The meaning of Three years.

"You did well. Improvisation seems to be your forte."

In Clara's office, Alex was standing next to Lucius, who had been missing for a long time.

"I made a lot of blunders though. So much evidence left for the police, the FBI, and the CIA to scour through. I am sorry, but there is a high chance that the murder will be linked to the family."

Alex had been thinking about this ever since the mission had been completed. He was angry with himself, but in that situation, he couldn't have done much else.

"You don't need to worry about that. The FBI has already asked for our help for the case, and we have significant control over it. Cleveland is our city. No one has more power in this case than us."

Lucius was looking at his wife and fell into deep thought. They had to spend a significant amount of money to make this possible. Alex really couldn't have escaped unscathed if they didn't intervene. The evidence had been swapped out, the case had been diverted to change the focus away from them, and The FBI had been duped by them by completely sabotaging the investigation.

In a way, everything she said was true, but he was expecting her to explode at him and make him feel inferior. But her current attitude was completely out of character.

"Coming to the main point, You need to know what Elias was doing at the party."

Alex was surprised. This was the exact question going on in his mind because him suddenly appearing at the party to kill Micah, was too much of a coincidence.

"At the end moment, He paid 10 million euros to acquire his information. The timing was too coincidental, meaning that someone from the collective deliberately made contact with him and made him attack Micah at the exact moment that you were going to take on this mission, which smells fishy to me. Can you guess who would like to sabotage you like this?"

"It can't be..."

Acting time.

Alex stood there, considering his options. He knew that this was a deliberate attempt to make him hate his mother. It had to be. Only the Grey family knew that it was going to be easy to kill Micah and they could be the only ones that provided the information to the collective. As for Elias, if they knew that he had been provided information regarding such a mission, there should have been some kind of warning before they committed to the mission.

Clara was trying to make Alex hate his mother, banking on the fact that Alex was a kid, and he wouldn't over analyze this situation. It could also explain how Elias hadn't been informed regarding their mission, because he was the employer. He would have been the first to know if there was going to be a hit. Clara must have simply hidden the fact using her influence and blocked any information from reaching Elias about the mission, only letting him know that the best time to get revenge was that event. She was one crafty woman, but Alex was used to dealing with Sylvia. She would never leave such loopholes in her plan, and she would never underestimate her opponent.

'Should I play along?'

Alex wanted to give Clara a taste of her own medicine. What better way than to completely crush her hopes after giving them to her in the first place.

'Yeah, let's do this.'

"It was her, wasn't it?"

Anger. A child who was trying to be mature, showing anger. Clara thought she hit the mark.

Lucius looked at his disciple, without intervening. He wasn't going to guide him through all of his hardships. Some of them, he had to go through on his own.

Alex controlled himself. He looked at Clara and said,

"She did say that she would be doing things that aren't going to be in my favor, so I should have expected this. Thank you for not hiding this from me. It means a lot."

Lucius sighed. He said,

"No need to thank us kid. Just make sure to focus on your own future, rather than the past."

This is all the help that Lucius was going to give him. Vengeance could ruin anyone, even gods.

"I will, master. Mam, I have one more question."

"Ask away."

Alex had been thinking about this question from the moment Elias shouted at Micah. He had come to his own conclusion regarding this question, but he couldn't rest easy without knowing the truth.

"How much time had passed since Elias had put up this mission?"

Clara smiled. 'This kid has great intuition. Thank god I was able to fool him.'

"You remember what the priority of this mission was?"

Alex nodded. "Low."

"Exactly. If the collective deemed it to be not worth the effort, the mission would have never been completed. Elias is not a special case. There are hundreds of people who are still waiting on their missions to be initiated. In his case, it took 3 years. The longest time taken for a mission to be accomplished was 60 years. If we can't accept your mission till the time you die, we will return the money to your next of kin."

Making it more convenient for them to kill, rather than risking their people for someone else's revenge. Alex came to this conclusion, and Clara agreed.

"You might be thinking that this system only benefits us, but you have to consider that they want us to do something that no one else can accomplish or accept, other than themselves on some rare occasions. We won't just sacrifice all of our people on a chance that they can accomplish a mission. If we have the power, we will use it as we want to."

"So, what happened with Elias wasn't the first time something like this has happened. If his target would have been worth the money, he would have gotten his revenge within a week. If you give us a hard mission, make it worth our time. Everybody has a price, but if you want a bargain, your revenge will have to wait for the right moment. We are not running a charity. This is contract killing."