Shadowed Wings: The Tale of the Silver Raven

Sacrifice & Defeat

'Hanju Consultancy' read the big billboard in front of a multistorey building. It was one of the top accounting and consultancy firms in the region. Vennisa had worked there for 5 years. Now, they had decided to dig more into this fraud which , Vennisa mentioned that she was tricked into. They entered the firm in high hopes of finding some clue which could lead them in some better direction. The plan was simple, they would go undercover. In case someone asked their purpose of visit, they would simply mention that they owned a small business and since the business was growing , they needed a consultant to look after the accounts. Ray was instructed to stay put while detective Paul would go around investigating. It had been a while since Paul left, so Ray decided to take part and started asking about Vennisa, introducing herself as a friend of hers. Surprisingly no one was in touch with her or knew where she was, after she randomly stopped coming to work one day. This raised a strange doubt .
"How was she not in contact with anyone from work?"

Ray was trying to think of some way of getting any possible lead . Walking with her head in clouds of her own thoughts, she accidently bumped into someone and her phone fell on the floor.
"My apologies"
A heavy voice approaches while she tries to reach for her phone.
"No , No . I was the one at fault, walking in my own imaginary world."
Ray takes her phone bows in apology and starts ascending in the other direction.
She continues her investigation. Her efforts were not resulting in any good, there were similar answers "she was punctual, sometimes rude, she used to work hard" and most importantly everyone was under an impression that she suddenly stopped working one day, no one knew about the fraud case which got Vennisa mentioned. Ray had given up ,so she sat at the cafeteria waiting for detective Paul in hopes that he would find something useful. 

Detective returned furious, "Where you walking around asking about Vennisa?" Ray nods in agreement." Great! Now everyone in this workplace knows that we are looking for Vennisa. Why can't you just stay put in your role." Paul adds in a disappointed tone. "I was trying to help " Ray tries to explain herself , but Paul was not ready to hear any excuse and roughly adds "I think we should stop our investigation here itself lest we should find ourselves in trouble. Attracting more attention from everyone might turn to be harmful." While this conversation was about to catch some heat, a waiter approaches with the ordered coffee. They stop talking immediately. The waiter looks at Ray, smiles and leaves a note alongside her coffee.
"Please enjoy your coffee." greets and leaves .
Ray looked confused and opened the note as soon as the waiter left. She was too stunned to speak after reading the note. Detective Paul snatches the note, his eyes widen as he reads
'You must leave immediately, before the boss calls you for interrogation.
If you intervene in their business ,they will kill you too. Leave and be safe.'

Paul looked up to find Ray frozen at the note. A sudden shiver ran down her spine,  a sense of danger started creeping up on her. Paul stood up and hastes to leave.
-"We have found them" Ray stated bluntly, still shocked and sitting in her chair.
-"This boss was the one who killed her." She added in disbelief.
"We must leave , this place is not safe anymore." Paul commanded in concern.
But Ray was too dumbfounded to move, she was finally close to catching her sister's killer. Suddenly Paul took Ray's hand and rushed to exit the building . "Come to your senses, I cannot let you in any danger." But they were too late to escape. Before they could escape their way was blocked by two guards.

"Please come with us. Our boss would like to meet you.".
Paul immediately let go of Ray's hand and surrendered to the guards. Ray looked at the detective in shock and found a look of defeat in his eyes. It looked as if a heavy responsibility had forced him to surrender. The guards escorted both of them to the boss. On the way, Paul instructs Ray in a serious tone :
-"If things get out of hands, only thing you do will be escaping and not getting caught.".

They are enter a spacious office and the guards leave, closing the door behind them.
"We take our employee's information very seriously and any risk of breach is not tolerable..." a  heavy voice comes from across the room. "Since, you did not cause any recuse and cooperated with us, I will give you a chance to defend your unauthorized investigation before I report you two." he adds. 
The voice seemed similar, Ray had heard it before. She starts approaching the man sitting on the sofa with his back turned at them. Paul tries to control the situation and says "I apologize for any inconvenience we have caused. We didn't mean to cause any trouble. I am detective Paul, I am here regarding the murder case of one of your previous employees." Just when Paul was about to complete, Ray could not contain herself and hastily interrupted "Vennisa Nicholas... Do you know her?". "I have heard that voice somewhere, have we met before?" he stands up and slowly turns around. Surprisingly finds Ray holding out a phone at him.
"Oh you have a cracked screen." The man jokingly comments.
"I was unfortunate enough to bump into someone and break my screen just an hour ago, but I.." Ray was ticked off by the casual attitude of the man. "I think I had apologized to you , right at that moment." The man interrupts with a soft smile .

This blows off Ray's temper "Do you or do you not recognize the person in the phone?".
"I do" he confesses "That is Mr.Kin, the CEO of Hanju Consultancy and that would be me." He adds pointing at the phone. Ray quickly looks at her phone and realizes it was completely broken. "It's broken!" she exclaims in despair.
-"So you want me to reimburse that" Mr.Kin asks with a concern.
Ray looks at him with eyes full of fire, ready to burn
-"So, will you answer our questions here or shall we take it to the police station Mr.Kin?"
-"And how are you planning on doing that ?" he leans in and asks in a challenging tone.
-"I must say ,you do not have a clean record Mr.Kin. 'CEO of top consultancy : mastermind behind the money laundering fraud finally arrested.' this headline shall suit your last heist where you scammed all your customers , shouldn't it Mr.Kin?"
Ray smiles as she hands him a file with records of all the illegal transactions under his name. 
"Fierce! I like that. Why don't you take a seat miss..?" he attempts to know her name, but she ignores the question and proudly takes a seat. "Detective, shall we proceed?" Ray commands offering both of them to sit down as if she owned the office. Once they settle down, Paul starts by explaining the whole case, but Mr.Kin did not seem interested in the description. He kept on looking at Ray in amuse and abruptly interrupted the detective "I have seen you somewhere miss", he tries to remember and suddenly it strikes him, "you are Ray right? Vennisa 's sister? Oh I finally met you, she would always talk about you.". Ray looks at him in shock, "Vennisa talked to you? about me?, so you knew my sister." her shock turned into questions, and the biggest question bothering her was "Why would Vennisa mention family to her superior at work?".

Mr.Kin leans back, smirks and comments "I knew everything about her. Afterall I gave her the job and I was the one to fire her. How could I miss any detail about her.".
-"That is great, now why don't you start telling us everything that happened?" Ray demands . Ray was determined to get answers and reach the bottom of the case, seeing this detective Paul was impressed and proud of his partner.
"I would be happy to tell you, everything . Why don't I tell you exactly how I got to know?"  Mr. Kin grins at Ray. A sudden sense of vulnerability starts to grow over Ray. Mr.Kin hands a business card and whispers "We can talk alone and you would know exactly what happened." he grabs Ray's hand .
-"How about I start by telling you how bad your sister was?" he smirks as he leans forward. Ray grabs and twists his hand, pins him to the sofa. She pulls out an ink pen from her jacket and aims it at his neck . She leans and whispers in his ear as she slowly digs the pen deeper into his neck.
-"How about you tell it to her, yourself?"
Paul quickly pulled Ray away. He had never seen a woman get so fierce. He pushed her back and looked at Mr.Kin to find him bleeding . It was a small wound, it would have been worse if he had not intervened. Paul decides that it was best for them to leave since, things were getting worse. "We will meet at the interrogation room then ,Mr.Kin." He started to exit the room and commanded Ray to follow him.
-"Your sister was just a casualty, you were the actual target." Kin adds as he presses his wound to stop the bleeding with one hand.
Ray freezes just as she was about to exit the office.
"She died to save you . And look at you not at all grateful. So stop this detective game of yours." Ray suddenly lost her capability to think clearly as questions started raising in her mind-
"to save me? She sacrificed herself? Why didn't she tell me?" – there were so many questions , no one to answer. She felt as if she had failed her sister's beliefs.
-"Don't worry , I will help you meet your sister. Have a good chat with her." Kin adds as he attacks her with a pocket knife.
Ray realized it was too late to defend herself, however the thought of meeting her sister sounded like a good deal to her. She had unexpectedly accepted her defeat.
The pen hit the floor as it slipped from her hands....