Red Princess

72. Keep your enemies closer

Kaidon

"Kai-"

I heard her voice, followed by a scream. It was a busy day; the platform was crowded. A subway had just passed, and a huddle of passengers had exited it. I turned around, my eyes searching for the source of the voice. I knew it was Ariel, and I was hoping she managed to spot Gilaan.

Our backend teams had access to the cameras at every public place, which we used in real-time to run against our database of known terrorists and killers for hire. It often helped us identify potential threats. The Order was a business, not a charity. We weren't your typical vigilante group. Whenever we came across an alleged act of terrorism, our first response wasn't to counteract it but rather to present it to the government and negotiate a price. Time and again, in the past, the political leaders tended to ignore our warnings, and in return, we would silently watch from the shadows as their incompetence failed the people. Soon after, 'coincidently', the media would then catch wind of the fact that they had prior knowledge and failed to protect the citizens, which ended up in the fall of several regimes centuries ago and now governments in the modern times.

They learned from those experiences that we had superior technology, superior arts, and even though they didn't know about our powers, they acknowledged that we had exceptional assassins in our ranks that their ordinary people could never match. It gave us the much-needed position of authority in society. We got a license to kill, and we had the power to negotiate the price for every mission. For every threat, we saved the people from.

How long until we become a threat to those people?

But we weren't just assassins for hire. We had our own enemies who we often worked hard to eliminate. These were the projects we did pro bono. Projects we had a personal interest in. And Gilaan was one hell of a personal matter.

Our team notified us that he had been sighted at this subway. I gathered my team immediately and made a run. It was too good to be true. He was too smart to make such a blunder. I knew he had something up his sleeve and was probably trying to draw us out, but regardless, I decided to fall for the trap.

For some reason, I kept Seydon out of the loop. It wasn't that I didn't trust him, but I didn't want him to have to do this. To have to choose between his father and us. I admit I hated my father since that night I witnessed him take my mother's life, but I knew there was more to it. I wanted to kill him, but I wasn't sure when the time came if I'd be ready to pull the trigger. Seydon might not have thought that far, but once the choice was presented to him, he could falter, and I couldn't let that happen.

That man was mine to kill.

Only when I would end him with my own hands would I be able to make peace with Alice's death. Only then could I look at anything beyond her.

Only then could I stop trying to find Alice in Ariel.

That morning me calling her when she was with Alex was my desperate attempt to get one person on my side. I knew Seydon and Alex had something they weren't letting me in on, and I couldn't trust them anymore. I was alone on the battlefield again. But Ariel, she was innocent. She was one person who genuinely offered her helping hand, and it took me too long to realise that. She trusted me. She forgave me every time I hurt her. She would probably do anything for me, and I needed that commitment.

I was selfish. I was using her unsuspecting feelings for me to get her on my side. I pretended to care for her, the person who seemed to be precious to both Seydon and now Alex, even if they said otherwise, so that I could use her one day against them. I was doing exactly what I was taught in the academy.