Succumb to Them

A few hours earlier,

"Detective Ralph, or…..Ivan Volkov.", the voice coming from the phone suddenly giggled, as Ralph was sitting on the table, at the corner of the dark room.

Ralph was still lost in his own void, holding his phone in his hands, listening from a distance, as he was too tired to put it on his ears.

"You made a good fool of us!", Ralph's legs were swinging slightly, but after hearing these specific words, they became static all of a sudden.

His eyes narrowed further.

"Not us, but this guy, who was already a fool to be honest.", another person's breathing could be heard, a very intense breathing. Ralph could feel that the other person's mouth was somehow tied up.

"Hear this", a gunshot was heard. Ralph's eyes widened as the sound broke his half-asleep state. On the other side, the guy whose mouth was actually tied, died.

"You know who this guy was? Knowing how observant you are, you certainly do. Remember those men who kidnapped you? Yes, the 'Boss' guy they called. Agh, he was a fool, for the first time I feel like a fool too, for giving that guy such a high position. He easily believed that Aria Volkov was your sister.", the voice paused for a moment, and 

Ralph's fast breathing covered the silence.

"Oh? You are afraid of something?", the voice indicated that the speaker was smiling slightly, "No no, don't worry. I'm not going to do anything to you right now, I have unfinished business."

Ralph swallowed some saliva and finally spoke up, " What do you want me to do now?"

"That's a good question. As now I'm directly talking with you, there's no middlemen. So no lie is useful. A little research on Aria Volkov cleared everything, upon stumbling on her actual brother, I found no relation between her and you, and that idiot couldn't even check this, he really deserved to die, didn't he?"

"Stop this bullshit, tell me what to do now, no one asked you how you did shit.", Ralph said in a quite yet bold voice.

"Oh. You have guts I see. I really like you, not at all afraid for his life."

Ralph was silent.

"Right, you are not afraid to die, and you'll not reveal anything about you or your real sister now. So I really have nothing to say.", the voice paused, "Now, listen to this, we were finally able to hack a camera inside Luther's apartment. They are really strongly set up, so much so, it took us this much time to only hack one of them. And that is of the main office. And you know what? We saw Aria Volkov, coming out from one of his hostage rooms."

A shock flowed through Ralph's body. His mind quickly went through everything he experienced, instinctively trying to tie it all together.

"A shock, isn't it? Her being in Luther's apartment, where Elias too, means only one thing. They are keeping her as a hostage for THE GHOST."

"And..And what are you gonna do with that information?", Ralph asked, stuttering.

"Ralph, you suspected Lucian Cole to be 'The Ghost', right? I do too."

"Yo-You do?", Ralph asked, his voice softened.

"Yes I do. But you have to be the one to prove that. Listen to me before you ask how. Before Nicolo died, he was invited by Lucian Cole, at his house. And as per the conversation we heard from the microphone Nicolo was carrying, we got to know that Lucian Cole acquired the name of your 'sister'. Which means, Lucian now knows Aria as your sister. And if he is the ghost, do you know what his next step will be with this new information?"

"Use it against me??", Ralph asked, with a mix of fear, nervousness and confidence in himself.

"Exactly. Observe closely. By tomorrow, he will set something up, probably to get information out of you. And if he does, then it is proved that he is, without a doubt, 'The Ghost'."

Ralph's eyes softened, as he said, "Alright, I will inform you as soon as I see whatever you predicted now. Will I be free then? After proving that Lucian is the ghost?"

"Oh boy, you really dream of freedom still? I thought you were ready to die. And all these days, your acting in front of Nicolo was fantastic. You acted as if your sister was really in danger.", the voice giggled slightly, "But you know what? All these days, you were only afraid of dying! You didn't care about anything but to just live further, you were so desperate to live! Even after securing your sister's life you still obeyed us, meaning you were afraid to die!", the voice was surprisingly calm, with almost no dynamics in its volume.

"Yeah, I wanted to live. I really did. But now? You can kill me, at least I would know that I fooled all of you before dying, I never truly lost.", Ralph spoke boldly.

"I love your attitude dude. But wouldn't you want to win against 'The Ghost'? You haven't proved his identity ye-", Ralph didn't let the sentence complete itself, and said, "I will. I will do what I have to do before I die. You guys have a system to know when one of your members die, right? I hope I am included."

The voice laughed a little, "Damn, I'm falling in love with you. It would be a moment of joy to hear you die."

A few hours later,

Ralph's phone rang and Lucian's number popped up. The moment his eyes landed on his phone, his trance finally broke. The few hours before this moment felt like centuries. His long journey of waiting finally broke and he saw a light of freedom, even if it cost his life.

He never knew what hopefulness and hopelessness felt when mixed, until this moment. As he started driving his car he started to whisper something to himself, practising some kind of phrase. He repeatedly said, "O3, O3, O3", but not loud enough.

After around 5 minutes, he reached Luther's apartment.

Current time,

"Don't you understand it now? The sudden change in Ralph's behaviour? Why would he go from a lost man to a man saying, 'I win'?", Lucian explained to Elias.

"So you intentionally played into their trap? Just to see how smart this 'leader' is?", Elias finally got a moment of peace.

"Yeah, basically. Until the point where Ralph said 'I win', very honestly even I was confused. But what he said confirmed everything. I'm very sure this O3 leader contacted him as soon as they realized that Ralph fooled them. And then planned something together with him. Because there is no way Ralph, with the resources he has, can deduce this much alone.", Lucian said.

"I understand, but, what now? What are you seeing now? You just sacrificed your identity to O3, just for an experiment. What was that for?", Elias asked quietly.

"That was the point. In fact, I realized my goal and O3's goal is the same. And that is, to meet. I don't even have to go find them anymore, because Ralph's death in itself was a message to them, something like, 'The Ghost is Lucian Cole, confirmed.", and now they will come to me, most probably kidnap me or something. Doesn't matter how it happens, it will, happen.", Lucian was confident.

"B-But if finding was really their true goal, what's the use of me now? Will they kill me?", Elias spoke up and then suddenly went against himself, "No, no, no! What the hell am I saying? It's not like I'll leave behind the world without slicing that leader's throat!"

"Calm down, Elias. I understand you want to kill them as we are so close now. But..", Lucian paused for a moment before saying, "Have you noticed a pattern?"

Elias was silent, expecting an explanation.

"When Nicolo was about to say 'O3', he died. When Ralph suicided, he used 'O3' as a code-word to kill himself. And in both of those cases their head blew off, specifically, from their neck.", Lucian looked at Elias.

Aria was asleep by now, as she was more tired than ever.

"So you are saying, everyone connected to O3, has some kind of device attached to them?", Elias' eyes were filled with tension.

"Yes. Exactly. But notice how it was not only Nicolo, but Ralph too. Means they don't only attach this device to their members, but also to those people who they kidnap. So….Why were you an exception?", Lucian asked curiously.

Elias tried to think and think, until he couldn't think of any possible answer. But then predicted what Lucian was going to say next.

"Or…You are not at all an exception….