Episode 80

"Where are you going?"

Ian sat up using the sheets to cover his front as he sat up completely bare. He cringed a bit holding his back that was hurting like hell.

Mr. Strauss was in front of the dresser. He'd already showered and was dressing up in front of the mirror.

"Since when am I answerable to you?" He spoke looking back through the mirror.

"Please let go of Lian...please" Ian spoke in somewhat of a begging tone.

"Who said I'm going to see him?" Mr. Strauss shrugged "Besides, whatever is about to happen to Lian, is going to be your fault to begin with"

"What do you mean" Ian frowned while being quite terrified at the same time.

"Seems like you'd picked up a fight with someone you shouldn't have messed with and they've been dying to get back at you" Mr. Strauss turned to rest against the wooden shelf, folding his arms.

"Who are you talking about???" Ian couldn't come to recall whoever he could've offended, since there were way more people in that list than one could narrow down.

"Didn't I always tell you to not make so many enemies?" Mr. Strauss spoke with a smug look on his face which further annoyed Ian.

"Who are they, who is with Lian?" Ian asked with a stricter tone.

"Do you remember the daughter of Aiba group?" Mr. Strauss only mentioned it and Ian went white in the face.

She had said she'd get Ian back for it but he'd only taken it as a blank threat.

"Dad, dad..no..no, you have to stop her...she's doing this revenge thing, DAD SHE'LL KILL LIAN, DAD STOP HER" Ian went from a frantic mumbling to yelling very loud, crawling forward and holding Mr. Strauss's arm.

"Who told you to make an enemy out of her? If you'd stuck to her, the Aiba group could have merged with us long ago, but it's okay Lian's fine too" Mr. Strauss spoke.

"DAD SHE'S 40, HE'S FUKIN 9, HE'S AN OMEGA, HE CAN'T TAKE IT" Ian spoke with a terrified face.

"And since when did I start caring about that? It's your own fault anyway that you turned your back towards a client" Mr. Strauss said.

"JUST TELL ME WHEREVER SHE IS, I'LL GO, SHE CAN DO WHATEVER SHE WANTS..JUST NOT LIAN" Ian started begging at this point.

Mr. Strauss pulled his hand away from Ian and went to his closet

He pulled out a file from the closet and threw it in Ian's face.

"Get this signed by Kirihara Mari"

"What's this?" Ian asked.

"It's a marriage contract ofcourse with a few extra conditions though, ofcourse you would have a public wedding later but these official documents need to be signed now" Mr. Strauss said.

Ian gave it a read "Kirihara group will be a subgroup of Strauss estate? Dad you said they'd be partners of equal standings, not a sub group"

"It seems like Lian is not motivation enough for you" Mr. Strauss's smug smile disappeared.

"Owning 75 percent of Kirihara groups' shares, they wouldn't agree to this... Dad...this.."  Ian pleaded.

"How you make her sign it is upto you, that's not my problem" Mr. Strauss said and walked away.

"Oh and you'd better hurry" Mr. Strauss turned back for once and smirked.

Ian was still shook from looking at the contract, he didn't anticipate what other shock was coming for him next.

"Little Lian must be in heat anytime now"

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"Alright I'll call you later"

He hung up the phone and made a sharp turn around the corner of the street only to be pulled in the alley and held against the wall by his neck.

"I don't have any cash!" Was his first declaration as he had his eyes closed.

Though he opened them and looked at the attacker with a familiar look on his face.

He knew her and the person with her.

"Himari Aoi...Kirihara Mari"  He mumbled clenching his fists tightly against the edges of his coat.

Aoi tightened her fingers around his neck, making it somewhat hard for him to breathe, he was also on his tip toes since she'd lifted him a little by his neck.

"Wait, stop, I really don't know where he is" He somewhat pleaded.

"We never asked anything" Mari responded.

He looked somewhat dumbfounded as if he himself spilled his own beans.

"Don't worry, we're not here to question his whereabouts, we're here for a different reason" Mari said, she somewhat placed her hand on Aoi's shoulder who had held the guy's neck quite tightly.

Aoi didn't say a word, at first she further tightened her grip till he started choking, coughing and throwing arms and legs.

Then while he was close to losing consciousness, she let him go.

He fell down on his knees whilst coughing.

Aoi reassembled her suit, fixing the tie and took out a few pictures from the inside, throwing it on him.

The pictures fell around, being scattered all over. Pictures from different CCTVs around her workplace and apartment. All with a suspicious masked man standing somewhere around her.

He picked up one of those pictures, the man was dressed in black and wore a mask and a cap.

"Are you saying it's me? You can't see the face, what makes you think that?" He asked.

"For someone who is the lawyer of Strauss estate, Mr. Nicholas, you're more dumb than we thought" Mari replied, to which he realized that they'd never said anything about this being him.

"I'm just saying, if you are showing this to me, it means you suspect me right? But you have no proof its me" He tried making it an argument instead.

Aoi squatted down infront of him and picked out one of the pictures.

She suddenly reached her hand and grabbed his wrist. Out of reflexes he started pulling his arms away from her, though she'd tightly gripped upon it.

"Himari Aoi stop! I can sue you for harassment!" He struggled but she pulled at his arm, pushing his sleeves back, exposing a dragon bracelet that he wore which was identical to the bracelet on the wrist on the man in the picture, who was stalking her.

"Say, Mr. Nicolas, can we sue you for stalking or no?" Mari collected her skirt and squatted in front of him as well.

He looked around rapidly as if trying to think up an excuse.

"It wasn't Mr. Strauss who told you to do this, was it?" Mari asked.

He looked at her without answering.

"What makes you think it wasn't?" He asked.

"Then how about we call him and ask if he'd sent you to spy on us or not, what do you think?" Mari literally took out her phone pretending to dial.

He did wait to see if she was bluffing.

But soon as she said hello, he leapt forward and snatched the phone from her only to be fooled up with a screenshot of a call being made.

"Got you" Mari smirked as he looked at the phone with a dumb look on his face, being fooled once again

Aoi had been silent throughout. Though once she'd witnessed this. She stood up.

"It's not him" Aoi mumbled and Mari looked at her being perplexed.

He also looked quite surprised by that statement.

"What do you mean?" Mari asked.

"He's covering for someone, he's misleading" Aoi responded.

"What makes you think that?" He gulped.

Aoi did not answer it and turned away, leaving the guy on the ground.

Mari followed.

"Even if he is, doesn't that mean he knows who it is?" Mari asked.

"It means the timing is not right"

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"I can do this all day"

Alex mumbled fixing the braces on his knuckles.

"Why don't you speak already" Zhuang stood by the side of the two men who were tied against the chair.

Their faces were all swollen and bruised.

"Where did you deliver them?" Zhuang asked again.

The guy didn't answer and Alex blew a fist in his stomach, making the guy cough up blood.

"WHERE DID YOU DELIVER THEM?" Zhuang raised his voice and Alex was ready to punch again without getting an answer but the guys were at their limits now. Alex had been at this for a while now.

Zhuang didn't say much, he left it to Alex to handle the torturing.

Zhuang came out of the room where they were keeping the guys in. He closed the door behind him since the screams only got louder.

He stood against the door and waited for a long while being silent, yet very tense inside.

Aoi arrived too along with Mari.

"How is it?" She asked Zhuang.

"Alex's been at it for a while now, they don't speak no matter how much we beat em up" Zhuang responded.

"Mari, return home" Aoi told her, to which Mari looked at her a bit curiously

"Take whatever he has to offer"

Aoi said and then took to the door going inside the little torture room.

Zhuang turned to Mari "What does that mean?" He asked her, to which she shook her head.

She didn't know either but she knew Aoi had something in mind.

"I'll go ahead first" Mari said taking her leave, one thing she was sure about is that Ian had probably done something even though they'd asked him to stay home and wait for them.

Though if Aoi is talking like that, it definitely means that she expected something out of Ian for her to leave him home alone like that.

The more she thought about it, the worried she felt, therefore she hurried in order to return.

Alex on the other hand stopped when he saw Aoi come in holding a box in her hand.

"Hey" he said looking quite tired himself.

"Where is he" Aoi mumbled looking at one of them as she walked forward, Alex backed away. Though she neared in and opened the box full of tools and got herself a pair of pliers.

"Aoi.." Alex felt a bit strange seeing her pick that up.

She held the hand of the guy who was tied to the chair. Seeing her, he peed himself and started shivering really hard.

"Nails or teeth?" Aoi mumbled and he shook his head rapidly with his pupils dilating. He couldn't even pull out a scream.

She fixed the pliers onto the nail of his shivering hand.

"Aoi" Alex felt a bit mortified, he tried to step in but a gush of pheromones made him freeze up.

Aoi's pheromones filled the entire room, making it more of a horror for those they'd captured, spreading intense fear.

A violent scream even shook Zhuang who was outside and he suddenly opened the door entering the room only to cover his face from those heavy sickening pheromones. He got to Alex as soon as possible and grabbed him, pulling him out of there.

Though his eyes went on the pulled out broken nail stuck between the pliers in Aoi's hands.

She turned to look at Zhuang with a blood lust in her eyes.

"I know where he is"

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"Ian!"

She pushed both the doors open at the same time and found him sitting on the couch in the dark.

"Ian..." She whispered walking towards him, clearly noticing the knife in his hand.

She neared in nevertheless.

He stood up with a sudden gush and came at her holding the knife against her neck.

She didn't even blink, she looked at him blankly as he did.

"If it's for my brother...." He mumbled, his voice was a shivering mess, his hair covered his eyes.

"I know" she answered staying still, yet she reached her hand over to his. She held the hand in which he had tightly grasped onto the knife and turned her face caressing his hand even though this made the knife cut into the upper layer of her skin.

"I don't know...what to do..." He mumbled loosening his grip onto the knife.

"I'm here" She replied reaching up to hold his face between her hands.

She cupped his cheeks ,lifting his lowered head.

"So that's what I looked like the other day" She mumbled looking at his messed up face from all the sobbing and sniffling.

"Damn you're ugly" She commented and he forgot about crying just to flick her forehead "ow"

"How could you say that" He said getting himself a handkerchief and starting to clear up his face.

She rubbed her forehead feeling somewhat relieved that at least he was being normal again.

"What did you do?" She asked him, being pretty sure that he didn't listen to them and went ahead to handle things on his own.

But if Aoi had predicted this, it meant she did expect him to do something.

"I went back..." Ian told her.

Her expression changed pretty quick "did you-" she asked with somewhat of a frown.

"Yeah..." He replied, she turned red in rage, it wasn't just the fact that he'd gone to do something like that but also the fact that Aoi knew he would, it angered Mari that Aoi deliberately let him go back even knowing what that place was like for him.

"I'm sorry...I'm so low"

Though his words made her attention divert from that.

"What does he want?" She asked remembering what Aoi had said, she was sure now that Aoi meant her to take whatever Mr. Strauss had to offer. Even though she hated that Aoi let it happen but she knew better than anyone that Aoi's twisted ways always work out in the end somehow.

Ian put forward the file that Mr. Strauss gave him, from couch to the table.

"He wants to own 75 percent share of Kirihara estate- I know it's impossible,  so I wouldn't-"

Mari moved with a sudden gush, taking the pen out of the file and signing it without reading, Ian's eyes widened and he went over to snatch the pen from her even though she'd already signed.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, ARE YOU CRAZY!!!" He pretty much yelled at her.

"I DON'T CARE" She pushed him away "I don't care okay...why, why did you have to do it...WHY?!!" She came at him grabbing him by the collars and shaking him a bit.

He lowered his head holding onto her wrists as she shook him by the collars of his shirt.

"I AM LIKE THIS OKAY, I'VE- WITH MANY MORE PEOPLE- LIKE-THIS-" He didn't realize when his dried up eyes started to fill up again....

"DON'T, NOT WITH ANYONE, NEVER DO IT AGAIN" She rested her head against his chest "I'll find...a way...so...never again...." 

He reached down and lifted her face towards him kissing down upon her lips to which she tied her arms around his neck pulling him down to her height and responding with an even more passionate lip lock. Tears trickled down his cheeks while they did.

They were both out of breath once they parted.

"Are you sure..." He asked glancing over at the signed papers lying scattered on the floor.

"Yeah, nothing matters but you" She whispered wiping his tears with her fingers, looking at him with a bewitched look, as if she saw nothing else in the world but him.

He somewhat moved away with a burning face, feeling a bit weird and flustered though he diverted his attention from this feeling soon and grabbed at the papers.

He quickly scanned the document from his cellphone, sending it to his dad, then made a call while Mari stood there watching him.

It was seen a few seconds after he'd sent it.

"I did what you wanted, she signed it- now- Lian-Hello?? Hello??" He tried dialing again though Mr. Strauss didn't attend the call.

"What happened?" Mari asked.

"He cut the call" Ian spoke being out of breath.

There was a knock on the door of the mansion which distracted the two.

Ian rushed over whilst Mari picked the file before following him.

Ian opened the door just to find his dad's bodyguard standing there.

He took out an envelope. Mari knew right away what he was here for. She extended her hand as he did the same. The two exchanged their holdings.

He turned away after retrieving the document while Mari opened the envelope only to find it empty from inside.

"WHAT...WHAT IS THIS..." Ian asked being completely panicked while Mari thoroughly inspected the thing in her hand "HE'S...HE'S FOOLED US!" He almost went frantic holding his head.

"Ian..."

"WHAT?"

"There's an address"