Kaidon Cross, top-notch assassin of The Order of the Black Knights, had only one mission in his life, exact revenge for the death of his mother until he met the innocent Alice Reed, and his priorities changed to keeping her safe from the clutches of...
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"I said, no!" I jumped up when I heard Kaidon shout that on his phone while pacing around in the living room one Friday evening in early November.
"What do you and your team get paid for? She's not coming!"
I untied the apron, folded it on the kitchen island and strode towards him. He had his back to me, so I trudged closer, placed my hands on his shoulders and started massaging them.
He sighed at my touch and then shouted again, "I don't care! We had done it before she was here and we can do it again. I would rather go in blind!" He turned around, smiled at me and started caressing my face with a finger.
"Dinner is ready." I mouthed to him, and he gave me an okay. He then ended his call, threw his phone aside and slumped down on the couch with a hand over his forehead. I sat down beside him and began massaging his head. He glanced up at me and smiled, an almost playful grin as he put his hands around my waist and pulled me onto his lap.
"You are being unusually kind to me today," he asked me in an amused tone.
I shrugged. "I can be nice once in a while. So what is bothering you?"
"Work."
I rolled my eyes at that. "I think I had that figured out already. What in work?"
He sighed again. "Well, there is this new upgraded system. Something called as Bellpoint version 3. It is-"
"Version 3 is out?" I gasped. The last I heard about was version 2 in my final year of engineering. Bellpoint series was an AI control system which was first launched in my second year of engineering. "The company takes pride in the impenetrability of the network."
"That is what we heard, which got us worked up."
"What does that mean?"
"The biotechnology startup arm of a conglomerate recently bought the expensive system."
I gave him a puzzled look.
He sighed and settled me beside him on the couch and reached forward on the table for a pen and notepad. Turning to a middle page, he started drawing something.
"Alice, have you read the 'Art of War'?"
Oh, that book by Sun Tzu. I picked it up during my internship days.
"I tried. Got bored."
He chuckled at that.
"Alright. Have you heard of Chanakya?"
"Uhh..."
"Rommel?"
"I... think-"
"Mitsunari Ishida?"
"Come again?"
"Alice, have you heard about any great strategist from History?" He raised his eyebrow at me.
