Chapter 6: Chapter 5
Cyril, with a voice curiously void of emotion, asked me, "This is..?"
"A gift to me," I said simply. I watched as he carefully opened the pouch, only to pause when he found the sweets hiding within. The blank look in his eyes and the frown on his face told me that his mind was coming up with more questions than answers with regard to the pouch's existence, so I told him, "Check if they're safe. If not, report to me immediately." To Angel, I said, "Do you have an extra container we could use? I'll be keeping the original pouch."
Angel's eyes narrowed down on me.
Yet she listened to my request anyway, handing me a plastic bag from the car's front compartment despite her wariness. She asked, "What are you planning?"
"Something fun." I smiled at the scowl I got in response. She made it far too easy to rile her up, really. "You didn't let me get the rat myself, so I'm taking this one."
A sigh left Angel's lips as she pinched the bridge of her nose. One would think she was dealing with a spoiled child rather than her own boss. She snapped, "That rat was the pilot, you fool."
I raised a brow at her words. No wonder it took a while for her to pick me up, if that were the case. Regardless of the power I held, it wasn't that easy to replace two killed pilots—the first, because he'd been killed by an outsider, the second, because Sasha was likely to kill them post-interrogation—in such short notice. Even the ten minutes delay was a miracle by Underworld standards. To confirm, I asked, "The first one got hit?"
"Yes."
Well, that was disappointing. I had figured since Angel vetted them that they'd last longer, but apparently not.
It was as we were speaking that the grave expression on Cyril's face turned furious, as if it had taken him a moment to digest just what it was I was asking of him by handing him the pouch. "This," he said eventually, shaking the pouch in his hand and looking up to me with a gaze that could burn a lesser man alive, "just who was this from?"
"I can't say."
"Marcella," he hissed. "You can't be thinking of taking care of this yourself while you're on a trip? If anything, you should cancel it this moment—"
"And let them think I was shaken, just from a small thing?" I scoffed. "Don't be foolish, Cyril. You had no problems with it earlier when it was just the pilot."
"Foolish," he parroted, expression only growing darker. It was intriguing how large a contrast the expression could make on the same face. On a usual day, he just looked vaguely intimidating yet professional, but at this moment? He made the perfect image of a killer, all for such a funny reason. He went on to add, apparently not done with his tirade, "You call me foolish for worrying about you? Then, fine. If it at least means that you're safe—"
"You're being overdramatic."
Angel rolled her eyes. I wondered why, up until I vaguely remembered that conversation of ours in the past month.
("You're dramatic, it's really a wonder that you're still respected by everyone else.")
This petty woman...
"Marcella. I'm serious," Cyril said. His gaze spoke a million words and had I been a less confident person, I would have felt offended at his unnecessary concern. But I knew him, and I knew myself; I understood that he saw me as strong but felt worry nonetheless.
Because we're family.
Because he loves me, and no rational acknowledgement of my strength would ever erase the fact that he can't afford to lose me. Because regardless of the strength I had, regardless of all the power and money I held, I—as the sole heir of Anselm and Rosalia Brant—would inevitably be a walking target for as long as I was within the Underworld's grasp.
I would not be leaving anytime soon either.
"I know you are," I told him, smiling softly. I raised my hand to his face, allowing my pheromones to waft from my wrist as I cupped his cheek in a gentle hold. This huge man could kill me if he so wished, could crush me with sheer strength, and yet, here he was—my gentle friend with a heart still too large for his body. "But I have to go. Not just because I want a child, or a partner, but because I can't afford to play it safe now. I'm at my peak, Cyril. We can't let these brats get cocky around us, or we'll pay the price ourselves."
"...you're cocky yourself," he sighed, leaning forward just enough that I could hold him more comfortably. He tilted his head into the warmth of my hand like a puppy craving touch, looking far too adorable than should be necessary. "I will admit that I got carried away. It's just, with the chocolates..."
"They got too close," I agreed, brushing a thumb near the corner of his eye. "But that can be to our benefit, given the right opportunity. Keep your enemies close, isn't that right?"
"I'd rather your enemies be dead," he grumbled.
"You're looking a little too adorable for a guy threatening murder."
"Marcella."
"Yes, I'm taking this seriously," I lied, smiling in amusement. I pinched him lightly on the cheek before releasing him from my hold, letting him stand up to his full height once more. "I'll be fine. You're worrying too much, really—a little poison and kidnapping won't kill me."
Jade green eyes flashed ominously under sunlight. "You want to have a child, yet you have that kind of mindset?"
I blinked at him.
He stared back, one eyebrow raised in challenge.
Hah. He got me.
"You have a point." I chuckled, knocking my knuckles against his solid chest. To think this guy would argue with me so sensibly like this by throwing my own wants against me. "Alright, I'll be more careful. I can't have a child if my body isn't cared for well enough."
"Then, for bodyguards," Cyril began to say. "You should take one more besides Angel."
"The idea was to get a guard for each site inspection," Angel spoke up this time, leaning on her side against the stalled car. "Someone who won't stick through the whole journey to hear more than they're supposed to. We already have a rat just from the three of us talking, what more if we allow one more person in?"
Cyril clenched his teeth with enough force that I could see it through the tautness of his sharp jaw. "So it would be better to have just the two of you alone? Even when you don't know what they might have prepared?"
"You're the only other person we can trust, and I need you here."
That frowning mouth faltered at my honest words. "I know that. I wasn't insisting on coming, but…at the very least, with Sasha—"
"I love that kid, but he talks, Cyril. You know that."
He turned his gaze away from me, as he often did whenever I spoke a truth he wasn't comfortable accepting. It was true, after all; Sasha was another person I loved, another person I considered family, but even I could acknowledge that his mouth ran a little too loose. It wasn't something he did with malintent as he was just naturally like that.
I could whip him into shape, but that loud mouth of his was useful in its own way. There was no reason for people to come after me without bait being cast in the first place, after all.
As if resigned, Cyril said, "It was a child, wasn't it?"
I didn't ask for clarification to know that he was asking about the origin of the chocolates. "Yes."
"...hah."
"I'm not telling who."
"Marcella," Cyril said, a scolding tone to his voice. "At least give me a name so I can investigate."
"I'd rather not." I smiled winsomely at the weary expression on his handsome face. "I told you, I'll take care of it. I just need you to investigate the chocolates so I can be more certain."
There was an exhaustion to his gaze that felt heavy, just enough that I could feel it just from looking at him. Like he was bearing the weight of a dozen worlds on his shoulders, and he couldn't take the knowledge that he was struggling with it.
He said, "Do you think I'd hesitate, just because it's a child?"
I couldn't help an amused smile at the odd direction of his thoughts. I'd always seen him as a bit more soft-hearted compared to the rest of us, but it wasn't to the extent that I saw him as incapable. "It's not that."
"Then what?"
"The child, if they're smart enough, will speak up on their own."
Cyril turned his gaze up at me then, looking straight into my eyes as if trying to dig deep into my thoughts, even when knowing that it just wouldn't be possible. We've known each other for years with a kind of closeness that meant he could read me better than most others, but to read me when I was wearing the mask of the Underworld heir?
Such a thing was still beyond him, I knew.
"You make it so difficult to trust you," Cyril admitted eventually, a sigh slipping through his open mouth. "I want to, but your vagueness only makes me more suspicious and worried."
He turned to look at Angel then, who looked back at him with an expressionless gaze.
"You trust her with this?" he asked.
Angel didn't even flinch. She just said, "She's insane, but it's the kind of insane that's worked so far. At least she has me for whatever it is she's planning to do now."
I laughed, full of incredulity at the sudden insult to my person. This son of a—
"It's time to go, lest we be any later than we already are," Angel added, cutting through my thoughts before I could try to vocalize them. "We've already gone well beyond twenty minutes just talking."
"And that's my fault?"
"You brought up the pouch."
"You little—" I sighed, rubbing at my temple. "It doesn't matter. Cyril, hand me the pouch and I'll give the chocolates to you. I just need to keep the container."
"Why."
"Just trust me."
"Yet I'm full of doubt."
I held my hand out to him with one of the coldest smiles I could muster, the kind that had even Sasha whimpering for forgiveness in ten seconds flat.
It was effective, going by the stiff expression on Cyril's face as he returned the pouch to me.
"You can be a good boy after all," I muttered absently, transferring the chocolates from the pouch into the bag I'd requested from Angel. "Make sure to keep it that way while I'm gone, okay?"
"...you really test my patience, every damn day."
I huffed out a laugh as I gave him the bag filled with chocolates, all while tucking the now-empty pouch into my blazer's inside pocket.
"It's a special skill of mine, my dear."
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