Demon's Protégé

Back Story 4

"Madamme Lincoln?" I repeated, feeling totally confused. "This town's mayor?"

The woman laughed at my frowned expression as she started to approach me with a few lazy steps. She took her time as I watched her with utter disbelief and anxiety and when she stopped a mere meter away, she gave me a shake of her head with a smug smirk on her face.

"I must be really a shock to you," she told me as she gave a raise of her brow and only then did she took note of my bruised look. "You got into a fight, huh? How did you mess your face up that way?"

I suddenly felt a little bit self-conscious when she said that and I stumbled a step back, only remembering that my face had been partly covered with bandages.

"It's nothing..."

"You think I'd believe that?" She said and the sharp insinuating sound of her words instantly had me looking up to meet her eyes. "Who do you think made me show myself up here to meet you?"

Ren? She knows Ren? Just who is that guy?

"If I caused a small trouble then I apologize, Madamme Lincoln," I forcibly said out of courtesy, gritting my teeth as I spoke. It might be a wrong move if I get into this person's bad side and I need to keep track of the words I will speak from this point. "I won't do it again. Things just got out of hand a while ago but I’ll be careful now. So pardon my intrusion, I need to go back to my room."

"No you won't," she suddenly stepped in front of me, blocking my way all of a sudden and preventing me from even taking a step forward. I paused and looked her way again, almost giving away a scowl as we stared at each other.

"Excuse me?"

"You will leave this town right now," she argued and her glare had me feeling a bit threatened. Though, I’m not really sure of the exact reason as to why she was suddenly forcing me out of here as if I had been doing something illegal just now.

"I'm not doing anything," I retorted back, sounding thoroughly defensive and quite confused. "I'm still booked for two more days in this place."

"Then we'll return the refund. I will have you escorted out of this town.”

“I’m not leaving,” I stubbornly replied, making the woman take another step towards me with an intimidating sneer.

“You’re quite hard to please, Mr. Takagi. Even when I’m already being overtly nice to you. Or do you want me to do this the hard way then? You want your entire presence banned here? I don't think you would want that, do you?"

"Are you threatening me, Madamme Lincoln?"

The woman slightly looked amused upon my question as she let out a mocking chortle. "Do you feel threatened now?"

"No," I said back, not even backing down, "But I will not leave today. I will wait once my booked days are over before I do, but even if it does, I don’t think there’s any reason for me to leave right away.”

"You're quite stubborn, huh? You must really be very serious about Miss Nari Hiden."

The mere mention of Nari’s name instantly put me in a state of panic as I tried not to show any reaction on my face. "What are you trying to say?"

"Depends on what you think about it,” she vaguely retorted back, “It's up to you anyway? Will you leave accordingly or will I have to force you out of this place to make it a little bit fun?"

“Are you trying to test me, Madamme?”

"I don't know what you mean by that, Mr. Taiyo,” the woman just smugly replied back. A ghost of a mocking smirk appeared on her face as she spoke, “But if I were you, I won’t really risk going against what I’m requesting you when I’m still being nice. Worst case scenario, I might even add, is your father's business that can also be put at stake here."

My father’s business, huh? Her clear threat was vividly shown by the way she looked straight at me with that unwavering sneer on her face. She had certainly meant business when she said those words and I was actually starting to get really affected by where this conversation was quickly leading us onto. Her warning was evident and very clear. With just one wrong choice of words, something bad might really happen—and much worse, it will all befall on me. And as this realization hit me, I could only resort down to playing it safe as I decided to just string myself along to her request for now.

“I’ll leave,” I said with an forced smile that I could not even stretched out no more as the woman quickly showed a triumphant smile on her face when I spoke. “You don’t have to escort me out of the town. But this does not mean I won’t be coming back again.”

“Let’s see,” the woman said smugly as her lips quirked up to one side with a seemingly mocking smirk on her face that quickly annoyed the hell out of me.

“Maybe the next time, young Takagi… You won’t have any reason to come back here anymore.”

I could not believe I was blindsided by everything. How in the hell did I get defeated by that woman? And knowing that she had used my father and Nari as leverage to get her way, I just felt really angry with how things turned out.

I did not even realized I had been stepping on the gas real hard that I was already driving the speed of more than sixty-five miles per hour. My entire senses came back when I noticed the border sign of Preston that was greeting me farewell ahead of me that I abruptly pulled by the side of the empty highway. I took a deep breath for a second and exhaled loudly. All of my frustrations came out so suddenly that has been brought out by the weight of everything that had happened today. I was sacked black and blue and now I was sent away from the village.

Such a pile of misfortunes in just one day.

As I gather all of these thoughts, I was suddenly visited by an image of Nari and it actually had me instinctively reversing the car back and I quickly took a turn to drive back to the direction of the village. But this does not mean I was going there again. This time, I won’t be daring to set foot on that town with anyone seeing me as clear as day… I will try to hide myself in the mansion while trying to save some time figuring out what to do next after what just happened a while ago.

Driving the road, it was very easy for me to just park the car by the front of the big steel gates of the property. I took a long moment to gather my thoughts first so I could come up with a backup plan. Returning to the village or even showing my presence to someone there could be really risky at this point. But that won’t ever stop me from meeting Nari. I had to do something about this so I could still see her and if more possible, I want to get her and her family out of this town. And now that I thought about it, the email that Hudson had sent me just came to mind and I quickly fished my phone out of my pocket to see it.

I was not yet ready of what I might see there. The things written there and what sort of confidential truth I was going to discover, was something that really made me feel anxious and a bit afraid of ever really figuring it out. And without even expecting anything, I did what I should have already done the moment Hudson sent me the documents.

He was really right about everything. The town was all but a completely undisclosed asset of our business.

There are so many transactions and suspicious clauses on the property settlement of the entire place. And if anything else, it was entirely illegal. Millions of dollars insured and had been going in and out of the town’s address. There was really something about this town and it all felt really dangerous. The mayor is one thing already but this document just directly proved everything about my suspicions. And now that I have skimmed through it, I didn’t have to check every detail to confirm it. I have to stop this now. I have to get get Nari and her family out of this town… And all the more to it, I have to find a way on how to destroy everything that I had just seen with my eyes.

It took me until dawn to finally get myself inside the mansion without actually leaving any traces behind me. I hid the car all the way behind the woods surrounding the entire place and I only brought a light load of bearings with me when I had tried to cross over the tall gates. When I got over the borders, I broke a window behind the mansion and trespassed my way in just to spend the night there for the meantime. Considering how things have been turning out now, this might be actually the best and safest place for me to stay for a while. I just have to keep up with the consequences and I have to make sure no one finds out where I am right now. It will be better as well if Nari does not know this. She would probably hear soon about what happened to me with how small their village is. By tomorrow, I really have to keep things low key and very discreet. I also have to call Hudson so I could let him know about a few things I had just discovered about this town. Having him on my side could really make things much easier to work on with all the secrets my father had been keeping about this town and especially about that suspicious woman who just called herself the mayor. She is the main target and winning this risky game requires a head start by knowing the enemy first.  

After all, everything about this place has been a total lie and it all just screamed bogus to me. I can never really trust anyone so completely but myself now.

I won’t leave no matter what.