Page 72 of Cruel Fate

And on the inside was my little paradise.

I used the biggest wall as a whiteboard. A red thread connected all the evidence I had so far. With Davorin’s picture in the middle, it was now more entangled than before. He had a picture of himself with another big man in a criminal organization across from the place where he supposedly killed those people.

Something about that was… wrong.

It was highly unlikely that it was a coincidence. I didn’t believe in them, anyway. Nothing was making sense; there were no connections. The rabbit hole was way too deep, and I found myself struggling to get out of it.

The more I thought about it, the less rational it became. Soon enough, it was all that consumed my thoughts. Even in classes, all I thought about was Davorin. He was in my dreams, too, sometimes as a hallucination. I almost made a slip up and talked to the hallucination whilst having a meal with Aleksei. Thank fuck I managed to compose myself in time.

I wasn’t giving up on finding answers; however, I couldn’t do much, and that angered me.

The absolute last resort was the dark web.

For four days straight, all I did was surf through it, sleep, and repeat. I lived on instant noodles, takeout, and a lot of alcohol. Perhaps that was the moment I truly developed my alcohol addiction. Prior to that, I wasn’t usually a heavy drinker.

All I needed was someone who knew someone that was involved in this.

So, with the help of Xenia, I posted an ad.

I hid my IP address well. Even if someone managed to find it, the condo was in Aleksei’s name, and I doubted they’d want to fuck with him. Then, all I did was wait. It felt like an eternity had passed, but, in reality, it was only a week.

I offered ten thousand dollars for a single piece of information, then changed it to twenty-five once no one took the bait. It was insufferable. It was devastating. It was as if my entire world was slowly crashing down, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

From what I’d heard about the inside of the prison, Davorin was doing well. He had a few incidents that weren’t fatal before quickly becoming a part of the roughest crew on the inside. He didn’t stand out, he merely listened to the boss—although he hated that—and kept quiet.

If anything, he was looking for a way to escape.

I had the idea of masking myself as a guard for one shift and going in to see him; however, I would’ve stuck out like a needle in his eye. He was observant like that, and that would’ve blown all of this out of proportion before it was time.

Then, yesterday, the day had gotten brighter. I got a response for the ad, but it was definitely weird. A message popped up on my screen, and I wasn’t using the internet at the time. My screen went black, and the message was written in bold, red letters.

The Rapscallion.

Then, exactly twenty-five thousand dollars were taken out of my bank account, and my laptop stopped working. The message was on the screen for ten seconds maximum, as if the person who’d written it knew that I was in the room.

It made my skin crawl.

That was why I’d gotten drunk out of my mind. I was half celebrating that after nine long months, I finally had something. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough. The other half was because I couldn’t find a goddamn thing on The Rapscallion. He was like a ghost.

The thoughts drifted from my mind when my phone finally turned on. I sat down and leaned against the wall, waiting for it to stabilize before using it.

Last night was Aleksei and Davina’s rehearsal dinner, and I missed it.

Not only that, but I was given the job of helping Davina get ready and safely taking her to the venue. Of course, Aleksei had his men on her at all times, but this was just a way for her to feel less tense, given that the party wasn’t something she ever wanted.

I had over sixty missed calls and twenty-five messages. Some were from Dominik, but most of them were from Aleksei. It was weird, given that the calls were coming late into the night, way past the time the dinner was supposed to be done.

I opened Dominik’s messages first and felt my heart sink to my feet.

The phone fell out of my hands as I rushed to get ready.

What the fuck happened?

Aleksei’s mansion was… a fucking mess.

Every window on the bottom floor had holes in it if they weren’t completely destroyed. The inside wasn’t great either. Bullet holes in walls, smashed vases, bookshelves completely destroyed, books on the floor scattered.

There was a lot of blood, too, and it didn’t stop.

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