The Story of Blood and Roses

He was confident under all the layers of deception that he had donned on. It was amusing to see him feign concern for the poor fellows who had done the mistake of following him even after they had found out about his plans. I wondered where he picked those up from. People who knew him closely would never have acted in such a manner. Obviously, as I had presumed earlier, these were just kids in need of money who thought that they were tough enough to enter the realm of the big dogs and get out alive. Even if they did have the potential, it was too great a threat for them to be on the wrong side of things. And it was unlucky for them that neither side was the right side. And Nolan had brought them to be slaughtered... intentionally. I snickered as I fast forwarded to the part where the phone starts ringing.

"Boss, I was just about to call you..."

"No, sir. I didn\'t meet Anthony, but there was this girl who came in his place."

"I haven\'t forgotten. We\'ll find her, sir."

"Yes, sir. I\'ll keep an eye out. I\'ll bring you all the information you need."

"Thank you, sir… Yes, sir."

"Darcy called."

"We\'re doing well, boys. Let\'s just hope we find the girl and we are on his good books."

"Poor kids. Being sent to the slaughterhouse to be murdered. Hopefully, I\'ll return alive from this."

And everything made so much more sense at that moment. They had hoped to meet Anthony and had gotten to meet me instead, and they had assumed that they would find Cienna with Anthony. But because Anthony never showed up, they had no hope of meeting Cienna as well. She was, without doubt, the \'her\' that Darcy and Nolan were trying to find. They knew that they didn\'t have much time on their hands.

Still not satisfied with the information I had, I log into all the other videos from that day and look through the recordings for the moment that Nolan and the boys leave. The videos droned on until I found a quick moment where I saw a flash of red hair bumping into Nolan. He politely spoke to the woman and seemed to talk her into buying her a drink. I watched him flirt with the woman for a long time before one of the boys came to fetch him. He reluctantly left his place from beside her and walked away from her. He looked back occasionally with an expression of pure delight. He had found her that night, and she had walked right into his trap.

Her having a drink which was offered to her was not the problem. She could do anything she wanted with her free time, but I explicitly remember being told that there would be no one apart from me (who was part of the mob) in Realm that night. Anthony had warned everyone to stay away. He had formed a plan that he wanted to follow and Cienna had fucked it up, big time. She had disobeyed his orders probably because she was either jealous of the attention I was getting, or she thought me incompetent and last but not the least because all the aforementioned were true. I decided to go with the third option.

To say that I was furious would be an understatement. I was seething as I pulled my earphones out and dropped them unceremoniously on the couch. I was in need of venting and the only person who I could turn to was the only other person in the room. He, too, seemed to be speaking into his cell phone. I took a moment to realize that he was still in the conference with the heads. His brows were scrunched together as he tried to concentrate on the series of voices that I could hear coming from his cell phone. All the voices were hard and seemed to be serious. Their tones, unlike Anthony, were harsher and they spoke rapidly trying to gain attention and conveying their views.

I tapped on Anthony\'s shoulder. He seemed to have expected the intrusion. He looked at me with a look of acknowledgement and pulled the phone away from his ears. His fingers glided over the keys and then the voices became clearer. On the loudspeaker, I could hear the others fighting over who had the better idea, and so far, I had heard nothing of consequence.

"Guys, could you hold your horses and present your ideas like civilised people?" I could see the surprise reflecting in Anthony\'s eyes as he heard me loud and clear speech. Silence followed and as if on cue a smile graced on Anthony\'s lips. I smiled back at him and turned to the phone. "Now, tell me. What do you know about everything? I need to know if you have a clear perception of the situation or not." I nodded at Anthony who seemed to relax and then he got up.

"I\'m getting myself something to drink," he informed me as he walked away. I shrugged and went back to the concentration.

"Darcy wants information on us and he used the most vulnerable member of our group."

"And she fell for it." Disorder broke out again as they mumbled in agreement or protested and tried to defend Cienna.

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