Chapter 62
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 62
Nikolaos's funeral was over. Everyone returned to their daily lives.
Heilas didn't press Kinuan. He simply bided his time in silence. I, too, returned to my duties.
"I'll take care of the rest of Nikolaos's work," Heilas had told me. He would likely delegate the investigation to someone else through indirect channels. He certainly had the connections for it.
Then I paid a visit to our hideout—the gang's office.
Crash!
Trouble was already brewing the moment I walked in.
Gabriel had Snub-Nose by the collar and slammed him to the floor. Snub-Nose desperately begged for mercy.
"Ack—cough! B-Boss!"
"Bo-o-oss? Right, so my orders are just a joke to you now? What the hell is this? Drugs? Are you out of your goddamn mind?"
"No, it—it was just a little pick-me-up during my break! Just a tiny bit, I swear!"
So Snub-Nose had been getting high on the clock. Gabriel grabbed him by the ankle and flung him across the room.
"Gah!"
Snub-Nose went flying and crashed down right beside me.
"Y-You're back, Young Master? P-Please, save me!" Snub-Nose whimpered, clutching at my coat. I kicked him loose and kept walking inside.
Gabriel shot me a glare, venting his frustration. "Why the hell haven't you been picking up your calls? While you were gone—!"
"There was a funeral in the family," I said curtly. Gabriel scratched his cheek, looking sheepish.
"Oh. R-Really? My condolences. Well, if it was a family funeral... damn, nothing you could do about that."
"So. What happened while I was gone?"
"Ken Noma's gone. He was here last night, definitely, but..."
"Weren't you keeping watch over him in shifts?"
Gabriel glared back at Snub-Nose. "When I got here this morning, Baldy was nowhere to be found, and this piece of shit was completely wasted on drugs!"
I turned a cold, sharp gaze on Snub-Nose. The man who'd been desperately clutching my coat a second ago scrambled backward into the corner like a frightened insect.
I went straight up to the room where Ken Noma had been kept. The place was empty and quiet, with no signs of a struggle. Through the window—its lock broken—drifted the lukewarm, stagnant air so typical of the Lower District.
"Goddammit."
A curse slipped out. The scum in this place were truly worse than I'd imagined. I couldn't believe they hadn't even managed to keep watch over a half-dead cripple.
"Think someone took him?" Gabriel asked, peering down through the window.
"Unlikely. The lock was broken from the inside. If someone had broken in, they'd have smashed the window to get in. And if they'd come through the front door, they wouldn't have made a scene climbing out the window. Did you try contacting Baldy?" I asked, quickly piecing the clues together. Gabriel's eyes widened a little, apparently impressed by my deduction.
"Uh, yeah. Of course I did. He's not answering."
"Tell La Vie en Rose to put their people on it and search for Baldy and Ken Noma. I'll contact Aleph myself."
"Will La Vie en Rose actually do us a favor like that?"
"Gabriel, just sleep with Martina. She'll help us then. That old woman's sex drive seems to be off the charts."
"Huh? Wh-What did you just say? Hey, are you fucking kidding me? Do I look like some street whore to you?!" Gabriel's voice boomed through the room. I remained unfazed.
"Gabriel, you're partly responsible for Ken's disappearance. You're the one who brought those idiots in, and you were supposed to keep them in line. If a single night in bed can get us Ken back, I'd say you're getting off cheap."
"No, fuck—what—you motherfucker! I'm not saying I'm completely blameless, but... ugh." Gabriel unleashed a torrent of curses before letting out a sigh so heavy his shoulders slumped.
"If you really hate the idea, I won't force you. We'll just rely on Aleph." I knew Gabriel's character. He wasn't the type to shrug off his responsibilities and play dumb. If he had been, I'd have cut ties with him on the spot and found myself another proxy.
"Fine! I'll do it! I'll sleep with her, alright?! God-fucking-dammit, seriously, ugh..." Gabriel tore at his hair and stormed out of the room. Moments later, I could hear him on the phone with La Vie en Rose.
I immediately reached out to Aleph as well. When I told him we'd smuggled Ken Noma out of the hospital, his voice dropped.
"Look, Young Master. I don't mean to point fingers, but if you were going to smuggle him out... you could've at least given me a heads-up first."
He's definitely pointing fingers.
"If you find Ken, contact me immediately."
"Sigh... That guy probably sees me as his mortal enemy. Whatever. I'll let you know the second we find him."
"Just to be clear—don't dispose of Ken Noma on your own."
"You're going to owe me one, Young Master."
Lately I felt like my debts were piling up everywhere I turned.
La Vie en Rose and Aleph both knew their respective territories inside out. If Baldy or Ken Noma had fled into either of their domains, they'd be found in no time.
Once the calls were done, Gabriel and I headed back down to the first floor. Snub-Nose was kneeling on the floor, looking utterly terrified. The drugs seemed to have completely worn off, and he'd finally grasped the gravity of his situation.
"P-Please spare me, B-Boss, Y-Young Master..." Snub-Nose whimpered.
"...Luka, what do we do with this guy?" Gabriel whispered in my ear. I crossed my arms, weighing my options. In the military, there were strict, predefined regulations for punishment. Here, the judgment was entirely mine to make.
I didn't expect much from them to begin with, but this is even worse than I imagined... Snub-Nose had probably signed on under Gabriel with some casual, easygoing attitude.
"Snub-Nose. Just this once. I'll let it slide this time. But next time..." I reached out. Snub-Nose's left eye was still the real one. Hmm. An old memory surfaced—the day Heilas had gouged out my eye.
Squelch.
I drove my thumb into Snub-Nose's left eye. Digging in at an angle, my thumb pried into the socket and forced the eyeball out. It popped free of his head like a cheap toy.
"...It won't stop at just an eye next time." I ripped the eyeball loose. The trailing optic nerves snapped one by one.
"A-Ack... gasp... nngh...!" Snub-Nose whimpered, tears of blood and snot streaming down his face. He was fighting with everything he had to hold back the screams. He would hate me for this, no doubt.
He was welcome to hate me all he wanted. Emotions could always be painted over. Hatred could be buried easily enough beneath sheer terror.
Beep.
Gabriel's terminal chimed. He checked the screen, then tapped my shoulder. "La Vie en Rose found Baldy," Gabriel said, his tone heavy and uneasy. I understood the implication at once.
"Is he dead?"
"Yeah."
* * *
The reason La Vie en Rose had located Baldy so quickly was simple. A body had turned up in their territory earlier that morning. It was him.
Gabriel and I slipped into the crime scene like investigators. Grace was standing deep inside the dead-end alley.
"He has a laceration on his neck. The carotid artery was severed with surgical precision. This is the work of a professional—someone who knows how to handle a blade," Grace reported. At her feet lay Baldy's pale, lifeless corpse.
"Could Ken Noma have done this?" Gabriel muttered. In his prime, Ken had been deadly with a blade.
But Ken was supposed to be crippled. Even with the rehab I'd been putting him through, he shouldn't have been capable of moving on his own yet. Brain damage wasn't something you overcame so easily. Even I found it hard to believe Ken could have killed Baldy.
"Any witnesses?" I asked, looking at Grace.
"We're asking around."
I took a shallow breath and carefully scanned our surroundings, committing every small detail to memory. If I reconstruct Baldy's movements...
On the grimy wall, there was a spot where the filth had been wiped clean by someone's back. I checked the back of Baldy's clothes. The dust and grime there matched the wall perfectly.
I lowered my gaze to the ground. Sifting through the chaotic mess of tracks, I isolated the freshest footprints. A struggle broke out, and Baldy was pushed back against the wall...
Baldy had tried to break free. But the killer had grabbed him by the shoulder and slit his throat. The trajectory of the blood spray across the ground matched my hypothesis perfectly.
I frowned. Dead men tell no tales. All we could do was decipher their intentions through the traces they left behind.
"Young Master Luka, we've got footage from a nearby security camera," Grace said, activating her terminal's hologram. It showed the street just before the entrance to the alley.
"Ken, that ungrateful bastard... after all the trouble we went through busting him out." Gabriel's face twisted with rage as he stared at the projection.
Ken Noma and Baldy appeared on the holographic screen. Ken was stumbling as he fled, while Baldy, gasping for breath, chased him down with everything he had.
The two of them turned into the alley. Ken probably hadn't realized it was a dead end.
A short while later, only Ken walked back out. The sequence of events was painfully clear. Ken was the one who had killed Baldy.
Rather than anger, a strange, complicated emotion welled up inside me. You... actually did your job.
Baldy had tried to carry out my orders to the very end. Even completely out of breath, he'd kept chasing Ken. He hadn't abandoned his post. He hadn't gotten high on drugs.
I'd never expected Baldy to be so loyal. I'd written him off as cheap, low-grade muscle. Snub-Nose had thoroughly disappointed me—but for Baldy, I felt a genuine pang of remorse.
"Gabriel, if Baldy... no, if Orgo has any family or a lover, make sure they're generously taken care of. If they ever run into trouble, handle it for them." I used Baldy's real name. Gabriel nodded silently.
...People were complicated. You could never truly know them from a single facet of their character.
Until now, I'd smugly assumed I could read anyone with my shallow little insight. I needed to be more humble. There was still far more for me to learn than what I already knew.
I'd incurred another debt. This time, it was a debt left behind by Baldy—by Orgo.
"Your rehab sessions must have been damn effective," Gabriel remarked, replaying the holographic footage. "A guy who couldn't even stand on his own, recovering enough to swing a knife around." Ken's movements were clumsy, but he was undeniably moving under his own power. He'd even managed to kill Baldy.
I felt as though a crucial piece of the puzzle was missing. "...It wasn't the rehab," I muttered.
Ken Noma was hiding something from us. I frowned. Logically, a couple of rehab sessions couldn't possibly account for such a rapid recovery. And yet it was equally undeniable that he'd been completely crippled.
"Young Master Luka, another body—a drug dealer—just turned up nearby," Grace reported, filtering through the incoming chatter from La Vie en Rose's scouts. "Cause of death is blood loss from a severed carotid artery. Highly likely it's the same killer."
My mind raced. New information was piling up faster than I could process it, making a definitive conclusion impossible to reach.
Beep.
My terminal chimed with an incoming call from Aleph. Yet another variable was throwing itself into the mix.
—Y-Young Master! Y-You need to get over here! H-Hurry! You bastards, stop him! I said stop him! Ken Noma is r-raiding us!
Aleph was screaming frantically through the holographic projection. Before I could get a single word in, the call cut out.
Does Ken still have men under his command? Or did he storm the arena entirely on his own? Questions came in rapid succession. But I could do my thinking on the move.
I hailed a Black-Grade Taxi and headed straight for Aleph's arena. Even in the middle of all this chaos, Gabriel still gasped in horror when he saw the fare.