ALLIANCE

XVII: Bare

"Nathalie, did you find anything unusual?" Travis asked, over the microphone.

The woman sighed in response. "No, Trav. I've searched all night, but that f*****g impostor works clean. He left no evidence." She said, entering a local bar. "How about you?" She added.

"Nothing, as well. But I've been trying to contact Mr. Benjamin since yesterday, her assistant keeps telling me to call back in a few days." The man responded. 

"Well, that's suspicious. He should've been active because he's the third man in command now. I'll try to visit his office later on." The woman assured her, as she sit on a stool.

"Okay. Are you going home now?" Travis asked.

"Not yet. I'll just blow off some steam and I'll be there. Give me an hour." She said, motioning to the bartender behind the bar to order a drink.

"Okay, Nath. Leave your microphone on, in in case you encountered something." He said.

"Yes." The woman simply responded. Travis didn't bother her anymore to give her the alone time she wanted.

The assassin had been awake for twelve hours now, rummaging around the city in her suit, her mask hidden in her pockets in case she needed it. She even visited the other Mafia leaders and police departments to investigate any unusual practices that might have occurred while they were away, but nothing suspicious in particular had happened that might be related to the trap.

The lady ordered a margarita. After a heavy sigh that resonated with the tiredness she was feeling, she downed the cold liquor until it was half full.

She was enjoying her break when a woman sat beside her. She didn't pay attention because she thinks it was just a local who also wanted to relax.

"You're drinking to calm down, even in this world." The woman said.

The assassin looked in her direction right away when she recognized the voice. It was of a lady with the same features as her so horror in her eyes suddenly gleamed. For a moment, she thought she was hallucinating from exhaustion, or maybe her mind was just imagining things because of lack of sleep.

"Nothing changed. You're still the stubborn Nathalie from home." She continued. "Nice to see you again, sis." She added, grinning.

Nathalie was silent for god knows how long, before muting her microphone for Travis not to hear. She hoped that the man was away from his computer because he didn't want him to know that one family member he wrote on her information hidden in his computer was in front of her at this moment.

"What the f**k are you doing here?" She asked, after the long pause. Her defenses started to rise.

"What do you think am I doing? I'm drinking. Iced tea, though. Not one of those." She stated the obvious, before pointing to Nathalie's glass.

"You know what I'm talking about, Selena. Stop talking casually to me. We are not on good terms for us to do that." She retorted, which caused the lady to just laugh.

"Nothing changed throughout the years. You're still a bitch." She said in between her laughs. "I was about to ask why you didn't even change your hair color to hide your true identity, but it seemed like you want to leave home at all, looking like that ever so proudly. You're still the same stupid girl I grew up with." She continued, still amused.

"Whatever. I don't want to know the reason why you're here anyway, but I advise you to go back to where you came from and never set foot here in Coterie ever again." She warned her, before leaving a dollar next to her drink and standing up to leave.

"Mother misses you." The woman spoke, singing the final word in a teasing melody, and it caused Nathalie to stop in her tracks.

There's only one thing in the world that she fears. Not ghosts, nor she has any phobia of some sort, especially not notorious criminals because obviously, she was above them, but if something might cause her skin to crawl, that would only be her blood. It would only be her mother.

And that's how she was feeling right now, hearing what her sister said. She slowly looked back at her sister.

"Not in a hurry now, huh?" Selena said, smirking at the lady.

"What the hell do you want?" She spat, her temper slowly leveling her defenses.

"You're looking for someone right? Why don't you let your eldest sister help you?" She offered a smile still a bit mischievous. 

"I don't need your f*****g help." She tells her, in a steady tone, arms crossing over her chest.

"Are you sure? It seems like you're having a hard time. Wouldn't you like an easy strategy?" She chuckled, giving her a knowing look that Nathalie understood right away. She rolled her eyes in disgust.

"I don't belong in your world anymore, Selena. And I don't f*****g trust you. So, just tell me what the hell you are here for." She retorted. "Just like what you said, I'm on a mission. I don't have much time for your silly games." She added.

Her sister placed a hand over her chest as if pretending that she was hurt by the assassin's words. "You don't trust your own family, but you trust that white King in the Realm? Now that's what changed. You now became gullible." She chuckled.

Nathalie eyed her expression upon hearing her words. Her curiosity suddenly clouded her mind. "What do you mean?" She asked.

There's still a smirk plastered on the woman's face. "I know a lot of things you might not know, little sis. Why don't you sit down and then we'll have a chat?" The lady tilted her head to the side, motioning for her to sit back down beside her.

She sensed that the missing pieces of this trap of a puzzle could probably fill it, and it would help the Realm and the Coterie's alliance to be worth the effort. So after staying still for a minute contemplating, she finally sat back down.

"I'm only here because it involves my city and the Kingdom. If you talk about another world rather than those, I'll leave." She said, crossing her legs.

"Fair enough," Selena responded, her grin unfazed.

"How does a ghost eat an apple?" Nathan asked the anticipating woman whose eyes had become teary for the past couple of minutes because of laughing too much.

The King's right hand had been entertaining her with jokes that the mafia queen surprisingly finds humorous. "Okay, how?" She asked, after a few seconds of calming down.

"By goblin it." The man answered, maintaining a serious expression since he was waiting for the woman's reaction. Carina stared at him with the same intensity of seriousness for a second or two before the lady started laughing hysterically once again. The King's right hand was satisfied with her response so he chuckled lightly, listening to the woman's joy.

Julian had been pouting at them since earlier, and he had been busy commenting on his jokes every time. Words of disagreement like, 'that's so lame, or 'why would a ghost eat an apple' of some sort.

Huxley on the other hand had been joining Carina with her laugh, but he'd been silently side-glancing Nathan with looks of daggers.

The last time the woman laughed that way was when they were still together, and it somehow bothered him that some other guy was doing that for her now. His ego was playing pity on him, thinking that he would always have the upper hand in making Carina the happiest, but that seemed to be untrue right now as he watches the woman's eyes smile towards another man.

"I'm sorry. I woke up late." Lilith quietly entered the conference room, her hair still wet from taking the shower. She started walking towards the seat.

"Just admit to everyone that you have another hangover." Julian retorted, still pouting because of his sister. Lilith just glared at him as Huxley shook his head in disappointment.

"Your majesty." Nathan, who finally removed his gaze from Carina stood up to bow to the Queen. He motioned a sit near the end of the table where the King would always stay, but Lilith waved her hands in disapproval. She wanted to seat beside her brother.

When she finally settled down, the eldest Prince, the young Prince, and the king entered the room as well. They casually greeted each other in a way that they all got used to, by now.

Sven glanced at Lilith who was two seats away from him, after settling down on his own. He brushed off the idea of asking her to the seat next to him since he promised that he wouldn't ask anything from her now that she became the Queen.

The eldest Prince who was carrying some materials when he entered the room, took a gadget out of a plastic bag. It looked like it was a mobile phone. "Everyone, I've tried unlocking the princess' phone, and her call logs and text messages were deleted. Even her messaging applications were empty. It was suspiciously empty that it looked like she purposely erased everything." He started, before placing the gadgets he was holding down on the table. Everyone's attention was now on the two men in front.

Nathan started to click the remote of the big projector. A photo popped up.

"But thankfully, with Nathan and Travis's help, they retrieved all the recently deleted information on her phone." He pointed towards the screen. "We only found one contact number and it had a different prefix, that didn't belong to either of our domains. We researched on the certain prefix and Travis found out that it belonged to the enemy's world." He continued.

"Did you perhaps find out whose it was?" Huxley asked, his curiosity being awakened.

"Fortunately, we did. It was all thanks to Miss Carina's assistant." This time it was Nathan who answered, he clicked a button on the remote once again and the screen showed a different photo. It was a photo of a man in his thirties, wearing a silver tuxedo. The mafia leaders and the King recognized the man right away.

"That stupid freak," Carina commanded, thinking that the trap theory has started to make sense.

"Isn't that the recently elected president of the Republican City?" Lilith questioned, which made the right hand of the King nod in confirmation.

"Did you perhaps, find out what the calls were about?" The king asked this time, absorbing all the information.

"Well, your royal highness, we haven't yet, but Travis is for sure working on it now, back in the mafia land." The eldest Prince answered. "There's also one thing that we have found on the young princess' phone." He added.

Nathan showed another media on screen, but this time it was a recording. "This was recovered from one of the messaging applications on her phone. It was a voice message. We figured that it is a big proof that we could start with." He continued.

"You don't need to worry about Mister Flynn's temper, princess. I've got everything prepared tonight. I promise that it would be a success and I'll visit you right away, after this."

The voice of a young man echoed through the room. Huxley's ears perked up from the message that he heard and an emotion stirred inside him upon hearing.

Nathan clicked on another media, that immediately popped up on the screen. "And this was the reply of the young princess." He spoke, looking exactly towards the young Prince. 

"Make sure to do what you needed to do, or else you wouldn't have me. The president should not know about our plan after this scheme, because if he found out, everything will leave us to nothing."

The king looked over his brother after hearing the message. Jaxon was expressionless, his hands bawling into a fist. They never were officially together and they got engaged on the spot since it's fixed matrimony, but of course, his pride and reputation had been hurting because of the incompetent princess. She was starting to get on his nerves too.

"Wait." Huxley halted. "Can you replay the first audio again?" He requested. The right hand of the king did what he was told right away.

"This voice is familiar." He commented, after hearing the audio for the second time.

"That's what I also think," Carina spoke to the second demotion, her fingers tapping on the wooden table. The owner of the voice was on the tip of their tongues.

"I think it's familiar too. Isn't that-" Julian was cut off when the big screen popped up an incoming call icon. The ringing made the young man stop talking.

Nathan clicked to answer right away, revealing the face of Carina's assistant who was wearing a black hoodie. His surroundings were dim because of the closed lights, but the computer screen illuminated his features.

He bowed towards them. "I'm sorry to interrupt your meeting but I think I've found the traitor here in Coterie. Nathalie had called me two hours ago and she wanted me to check on a specific address, where I found a video from the night when Mister Capone was killed." He didn't waste time starting to tell his newly found information.

A sound of a bell was heard implying that there was a file that was sent by the man. Nathan opened it right away, making the screen divided into two, the tab where the assistant could be seen moving to the left side, and on the other portion of the screen, the video file they received started to play.

It revealed Mister Capone's face. It looked as if he was talking to someone on the screen. After three minutes of him only talking, the sound of an opening door was heard, causing the man on the video to look towards where the entrance of the room should be located. His surprised eyes were seen before the camera turned off, but the background sound of the video could still be heard. They heard the man about to mutter a word but they didn't have the chance to do so, because gunshots were suddenly heard, and then there was a faint sound of footsteps coming near where the computer was located before the video finally ended.

"That video was an online business meeting, the recipient is still unknown. I found this because I hacked into the computer system that was on that location so I also figured out who was residing there." The assistant continued explaining before someone could start to comment. The man stopped and sighed before continuing. Another sound of the bell was heard and the file that was received was immediately opened by the right hand of the King.

"It was of Mister Capone's son. It's Mister Benjamin." He finishes when a photo of his mansion was displayed on the screen.

"I f*****g knew it." Julian, who didn't have the chance to finish his statement earlier, was the first person to react. "That voice message was also his." He continued, the people around the table looking his way. "When we had the meeting on the day of the mission that Nuna and her assassins should go here, he was absent. I just heard that he needed to do some business stuff regarding their tobacco business so I let it pass. But earlier, when we heard the voice messages, he promised to visit the princess. Maybe that's the reason why he was gone for days, after his father's funeral. When all of us arrived here in the Realm, that's the only time Nuna can contact him." He added, making the people feed further on their conclusions.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Can you locate where Benjamin is?" Huxley was the one to break the silence.

"That's the only suspicious thing that we figured here before Natalie told me about that specific address. Ever since we got here, his assistant was the only one taking up his calls and he was nowhere to be found in the city." Travis answered.

"From what I've heard from your assumptions, the last time he went out of the city, was the time he wanted to visit the young princess. Our borders are strictly guarded twenty-four-seven. The people who can easily pass, are only the ones we're expecting. Other than that, it will be really difficult unless they are familiar with the roundabouts of the Kingdom. So if they'd been seeing each other for a while now, they must've had a meeting place outside of both our cities." The king concluded, glancing at the two Mafia leaders.

"The Republican." Lilith assumed, voicing out the answer the three leaders were exactly thinking of.

"Nathan, ask the head royal guard to bring Adelaide here." The king commanded. The right hand bowed in agreement before passing the projector remote to the eldest prince. He then started to talk on his earpiece microphone.

"Travis, where's Nathalie?" Carina asked the man on the large screen.

"She's a few blocks away from here. She'll be home soon." He responded, refraining to mention the activity that the assassin is doing right now because it might trigger his boss' rising rage from what's been happening.

"You have to go back here tonight. Leave, the moment she arrives home." She said to him, in a steady voice. The assistant bowed toward her before ending the call.

"So, who will interrogate that sweet young princess?" Carina spat towards the people surrounding him, after a long sigh.

The restless man was pacing in his apartment back and forth over the last two hours. Nathalie's phone had been turned off and her microphone was out of the connection. The last conversation they had was a few hours earlier when the woman asked her to investigate Benjamin's whereabouts.

After updating the people in the Realm, he started contacting the woman but she was nowhere to be found.

He even tracked her mobile phone's GPS but the final location she was in was at the nearby pub she went to earlier, and it just stopped there. He assumed that the woman's phone was powered off so he didn't have other clues.

He couldn't hold in his patience anymore. He was getting worried sick. He knows that Nathalie can take care of herself and she would remain unharmed in Coterie City because she was known as one of the best fighters in the domain, but his guts keep on making him feel troubled.

He didn't waste more time. He took his coat and phone off the coffee table before making his way toward his door, placing his necessities in his pockets.

He figured, that he should physically look for her which he always hated doing, because he finds about things easily using technical work since its easy for him that way, but because the woman was dear to him, he would do it for her sake and he didn't have any other options anyway.

His feelings were mixed with uneasiness and concern because they are in the middle of working on a mission, but his endeavor decided to show up at the most unprofessional time.

When he was almost near the exit of his apartment, his mag lock beeped and it opened in an instant. He was quick to catch the body of the person who almost tripped, entering the room. It was the woman he'd been worried about, and that woman was wasted.

"Lover boy!" The woman squealed, seeing the man's presence. She was barely holding on to the man's arms, her red cheeks perked up as she was grinning. "I remembered your lock pin!" She proudly exclaimed.

Travis placed his hands on the woman's back to carry her weight, placing the woman's arm around his shoulder for support. The woman started poking his biceps with her other hand. "Wow, my lover boy is a really strong man." She teased, her voice is high-pitched.

The man wasn't amused, nor was he impressed with the woman's attempt to flirt. He honestly felt bothered and a bit annoyed with himself because of overdoing his emotions earlier. He felt as if all the thoughts that his energy used up were put to waste, but at the same time, he doesn't regret it. He just hated how vulnerable he felt because he was not used to those emotions. He was always a silent, concealed man.

He let her sit on the big couch before moving to the kitchen to hand her a glass of warm water, something that he would always do for the woman as a remedy for sobering up. After he figured that the woman was comfortable enough, he stood up to make his way to the kitchen.

When he finished his errand, he went back to hand the glass to the drunk woman.

Nathalie was just watching his every move, eyes fluttering dreamily while sipping on the drink she gently took from his hand. The contents were spilling a bit with her uncoordinated movements.

Travis crouched in front of her, his face still frowning. "Would you like something to eat? Or maybe you want to take a warm shower?" He said, his expression retaining but his voice still full of concern.

Nathalie observed his expression, she placed the cup of water away from her mouth, holding it with both hands to place it just above her legs. "Travis." The woman called out.

"Hmm, yes?" The man hummed in response, his expression not changing but his voice soft. He offered to take the glass from her with his hand, but the woman shook her head, declining his offer.

"Why are you so nice to me?" She asked, making the man soften his expression a little.

"What do you mean? We've been working for so long. This is what a normal co-worker would do to a drunk co-worker. Boss and Lilith would do the same thing for you too." He spoke, getting the glass on the woman's hand. He stood up and started walking towards the kitchen.

"Would Carina and Lilith hide a folder of my photos and videos, on their desktop too?" She asked, making the man halt from moving.