Gregory took Charles up to the door before leaving without saying another word. The door was ajar, so he knew Sofia was still awake. She wouldn’t lock her door most of the time just to scold anyone that would enter without knocking on the door. She wouldn’t yell at her parents, but she would scream at her siblings and maids and enjoy it. She had also slapped Carlos numerous times for entering her room without her permission. At present, Charles didn’t really want to enter the room. His thoughts reminded him how much she lied to him and cheated on him all the time, and yet he foolishly believed she would come to his side one day. He hated himself for not realizing sooner that she didn’t deserve him. Charles knocked twice. “Come in,” a soft voice came from the inside. He pushed the door open, and there she was, reading some book, which was surprising, to say the least. “Charles…” She sounded a little surprised, though she didn’t care enough to get off her bed. She was still seated
In the middle of the night, Carlos was at a hilltop, sitting on his car’s hood. Charles’ mask was right next to him. He was looking at the lights of the city all around him. Despite being surrounded by millions of sparkling lights, he still felt alone. His chest felt heavy yet empty. He looked like a broken soul, his expression barely changing even though minutes kept passing. It had been a few hours since he left the Myers’ mansion, but he still couldn’t forget the hug he, as Charles, received from Sofia. ‘Wife and husband should be each other’s most precious mirror of love.’ He had expected that before marriage, but what he received from Sofia was far from love. When she could so easily hug Charles, why couldn’t she hug Carlos who had been more loyal than a dog to her? No matter how much he thought about it, he just couldn’t understand it. Thinking about how utterly pathetic his married life was, tears welled up in his eyes. He squeezed the inner corners of his eyes with his fi
With one leap, he covered over forty feet and landed behind Carlos, startling him. Before Carlos could react, this person dug his fangs into Carlos’ neck and sucked greedily. A flood of blood washed into his mouth, but then it began to burn his tongue and throat. “AHH!” he screamed and fell back on the windshield. He spat all the blood. “What the…” he seemingly looked shocked as Carlos turned back, and the wound on his neck was healing at a rapid pace. “Y-You are also… a vampire? What ‘creed’ do you belong to?” Carlos grew fangs and claws immediately. “Woah, woah, take it easy,” he crawled back a little so that he now sat on top of the car. “I’m not going to harm you.” Carlos still slashed his claws at him, forcing him to defend himself. But the sheer impact of their claws caused the roof of the car to cave in. The glass windows shattered. He caught Carlos’ arm and hurled him over into the distance. Carlos got impaled on a branch that came out right through his navel. “I’m Helix,”
In the morning, the news channels barely covered the incident that destroyed the Sterling Blood Bank. Two-thirds of the building was destroyed. Not a single blood packet could be salvaged. Only some of the metal cots and some other tools were eventually recovered from the rubble. It wasn’t a big building, but Charles had built it for himself as well as for the citizens, so seeing it go down in flames left a bitter taste in his mouth. Charles kept receiving many calls from different investors and even the Myers family, but he just wasn’t in the mood to answer. Hours passed, but he just sat on a bench by a footpath and was staring aimlessly all around. His clothes were torn and covered in blood, so people avoided him, thinking he was either a beggar or someone carrying some sort of disease. Some called the police, but after the police learned about his identity as Charles, they left him to his devices. Charles again kept staring at the fallen building. He had no idea if it was coinc
Still wearing the torn and bloody clothes, Charles went straight to the Supreme Bank’s headquarters. Again he wasn’t allowed inside by the guard who had a gun. Not wanting to fight with him, he asked if Sosa, the CEO, was there inside or not. The guard shook his head. His heartbeat told Charles that he probably wasn’t lying.He then went to Sosa’s house, but Sosa wasn’t there. The watchman told him Sosa left for work in the morning and didn’t come home yet.“Where the heck did he go?” Charles was getting more and more angry to the point he was worried he might grow fangs in front of the public. “Surely, he didn’t run away with my money, did he? He’s the biggest fish. This wouldn’t have happened without him knowing. I must find him and make him spit who forced him to do this.”At the same time, in the Bones’ hospital.Sosa had been admitted into the ICU because he had suffered an accident. A truck had hit his car. He was wounded badly, but thanks to the treatment, he just opened his ey
Charles gave the pizza to a beggar and went to a bar for a much-needed drink. He spent a hundred dollars and downed three bottles of wine, but that didn’t even make him feel tipsy.“Damn this life. Even concentrated wine isn’t doing a thing to my mind,” he frustratingly walked out of the bar. It was already close to midnight.A taxi stopped before him. The driver opened the back door and whistled. “Get in, sir. I’ll take you wherever you want faster than a flight can.”“Take me 30,000 ft off the ground, please,” Charles requested, shocking the driver.“Haha, I was talking about the land routes, sir.”“Take me to a casino that we can get to by land route,” Charles casually said and entered the car. He sat in the back seat.“Which casino?”“Any casino.”“Okay.” The driver took advantage of Charles’ words and kept roaming through the city for a while until eventually stopping at the farthest casino from where they started. “We’ve arrived at the Origin Casino.”“How much?” asked Charles.
Charles started with 500 dollars, and turned it into 25,000 in under an hour.25,000 dollars wouldn’t even be enough to buy a good pair of shoes for Sofia, so he felt really driven to earn more. A lot more.Even though he hated playing poker at this point, he could think of no other way. Of course, he could rob a bank, from the same Supreme Bank that had fucked him up big time, but without even knowing what happened to Sosa, he just didn’t want to act rashly.He was taken to a bigger table since he had more money now. While people mumbled as to why Charles was playing with such low bets, they saw someone they least expected approaching that table.An old man with short hair and light white stubble. His blue suit was of Myers’ brand, but what caught Charles' eyes were the two black roses in his pocket near the chest. The flowers crossed each other like the swords displayed on a wall plaque.Charle’s heart skipped at once at the thought that crossed his mind.The crowd kept murmuring.“
Raven was currently on the rooftop of his hospital. He looked toward the brick water tank, where Andres was crucified with nails and was beaten pretty badly.One of Raven’s underlings sprayed water with a tube and woke Andres up.“I-I’m not hiding Carlos anywhere,” Andres had to put a lot of effort to squeeze out a few words because his diaphragm was cut open and pepper was sprayed on it. “I’m telling you the truth.”“I believe you now, Andres,” Raven's eyes were filled with fake-pity. His brows also did some talking. “But I’m still going to take your life as well as the lives of everyone that Sofia dated. If I do that, I’m sure she’ll connect the dots sooner or later and realize that she can’t escape from me.”Tears flowed out of Andres’ eyes not just because he was going to die, but also for coming into Sofia’s life. He remembered how harshly he treated Carlos when he told Andres to leave his wife alone. He even broke Carlos’ legs and threw him in a cottage, leaving him alone to rot