A MAZE OF GREED

"Lord Darius!"

A man who looked in his late fifties welcomed Darius.

"How is our plan progressing?" Darius asked.

The man ran his hand over his expensive suit out of habit before answering.

"We have caught five in the last month."

Darius's brows scrunched up hearing that. "What? Only five? What am I going to do with only five?" His voice rose by an octave.

Unlike his father, Darius was more volatile.

"We can not do anything about it, Lord Darius. We have to be careful now. The word is spreading fast. Besides it is hard to get our hands on the trap." The man replied calmly.

He was centuries older than Darius and had the experience of his existence that made Darius respect him. His wiseness was evident in the way he spoke deliberately.

Darius fisted his hands.

"Fine! But you also know that this current progress is not enough to achieve my great goal." Darius said frustratingly.

The cries around him now did not sound pleasant to his ears, rather they began irritating him.

"I know. But we can not be reckless or everything we have done until now will be useless. At least we are fortunate that Edwin O'Dell has no clue about this." The man said, looking up at the bright side.

Darius scoffed. "That fool can never anticipate what I am planning to destroy him."

The man did not appreciate his overconfidence. "Lord Darius, I suggest we should be more careful with our every move now. We should not forget that our espionage network is almost non-existent except a few people we are paying a lot." He pointed at the matter of concern.

"Do not worry about that. As long as we have Painite with us, nobody can beat our new army!" Darius moved his eyes around at the crying and pleading individuals with a sinister smile on his handsome face.

"Do not foret that it is only in vey small amount and to raise an army we need more of that." The man reminded him.

"Will see about that later." Darius said dismissively.

The man did not like his careless attitude. That was the reason Ambrose Garfield always try to keep Darius under his thumb. But the man had recognised Darius's sharp and cunning mind. Ambrose Garfield might be a good leader, but Darius Garfield was an excellent strategist.

He liked to work slowly and earlier than the time so that when the right time came, he was way ahead of the rest.

Besides, Darius had offered him something that Ambrose Garfield did not prioritise much- his revenge on Edwin O'Dell.

"May I ask something, Lord Darius?" The man finally hinted at the question he was trying to figure out since this plot began.

"Of course!" Darius said distractedly.

"What are you going to do with them?" The man asked, glancing around.

A bone-chilling smile split Darius's face into two. His eyes turned red, his fangs out and shining in the light from the torches.

"You will get to know it soon, Mr Hilton. Patience is the key!"

Darius took the nearest wrist around him and dug his fangs in it, sucking the blood that he or anyone from his generation had barely tasted.

*

*

*

That night Ruth could not concentrate on her dinner. She kept playing with the vegetables on the plate.

"Ruth, stop playing with your food!" Mrs Payne chided her.

"Erm... s-sorry." She answered distractedly.

Mrs Payne was noticing her behaviour since she returned home. "What happened, dear? Do you want to say something? Has Theodora said something again?" She asked the possibility that made her angry.

Perhaps, Ruth should directly ask Mrs Payne first than believing Florence.

Ruth nodded her head.

"Then ask Ruth." Mrs Payne smiled.

Ruth tried to come up with a subtle way of initiating the conversation, but then the frustration she had, broke through her not so subtle words.

"Was my father a murderer?"

Ruth waited in anticipation for Mrs Payne to yell at her foolish question. She expected her to say how could she think that about her father.

But when nothing of that happened, Ruth's heart began sinking like a ship trapped in an angry sea.

"Who told you that?" Mrs Payne asked after she put down her spoon.

Her face was void of any expressions, but her eyes held unquestionable nervousness.

"Is it true?"

Ruth could hear her heart beating in her ear. She knew how worst it felt when you kill someone, intentionally or unintentionally. She had been through that even though it was only a duck.

"Ruth, who told you about this?" This time Mrs Payne asked stubbornly.

"So it is true, right?" Ruth's lips quivered.

Mrs Payne knew that she had to unfold another chapter from Gerald's life.

She stared at Ruth for a few seconds before she nodded her head. "Yes, he did kill somebody."

Ruth's spoon fell loudly clinking against the floor. Her hands shook, and her head spun.

So Florence was right! Her father was a murderer.

Ruth gasped in shock. So the man she saw in her dreams, was he fake?

"Before you jump onto any conclusions, first hear what I have to say." Mrs Payne figured what Ruth was doing.

"What do you have to say now, huh? Why did not you tell me this before? Why I had to find about it from someone else?" Ruth's eyes clouded with tears.

"What else are you hiding from me? Tell me!" She yelled in the grievance.

"Ruth please, calm down! Trust me, Gerald was a good man Ruth!"

Ruth gave her an incredulous look as if the old lady had gone mad. "A good man? A theif, a murderer! You still consider him a good man?"

Ruth shook her head in disappointment.

But Mrs Payne was now angry. Ruth had no right to think so down about her father when she did not know the whole story.

A story that changed the dimensions of the relationship between Isabella, Oscar and Gerald.

"You want to know why I consider Gerlad as a good man even though he did everything a human should not?! Then hear me. Yes, he killed someone. But he killed someone to save someone else's life.

And that person was ME!"

Ruth's brain took a few moments to comprehend what Mrs Payne said. Gerald killed somebody to save Mrs Payne?!!

"Wh-what are you saying?" Ruth could find only those words in response.

"This is the truth you should know Ruth." Mrs Payne finally opened that old pocket of her memories.

Ruth listened to everything carefully. And with every detail, she found herself flabbergasted.

At the end of the story, Ruth realised how wrong she was jumping to conclusions quickly. When Mrs Payne ended her story, Ruth had a profound respect for the man who brought her into this world.

Tears streamed down both of their eyes.

"This is why I always say that Gerlad was not a bad perosn. He was not an ideal person either. He was just... Gerald!"

Mrs Payne dabbed her tears with the hem of her dress.

"I-I am very sorry Mrs Payne. I... I should not have believed her." Ruth was shameful and felt guilty.

"Her? Who is this woman who told you about Gerald?" Mrs Payne refocused on her first question in the beginning.

"F-Florence."

Ruth told about her interaction with Florence.

"Ruth why did not you tell me this before?" Mrs Payne demanded.

Ruth bit the inside of her cheek. "I... I thought she was just bluffing and she will stop bothering me after some time." Ruth looked down at her lap when Mrs Payne shook her head disapprovingly.

"No Ruth. You should not have hide that from me."

"I am sorry!" That was all Ruth had to offer.

"But the real question is how Florence found out about such a great detail on Gerald?"

Ruth was so focused on the murder thing, that she did not give much thought to this.

"I... I do not know. She did not mention anything during our encounters."

"Ruth do you realise how dangerous it is for you?"

"I...I..."

"If Florence knows this and she told you to ask me about this then I am sure she knows more than she should. She has already threatened you with exposing your true identity. Do you think she will stop until she gets what she wants?"

Mrs Payne had a fair point. Ruth still had not forgotten that crazy obsessive look in Florence's eyes when Edwin did not meet her, and she had to wait for three days for him.

A shiver ran down her spine.

The Florence she knew was as deadly as a poison. She should not underestimate her.

"Florence will meet you again if I am not wrong. And then she will have something more dangerous for you. What are you going to do then?" Mrs Payne asked in concern.

Ruth could not think of the way out of it. "Talking sense into that thick-headed woman was useless. I also do not have anything against her. I can not threaten her nor I can scare her."

They both fell in a tensed silence.

Mrs Payne was the first to break that silence.

"But you have something over her that can keep her mouth shut."

"What?"

"Your powers!"