Chapter Text
Teetee’s POV
People always imagine assassins as monsters.
They picture bloodstained hands, cruel smiles, and eyes that never feel anything.
Maybe some of them are right. Maybe some of them aren't.
I stopped caring a long time ago.
The city glittered beneath me, thousands of lights stretching into the darkness like stars scattered across the earth. From the rooftop, everything looked peaceful. Normal.
It never was.
My gaze remained fixed on the building across the street.
A private club. It was expensive, exclusive.
Owned by one of the rival groups currently causing problems for my family.
The target had arrived nearly twenty minutes ago.
I had been waiting ever since.
Patience was the first thing my father taught me.
A careless person dies quickly.
A patient one survives.
The familiar weight of responsibility settled over my shoulders as I watched the entrance below.
Then the call came through my earpiece.
"Status?"
Save's voice.
I rolled my eyes immediately.
"Still breathing."
"Not you. The target."
"He is too."
"You're impossible."
A small smile tugged at my lips.
Save and I had known each other for years.
Long before the business.
Long before the expectations.
Long before people started calling me my father's heir.
If there was one person in this world I trusted, it was him.
Unfortunately, that trust didn't stop him from being annoying.
"You know," Save continued, "normal people answer questions normally."
"Normal people don't call me every five minutes."
"I called once."
"Twice."
"Fine. Twice."
I could practically hear him pouting.
The target finally emerged from the building.
My focus sharpened instantly.
Save noticed the silence.
"Showtime?"
"Yeah."
"Try not to miss the shot."
The line disconnected.
As if I would.
I pointed my gun right at his direction and on the count of 3 I pulled the trigger.
A few moments later, the mission was over.
Clean.
Quiet.
Exactly as planned.
No complications.
No surprises.
Just another name crossed off a list.
Another problem solved.
Another day in my life.
And yet, as I packed up my equipment and headed back toward my car, I couldn’t shake the strange feeling that something was about to change.
I should have listened to that feeling.
-----------------------------
An hour later, I walked into the headquarters.
Most people imagined mafia headquarters as dark warehouses filled with armed guards.
Reality was much less dramatic.
Our main building looked like an ordinary corporate office from the outside.
Inside, however, everyone knew exactly who was in charge.
Employees moved quickly through the halls.
Phones rang.
Meetings happened.
Deals were made.
Lives were ruined.
Business as usual.
The familiar scent of cigar smoke greeted me the moment I stepped into Uncle Tong's office.
It clung to the walls, soaked into the leather furniture, and lingered in the air no matter how many times the windows were opened. Most people hated it.
I found it comforting.
Maybe because it reminded me of home.
Maybe because it reminded me of my father.
Or maybe because every important conversation of my life had happened in rooms that smelled exactly like this.
I closed the door behind me.
Uncle Tong didn't immediately look up from the documents spread across his desk.
"Finished?" he asked.
"Of course."
That finally earned me a glance.
A small smile touched his lips.
"Confident as always."
"I wouldn't be standing here if I wasn't."
His smile widened.
I had known Uncle Tong my entire life. While my father built empires and travelled across continents chasing business opportunities, Uncle Tong had remained behind to keep everything running.
He wasn't family by blood.
But sometimes I forgot that.
The old man had taught me how to shoot, how to negotiate, how to survive.
Most importantly, he had taught me when to keep my mouth shut.
Though according to him, I still wasn't very good at that last one.
"Your father called this morning."
I dropped into the chair across from him.
"And?"
"He'll be overseas for another few weeks."
Not surprising.
My father was rarely home for long.
Business always came first.
Then again, I wasn't exactly any different.
"Did he leave me any messages?"
"Just one."
I raised an eyebrow.
Uncle Tong leaned back.
"He said if you destroy another one of his imported cars, you're paying for it yourself."
I laughed.
"Tell him that wasn't my fault."
"You drove it into a fountain."
"The fountain appeared unexpectedly."
"The fountain has been there for twenty years."
"Exactly. It should've moved by now."
Uncle Tong shook his head.
For a moment, the office felt lighter.
Normal.
Then the old man's expression changed.
The smile disappeared.
The atmosphere shifted.
Immediately, I sat up straighter.
That look usually meant work.
Without saying a word, Uncle Tong reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a thick file.
He placed it between us.
My eyes dropped to it.
No name on the cover.
No markings.
Just a plain black folder.
Interesting.
"New assignment?" I asked.
"Yes."
I reached for the file.
Something stopped me.
A strange feeling.
Not fear.
Not hesitation.
Just curiosity.
Uncle Tong was watching me carefully.
Far more carefully than usual.
Which only made me more interested.
"What's so special about this one?"
For a brief second, something flickered across his face.
Gone before I could identify it.
"Open it."
So, I did.
The first thing I saw was a photograph.
A man. Young. Ordinary. Beautiful
BEAUTIFUL??!! TEE WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?? FOCUS
No visible connections to any organization.
No criminal history attached to the front pages.
No record of violence.
No indication that he belonged in one of our files at all.
I frowned.
Then flipped through the next few pages.
And the next.
And the next.
The confusion only grew.
By the time I looked back up, Uncle Tong was still watching me.
"You're joking."
"I'm not."
"This is the target?"
"Yes."
I looked back down at the photograph.
The man stared back at me through the glossy paper.
Soft eyes.
A calm smile.
Nothing about him made sense.
Not for this job.
Not for our world.
"Who is he?" I asked.
Uncle Tong folded his hands together.
"That information isn't necessary."
That answer irritated me immediately.
Because it wasn't an answer.
It was avoidance.
And Uncle Tong never avoided questions.
"Why does Father want him dead?"
"The order comes from the top."
"That doesn't explain anything."
"I know but it’s a secret mission. And your only work is to complete the order given to you."
His voice remained calm.
Steady.
Controlled.
Which somehow made me even more uneasy.
For a long moment, silence stretched between us.
Then Uncle Tong pushed the file a little closer.
"Just complete the assignment, Teetee."
My eyes returned to the photograph.
Something about it bothered me.
I couldn't explain why.
I had killed people before.
Many people.
I had never cared who they were.
Yet for the first time, I found myself staring at a target and wondering a single question.
Why?
And somehow...
I had a feeling that question was going to ruin my life.
Few days later…
The man named Por had thirty-seven seconds left to live.
I know because I counted. I always count. It's the kind of habit that becomes reflex after enough years — the breathing slows, the world narrows down to a single point, and somewhere in the back of your skull, the numbers run themselves. Thirty-seven. Thirty-six. Thirty-five.
He was crossing the street below my window, a plastic bag hanging from one hand, probably takeout from the noodle stall two blocks down. He walked unhurried, the way people do when they have nowhere urgent to be. He checked his phone once, smiled at something on the screen, and tucked it back into his pocket.
Thirty-two. Thirty-one.
I had been watching him for four days.
That was longer than any target had ever needed. Most jobs, I learned everything I needed inside forty-eight hours — their schedule, their exits, their moments of exposure. But this one kept making me wait, not because he was complicated, but because he was impossibly, irritatingly simple. He woke at seven. He brewed coffee. He fed a cat that wasn't even his, some stray that had apparently decided his building's front step was its permanent address. He worked at a small café three subway stops away and came home by seven-thirty every evening, sometimes with that plastic bag, sometimes with groceries, sometimes with nothing but tired eyes and the same quiet walk.
Nothing in his pattern suggested a man worth killing.
Twenty-four. Twenty-three.
The rifle scope was cold against my cheekbone. Late autumn in this city had a way of seeping into everything — the metal, the walls, the space behind your eyes. I had set up in an abandoned office on the fourth floor of a building directly across from his apartment, chosen for the sightline and the fact that the entire floor had been under renovation for six months and nobody was watching. The drop cloth behind me was gray-brown with dust. My jacket was the same color.
I didn't need Save's research to tell me the shot was clean. I could see it plainly.
What I needed Save's research for was the part that actually mattered.
My phone buzzed against my thigh — one vibration, our code for standing by. I reached for it without moving my eye from the scope.
Clean record. No affiliations. Parents deceased. No criminal history. Nothing.
I read it twice.
Then I read the line Save had added at the bottom, the one he always added when something was bothering him even if he'd never say it out loud in actual words:
Tee, this guy's a nobody. I'm serious.
I put the phone down.
Eighteen. Seventeen.
The man — the target, I kept reminding myself, the target — had stopped at the corner now, waiting for the light. He shifted the plastic bag to his other hand. There was a small tear in the handle and he'd been babying it the whole walk, this unconscious little adjustment every forty steps or so, making sure it didn't split. I had watched him do it yesterday too, with a different bag. He always bought the cheap ones and then was careful with them.
I don't know why I noticed that.
Thirteen. Twelve.
A name had not been given to me. Uncle Tong — my father's right hand, the man who had practically raised me in my father's long absences — had sat across from me three days ago in the back office of the club and told me only that the target was marked, that the order had come from above, that it was top-secret and I would receive no additional information. Even for me. Especially for me, he said, with the gentle, unhurried tone he used when something was non-negotiable.
"Your father trusts you with this," he said. "It's a big one."
I didn't ask questions. I never ask questions.
That's not entirely true. I don't ask questions out loud.
Ten.
His light turned green.
Nine.
He stepped off the curb.
Eight.
My finger rested against the trigger the way it always did at this point — easy, not pressing, just present. Muscle memory. My breath was already slowing. The scope tracked him across the street, smooth and automatic, the way water moves.
Seven.
He pushed the door of his building open with his shoulder, both hands occupied. The bag, I noticed, had held.
Six.
The shot window was closing.
Five.
I didn't pull the trigger.
Four.
I didn't pull the trigger.
Three.
I told myself it was the angle. I told myself the light was wrong, that I needed another day of observation, that something in the intelligence was missing and I was being responsible. Professional. I told myself all of this very efficiently in approximately one second.
Two.
He was gone. The door had swung shut. The street below was empty except for a woman walking a dog and the ghost of a plastic bag being handled carefully by someone who had no reason to be dead.
One.
I lowered the rifle.
For a long moment I stayed where I was, back against the drop cloth, rifle resting across my knees, dust settling around me in the cold office. Somewhere outside, traffic moved. A phone rang in a building I couldn't see and wasn't answered.
I put a name to what was sitting in my chest, this flat, heavy thing that I usually didn't have to deal with.
Doubt.
It tasted like metal.
Save found me in the car.
That's how it usually worked — I went somewhere, and eventually Save appeared, because Save had either followed me, tracked my phone, asked around until someone told him, or simply decided on the correct location through a process I had long since stopped trying to understand. He claimed it was intuition. I had told him once that intuition was just pattern recognition dressed up in emotional language. He told me to stop being exhausting.
He dropped into the passenger seat and didn't say anything immediately, which meant he already knew.
"I didn't take the shot," I said.
"I know."
"I need more time."
"Mm." He was eating something, some kind of convenience store rice ball, unwrapping it with the focus of a man performing surgery. Save had the peculiar quality of always being in the middle of eating something. AuAu once theorized it was anxiety. Save told AuAu to go solve an actual crime. That had been the end of that conversation and also the beginning of about three months of hostile silence.
I watched the building across the street. The light in the fourth-floor window — his window — was on now, warm and ordinary.
"His record is clean," I said.
"I told you that."
"There's nothing. No connection to anything."
"Also told you that." Save finished unwrapping the rice ball and took a bite. "What do you want to do?"
That was the thing about Save. He asked the question other people didn't have the sense to ask. Not what are you going to do — that version assumed I already had an answer, which I didn't. He asked what I wanted, which was different. It left room for me to not know yet.
What I wanted was to understand why a man who fed a stray cat and babied cheap plastic bags was supposed to die.
"I want AuAu on it," I said.
Save went very still. Then he took another bite.
"You know how he'll react," he said finally.
"He'll react exactly the way he always reacts, and then he'll do the job."
"He's going to call me something."
"He calls you something every time."
"He called me a freeloading accessory last month."
"You were freeloading. You ate his takeout."
"He had extra —" Save stopped. Pressed his mouth into a line. "Fine. Whatever. I'll tell him. But I want it on record that I think this is going to be annoying."
"It's always annoying. That's not a reason."
Save muttered something I chose not to hear, and reached for his phone.
Detective AuAu picked up on the second ring, which meant he was in the middle of something and answering anyway out of compulsive professionalism. I heard the faint sound of an office in the background — keyboards, someone down the hall with a persistent cough.
"I'm working," he said, before either of us had spoken.
"I know," I said.
A pause. Then: "What."
I told him. Not everything — not the organization, not Uncle Tong, not the mission in any terms that would put him in a bad position. That was the delicate architectur of what AuAu and I had, something we had constructed carefully over the years and never discussed directly. He was a detective. I was not a detective. There were things he didn't ask me and things I didn't tell him, and within that arrangement we had managed to be useful to each other, and more than that, but we didn't discuss that part either.
What I told him was that I had a person and I needed a full background. Real depth. The kind that didn't show up in any standard record pull.
Silence on his end. Not the thinking kind — AuAu's thinking silence was shorter and came with the faint scratch of him writing something. This was the other kind.
"You could have led with 'hello,'" he said.
"Hello."
"That was extremely insincere."
"AuAu."
Another pause. Then, quieter, with the particular tone he only used when he'd already made the decision but needed a moment to be irritated about it: "Send me what you have."
"I have almost nothing."
"Send me the almost nothing."
I heard something in the background shift — a chair, maybe — and then Save's voice came on suddenly beside me, too loud, leaning across the console to speak at the phone like the speaker function wasn't working.
"Hey, AuAu —"
"I'm hanging up," AuAu said flatly.
"I just want to say —"
"I'm genuinely hanging up."
The line went dead.
Save sat back and finished his rice ball with the expression of a man who had made his point.
"He'll do it," I said.
"Yeah." He crumpled the wrapper. "He always does."
Outside, the light in the fourth floor window was still on. I watched it for another moment — the warm, unremarkable rectangle of a life being lived inside — and then I started the car.
Uncle Tong called at eleven forty-three.
I was back at the estate by then, in the long room that served as my office because my father's actual office still felt like my father's office, even after a few weeks of him being away on business I was not fully briefed on. There were things about my father's work that remained compartmentalized even from me, which I had accepted with more ease than I was probably supposed to. He was a man who operated in layers. I had grown up learning to read only the ones he showed.
"The job," Uncle Tong said. No preamble. He was seventy years old and had the economy of language of a man who had never once wasted a word.
"I need more time."
A beat. "How much."
"A few days."
I waited for the weight that sometimes came into his voice when he was about to tell me something couldn't wait, but it didn't come. Instead, there was a brief quiet, and when he spoke again it was almost gentle.
"Your father is pleased you accepted this one."
"He sent word?"
"He checks in." A pause. "He worries about you."
"He doesn't need to."
"He does it anyway. That's what fathers do." Something moved in his voice then, very faint, something I couldn't quite identify. "Take the days you need, Teetee. But don't take too many."
The line went quiet in a way that felt like a full stop rather than a comma, and then he ended the call.
I set my phone down on the desk.
The house was large and quiet in the way large, quiet houses are — a silence with texture to it, the sounds of staff moving distantly somewhere below, the groan of the old building in the autumn wind. My father had bought this estate when I was seven and told me it was to keep us safe. Safe from what, I hadn't asked yet. I still hadn't asked.
I pulled up the sparse file Save had sent me and looked at the face in the photograph for a long time.
No name in the file. Standard protocol — Uncle Tong had said as much. The target moved without identification attached, just a face and a location and an order.
It was a good face, I thought, and then immediately stopped thinking that.
I closed the file.
Outside the tall windows, the city burned orange and white in the distance, ordinary and enormous, the way cities look when you're watching them from somewhere high up and very alone.
Thirty-seven seconds, I had given him.
I wanted to know why that felt like not enough.
Three days.
Three entire days of digging, searching, and pulling every string I had available to me, and I still had nothing.
No hidden criminal record.
No suspicious financial transactions.
No ties to rival organizations.
No connections to anyone important enough to justify the order sitting on my desk.
Nothing.
The deeper I looked, the more ordinary he became.
It was infuriating.
People didn't receive death orders from my family for no reason. Every target had a purpose. Every mission had a motive. Even if I wasn't always given the full story, there was usually something. A business dispute. A betrayal. A threat.
But this?
This felt like someone had handed me a random photograph and told me to eliminate a stranger.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the file spread across my desk.
The same photograph stared back.
Por.
Twenty-six years old.
Part-time university graduate.
Currently employed at a café downtown.
No criminal history.
No known enemies.
No reason to be here.
My fingers tapped against the desk.
Maybe that was exactly why this bothered me so much.
I had spent my entire life around liars. Around criminals. Around people who wore masks so often they forgot what their real faces looked like.
Yet somehow, this man looked genuine.
And I hated that I couldn't prove otherwise.
After another hour of getting nowhere, I finally snapped the file shut.
If the reports weren't giving me answers, then I would get them myself.
The bell above the café door chimed softly as I stepped inside.
Warm air immediately wrapped around me.
The smell of coffee beans and freshly baked pastries lingered throughout the room, mixing with the low hum of conversations and the gentle music playing through hidden speakers.
It was the kind of place I normally wouldn't be caught dead in.
Too bright.
Too peaceful.
Too normal.
I adjusted my sunglasses and took a seat near the back corner where I could see most of the café without drawing attention to myself.
For a moment, I wondered if he was even working today.
Then I saw him.
And suddenly every thought in my head disappeared.
Por stood behind the counter speaking to an elderly woman. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, exposing his forearms as he carefully packed pastries into a paper bag. The woman said something that made him laugh.
And then he smiled.
The photograph hadn't done him justice.
Not even close.
I had noticed he was attractive when I first opened the file. Anyone with functioning eyes would have noticed.
But photographs flattened people.
Reduced them.
Turned them into still images trapped on paper.
The man standing twenty feet away looked entirely different.
More alive.
His eyes seemed brighter.
His expressions softer.
Every smile reached his entire face, making his eyes curve slightly at the corners.
Even his laugh looked genuine.
Not practiced.
Not calculated.
Just... real.
For some ridiculous reason, that irritated me.
I found myself watching him longer than necessary.
Watching the way he greeted customers.
The way he remembered regular orders without asking.
The way he thanked everyone who left as if he genuinely meant it.
There was something easy about him.
Something warm.
People naturally gravitated toward him.
A child ran toward the counter and Por immediately crouched down to speak at eye level, smiling as he handed over a cookie.
The kid looked delighted.
Por looked delighted too.
I stared.
And stared.
And somehow forgot why I was there.
A sharp voice in the back of my head immediately snapped me out of it.
What the hell are you doing?
I straightened in my seat.
Right.
The mission.
The investigation.
The target.
Not whatever this was.
I wasn't here because he had a nice smile.
I wasn't here because his laugh sounded pleasant.
And I definitely wasn't here because his face looked even better in person than it did in the file.
I was here because someone wanted him dead.
Someone I trusted.
Someone whose orders I had followed my entire life.
Yet as I watched him thank another customer with that same easy smile, the uncomfortable feeling that had been following me for days returned once more.
Because nothing about him made sense.
Not the mission.
Not the file.
Not the complete lack of information.
And certainly not the fact that the most dangerous organization in the city had decided that a café worker was important enough to die.
Por looked up suddenly.
For a brief second, our eyes met across the room.
My body instinctively tensed.
Years of training.
Years of caution.
Years of surviving.
But Por simply smiled.
A small, polite smile given to a customer he'd never met before.
Then he looked away and continued working.
Like I was nobody.
Like he had no idea that somewhere in my apartment sat a file with his photograph inside.
Like he didn't know I had spent days trying to figure out why someone wanted him dead.
I should have left right then.
Instead, I remained seated.
Watching.
Waiting.
And for reasons I couldn't explain, wanting to know more.
I had been sitting in the same corner for nearly thirty minutes when Por finally noticed me.
Or maybe he'd noticed me earlier and had simply been polite enough not to point out the strange man occupying a table while nursing the same untouched cup of coffee.
Either way, I wasn't prepared when he suddenly appeared beside my table.
"Excuse me."
I looked up.
Big mistake.
Because up close, he somehow looked even worse for my concentration.
His smile was small and apologetic, his apron slightly crooked as though he'd been rushing around all afternoon.
"You haven't touched your coffee."
I blinked.
"What?"
"The coffee." He pointed toward the cup sitting in front of me. "You've been staring at it for half an hour."
I glanced down.
Right.
The coffee.
The coffee I had completely forgotten existed.
Por's smile widened.
"You don't like it?"
"No."
His eyebrows immediately furrowed.
"Oh."
For some reason, he looked genuinely upset.
"I can make you something else."
"It's fine."
"No, it's not."
"It is."
"But you don't like it."
"I don't care."
Por stared at me.
I stared back.
His expression slowly shifted into something suspiciously close to amusement.
"You know," he said carefully, "most people just say thank you."
"I didn't ask for another drink."
"You also didn't answer my question."
"What question?"
"Why are you sitting in a café drinking coffee you don't like?"
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
Because unfortunately, "I'm investigating why my family wants you dead" wasn't an acceptable answer.
Por laughed.
Actually laughed.
The sound caught me off guard.
"You don't know, do you?"
"No."
His eyes brightened.
"That's kind of funny."
I frowned.
"Why?"
"Because most people have reasons for being places."
"I have a reason."
"What is it?"
I immediately regretted speaking.
Por folded his arms expectantly.
Waiting.
The problem was that I couldn't tell him the truth.
And I wasn't particularly skilled at lying about normal things.
"I wanted coffee."
He looked at the untouched cup.
Then back at me.
Then the cup again.
"Sure."
The disbelief was insulting.
I found myself glaring.
Por grinned.
Actually grinned.
As though annoying me was entertaining.
Which was ridiculous.
Nobody should find me entertaining.
I was many things.
Entertaining wasn't one of them.
"What's your name?" he asked suddenly.
I hesitated.
"Tee."
It wasn't exactly a lie.
Just less than the whole truth.
"Nice to meet you, Tee."
His smile softened.
"I'm Por."
I already knew that.
Of course I knew that.
I knew his full name.
His address.
His employment history.
His education records.
The fact that he preferred tea over coffee.
The fact that he volunteered twice a month.
The fact that he always walked home instead of taking public transport.
Yet somehow hearing him introduce himself felt different.
More personal.
More real.
"Nice to meet you too," I heard myself say.
Por looked surprised.
Apparently I had finally behaved like a normal human being.
Unfortunately, that seemed to encourage him.
"So, Tee."
I already didn't like where this was going.
"What?"
"Do you always look this serious?"
I nearly choked.
"What?"
"You look like you're planning a murder."
My entire body froze.
Por remained completely oblivious.
"You've been frowning at that coffee for thirty minutes."
I stared.
He smiled.
The irony was so unbelievable that I almost laughed.
Almost.
My phone suddenly vibrated.
The screen lit up.
Uncle Tong.
The moment I saw the name, every trace of amusement disappeared.
Por noticed immediately.
"Work?"
"Something like that."
"Then I should stop bothering you."
Before I could respond, he reached for the cup.
"Wait."
Por paused.
"What?"
For some reason I didn't want him to leave yet.
Which was ridiculous.
I was here to investigate him.
Nothing else.
So why did the thought of him walking away bother me?
"I'll take Caramel milk."
His eyes widened slightly.
"You don’t drink coffee do u?"
"It taste terrible."
He laughed again.
"There it is."
"What?"
"The honesty."
I rolled my eyes.
Por shook his head fondly.
Then turned toward the counter.
"I'll make you a better one."
I watched him disappear.
Then answered the call.
"Took you long enough," Uncle Tong said.
"I was busy."
"Is the assignment completed?"
My gaze followed Por as he moved behind the counter.
Smiling.
Laughing.
Talking to customers.
Looking absolutely nothing like a man who deserved a death sentence.
A strange thought entered my mind.
Then another.
And another.
Until a plan slowly began forming.
Dangerous.
Stupid.
Completely against protocol.
Which was probably why I liked it.
"Yes, I was gonna call and tell you the news myself." I said.
The words left my mouth before I could reconsider.
Silence echoed through the phone.
"Good."
I leaned back in my chair.
Still watching Por.
Still trying to understand him.
Still searching for the reason he had been marked.
"He's dead."
Another pause.
"Are you certain?"
"Positive."
"Excellent work, Teetee."
The call ended.
Just like that.
No questions.
No request for proof.
No details.
Nothing.
I lowered the phone slowly.
A cold feeling crept down my spine.
Because if this mission had truly mattered, Uncle Tong should have asked more questions.
Should have wanted confirmation.
Should have cared.
Instead, he had accepted it immediately.
Almost as if all he needed was for the target to disappear.
My eyes found Por again.
He was carrying a fresh cup toward my table.
Smiling.
Completely unaware that I had just told one of the most powerful men in the city that he was dead.
The plan settled firmly into place.
I wasn't going to kill him.
Not yet.
I wasn't going to let him out of my sight either.
If nobody wanted answers, then I'd find them myself.
And the best way to uncover a secret...
was to keep it close.
The first person I called was Save.
The second was AuAu.
Neither conversation went well.
"What do you mean you didn't do it?" Save's voice nearly exploded through the phone.
I winced and pulled it away from my ear.
"Lower your voice."
"No, actually, I don't think I will."
Across the room, AuAu looked equally unimpressed.
The detective had been silent for the past five minutes, arms crossed tightly over his chest, which somehow felt more threatening than Save's shouting.
I glanced between them.
This had gone exactly as badly as I expected.
"You told Uncle Tong the mission was complete?" AuAu asked finally.
"Yes."
"You're an idiot."
"That's what I said!" Save immediately agreed.
I pointed at him.
"You're supposed to be my best friend."
"And you're supposed to have common sense."
"That has never been one of my defining qualities."
Neither of them laughed.
Great.
The situation was officially serious.
I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face.
"I need answers."
"You need therapy," AuAu corrected.
"That too."
The detective stared at me for a long moment.
Then his expression shifted.
Not softer.
Just less angry.
"You really think something's wrong with this assignment."
It wasn't a question.
I nodded.
For once, none of us joked.
Because this was the real issue.
Not the lies.
Not the risks.
Not the fact that I'd completely ignored years of training and protocol.
The issue was Por.
Nothing about him made sense.
Nothing about the assignment made sense.
And every instinct I possessed was screaming that if I pulled that trigger, I'd lose the chance to uncover something important.
Something someone desperately wanted hidden.
Save finally exhaled.
Long and dramatic.
The way he always did when accepting that I was going to do something reckless regardless of what anyone said.
"I hate this plan."
"I know."
"It's a terrible plan."
"I know."
"We're probably going to regret it."
"Very likely."
Save looked toward the ceiling.
"Why are you like this?"
"No idea."
AuAu pinched the bridge of his nose.
Then, somehow, against all logic and reason, both of them agreed to help.
Not because they trusted the plan.
Not because they approved.
But because they trusted me.
Which honestly felt worse.
Trust was a heavy thing.
Especially when I wasn't entirely sure I deserved it.
The next day…
Por had absolutely no idea his life was about to change.
That thought followed me throughout the entire evening.
As I watched him close the café.
As I watched him stack chairs.
As I watched him wave goodbye to his coworkers with that same warm smile that somehow seemed permanently attached to his face.
Every opportunity I had to walk away, I didn't.
Every opportunity I had to complete the mission, I couldn't.
The closer I got to the truth, the less I understood.
And the less I understood, the more determined I became.
By the time everything was over, one thing was clear.
Por was no longer a target.
He was a question.
And I needed answers.