, half to Akira, half to myself, the pieces of the puzzle slowly coming together.
“Keep an eye out for new movement and inform me as quickly as possible,” I instructed and was preparing to leave when Akira called me into a private VIP room. His aura changed and I could sense his real personality coming forth, which was often heralded by the peculiar way he cocked his head when speaking.
“What is it, Akira?” I wasted no time in breaking the silence. Every second Salvatore was out there in the open, the possibility of another surprise attack loomed large. I knew he was a man cornered, abandoned and hunted by his family as the city scoured the streets in search of him. It was just a matter of time until he was caught, and I knew he knew that too. The big question was what he was going to do because of that.
“Well?” I asked again, my eroding patience evident in my voice. Akira simply sauntered around the room, suffused with dim purple lights that gave the place a sensual quality.
Finally, he threw himself onto a chair and said slowly, “Do you know Salvatore Bianchi is madly in love with Audrey Sanders?”
The question was sudden and threw me slightly off-balance.
“I suspected,” I replied, trying to keep my responses as terse as possible to prevent him from gleaning anything from my words. His eyes glanced at me with a certain cold distance and he immediately turned his visual attention upward and closed his eyes.
“Well, he is, but you just can’t imagine to what extent. The man’s an avid reader, a true romantic and a sociopath. I imagine he’s the type to burn the world for the love of his life.” Akira’s words became drawn and his voice was now low. Listening to him required my every attention.
“All the more reason why he has to be stopped,” I said in response.
“I agree. Spending more time with Charlotte and Claire, Audrey’s best friends, and seeing just how much they care about her, I realized that any unfortunate news about Audrey would seriously break them and they might not recover from it,” Akira said, his eyes still fixed to the ceiling but his voice revealing the emotions buried in his heart.
Under the violet lights, I saw a powerful man who had given in to the inescapable power of love, and it reminded me of myself. “And I know I too would rather burn the world than lose any of my lovers. You see, Ivan, I too am a true romantic,” Akira added, leaning forward to face me.
I knew his talk was leading somewhere and it was most definitely important, but Akira dragged the conversation to an interminably long degree. I just had to endure patiently.
“So as a result of that, I decided to make some moves, a couple of preparations to set the ball rolling in the eventual defeat of Salvatore.” His widened eyes fixated on me, unswervingly peering into my heart.
“What kind of moves, Akira?” There was something about the way he said the words that got me worried.
“I decided to open The Whisper’s channels, offering our services to the outside underground world so that—”
“And who gave you the right to do that?” my voice roared. “You might be the head of The Whisper but I am still its leader. Everything goes through me first.”
He sighed, a sense of disappointment laden in his gestures. “Perhaps, but your control over us isn’t absolute.”
“What did you just say? You’re forgetting your place, Akira. With a single call, I could have you disappear from the face of the earth,” I barked harshly, but his only response was a shrug before he leaned back on his cushioned seat.
“When you say that, do you mean the way you made your younger brother, Mikhail, vanish from the planet, or are you just using a euphemism?” he asked after a minute of silence.
What did he just say? How could he have known about that?
“Don’t worry, I’m not threatening your power in this city or anything. I’m not your enemy either. The Whisper is simply a tool for you to use.” He halted before continuing, “I set a trap for Salvatore like I said, and now we wait to see if he’ll fall for the bait.”
“What trap was that? What bait?”
“You’ll see when he bites it,” was Akira’s only reply. He had used The Whisper’s powerful information network to set up a trap in the city. In the state Akira was in, I knew there was no way to get the information out from him unless he wanted to divulge it himself. I just had to be patient and trust that his plan would be a success.
With gratitude for The Whisper’s assistance, I departed the club, my thoughts consumed by the unfolding situation. There was still some strange foreboding in the air, a chill thatportended some dark tragedy. The wind gave an eerie howl, chiming in the prophetic aura that pervaded my surroundings. I couldn’t quite make sense of it, but time wasn’t on my side to decode whatever singular emotion was trying to take hold of me.
