"GOOD THING it was not a fatal gunshot wound," said Cloud while applying gauze to Night's wounds. He managed to stop the bleeding. "He just lost too much blood and passed out, that's all."

"And this will do, right?" Knight looked at the blood bag hanging on the IV stand.

It was easy for Cloud to acquire blood from the Orgánosi HQ, and because Cloud had medical experience, everything went smoothly after that.

He sighed deeply then turned toward his brother.

Midnight was lying on the bed unconscious while Knight sat beside him, leaning on the headboard. He returned to his blank expression while looking at the ceiling as he combed his brother's hair.

Seconds later, Knight spoke. "I wonder why he's here."

"According to my source, he got wounded after he stole something from a Triad's sub-HQ here in the country."

He furrowed his brows. "This is my territory, Cloud. If there was anyone here who would put their hands on the Triad here in Asia, that'd be me. Why is he in my territory?"

"Must be your father's order," Cloud said, getting Knight's attention while he was fixing the comforter for his brother. "He's wounded and came to you. It looks like there is still some trust left in him for you."

He looked down upon his brother. "More like no choice, I guess."

"Why not ask him? To be sure," suggested Cloud.

His face remained expressionless. "I'm tired of getting disappointed all the time."

Cloud took a deep breath. "Very well..." Cloud stood from the side of the bed. "I shall prepare your breakfast."

"Coffee would be nice..." he said, stunning his butler in the process.

Cloud didn't hide his surprise as he stared at him in amazement. "Did I hear it right, my lord? Coffee?"

"It's early in the morning," he answered Cloud with a straight face. "It's not good to have beer for breakfast. So, make me some coffee."

Cloud drew closer and placed his hand on his master's forehead. "Hmm... you don't have a fever. For more than a decade that I've been serving you, this is the first time you asked for coffee, not beer."

His face remained emotionless.

He wanted to drink coffee because it tasted good when SM made it for him last night. He wondered if Cloud could make it taste good too.

He turned away, his face still expressionless. "Just make me coffee and don't make me repeat myself."

Cloud bowed slightly. "Yes, my lord. Anything else?"

"That's all."

Cloud nodded. As soon as his butler left the room, Knight sighed. He glanced at the hanging clock on his room's wall. It was 6:14 a.m.

Is SM awake already?

He shook his head. Why was he thinking of her so early in the morning?

He let out a deep breath. I really got it bad, he thought, wondering why she was so kind. Sometimes he couldn't help but be delusional that he was somewhat special to her.

But he knew the truth.

Being nice and kind was her nature. She treated everyone—not just him—with kindness, so he shouldn't be thinking all sorts of things.

Knight blew out a loud breath. But I can't help it.

He turned to the door as Cloud entered. "Here's your coffee, my lord," Cloud said, handing him a cup on a saucer with the same design, which he accepted. Cloud also placed another saucer with two slices of cake on the bedside table.

Knight closed his eyes as he took a sip of the coffee, savoring its taste. "Hmm... not the same..." he murmured. He turned to Cloud and said, "My phone, Cloud."

Cloud immediately complied. He retrieved his master's phone from the mini-bar where he had left it earlier and handed it to him.

Thank God he already had her number saved on his phone. Thanks to Monet.

I hope she's awake.

The number rang several times before SM answered, sleepiness visible on her voice. "H-hello? Wh-who's this?"

"It's Knight. Sorry. Did I wake you up?"

SM yawned. "It's okay—huh?" The line went silent for a couple of seconds. "You moved me to my bed?"

It seems she just noticed. "Yeah."

"Oh."

"Sorry to bother you like this, boss, but I have something important to ask."

"What is it?"

"How did you make my coffee last night?" he asked. "How did you grind the beans? How many seconds did you soak them?"

"Huh?" SM seemed confused by his question. "I didn't do anything like that."

"Then how did it taste so good?"

"Uhm..." There was hesitation in SM's voice. "I just poured the coffee powder in the cup and added hot water."

He blinked in disbelief. "That's it?"

"Yeah." She chuckled softly. "You're so weird. Good morning, by the way."

Her last words made him smile. Morning too, boss. Thanks."

"Welcome."

He said goodbye over the phone and looked at Cloud, who was staring at him as if he were some stranger.

"What?" he asked, emotionless.

Cloud looked at him in astonishment. "Wow... my lord actually smiled genuinely. Though, who's your boss? The last time I heard you call someone like that was before Lord Vandreck retired and you swear not to call anyone like that ever again."

"Never mind that," he said before handing the cup of coffee back to his butler. "I don't like this. The delicious coffee I tasted last night was just some coffee powder added with hot water. And it's done. No beans."

Cloud blinked. His eyes widened when he thought of something. "Oh! You're talking about instant coffee, my lord!" He smiled widely. "It's a commoner's coffee."

"Commoners coffee?" he asked while thinking about what it looked like and whether his friends had any. "Hmm... I wonder if Val has it? All I saw were coffee beans, though..."

"I'll just buy you some instant coffee, my lord," Cloud said.

"Go. Hurry up."

"Yes, my lord," Cloud replied and immediately left the room.

Knight sighed and was about to eat a slice of his cake when his phone rang. A message.

From: SM (My Boss)
Did you have a good rest last night?

He smiled at the message but reprimanded himself immediately, thinking that she was giving him this treatment because it was in her nature. He wasn't special.

No need for his heart to race.

Surely, for SM, this was just a normal question.

He took a deep breath and replied.

To: SM (My Boss)
Yeah. Thanks to you. Hope you can be my pillow again.

He hit send.

Minutes later, his phone beeped.

From: SM (My Boss)
We can arrange that. Just tell me when so you can rest properly.

He stared at her reply. He really couldn't help his heart from racing like crazy.

This woman... he thought. Does she even know or realize what she's doing to me and how she's making me feel?

The worst thing of this all was that he knew he was not special to her in any way. She was just too kind.

Fuck!

What should he reply?

Before he could reply to her text, he heard his brother groan in pain. Knight quickly turned to check on him and sighed in relief that he was already conscious.

Thank God!

"Don't try to move," he told his brother as he stopped him from getting up. "You're still undergoing blood transfusion, so refrain from moving."

Knight was relieved when Night listened.

But silence fell between them. No one spoke nor dared to try to start a conversation.

When did they become so awkward toward each other like this? They were on good terms before they got separated. But the years had passed without communication.

It affected both of us.

No one spoke until Cloud returned.

He stood up and took the tray Cloud had brought. "I'll be in the next room," he told his butler. "Nurse him back to health. He might not recover quickly if I'm here."

Cloud nodded. "Yes, my lord."

He left the room and went straight to the room next door. He placed the tray on the center table and took the cup of coffee to savor it.

Hmm... Now it tasted the same as the coffee SM made for him. Nice.

He took his phone out from his pocket and called his personal Ultor while sipping from the cup. "Dimitri."

"Boss."

"Do you have any information about the Triad's sub-HQ that Midnight entered?" He then sat on the long sofa while sipping his coffee.

"None. It was a covert mission," answered Dimitri.

"Find out anything you can about it then call me."

He ended the call afterward and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

After taking a bath, he put on faded jeans and a black T-shirt. Unconsciously, while looking at the mirror on the sink while brushing his teeth, his eyes settled on his hair.

He remembered SM asking if he was a blonde. He lied and said no. He knew she knew he was lying, but she just let him be.

What's with her, really? He knew that she could tell that he was lying, but she would always let him lie.

Knight was about to shave the whiskers on his chin when his phone rang.

It was Dimitri.

"Yes?"

"I only accumulated little information about Midnight's covert mission," Dimitri started. "All I know is that your father ordered Midnight to retrieve some documents, which is why he entered the sub-HQ of the Triad led by Mr. Hitadaki. A yakuza."

He knew Mr. Hitadaki. Knight made sure that he knew his enemies by name and face. "What kind of documents did Midnight steal?"

"I have no information regarding that matter, boss."

"And what happened to the sub-HQ? Everyone dead?"

"No. Looks like Midnight's mission was only to steal, not kill."

He sighed. "How many are alive?"

"Inside the sub-HQ? More than fifty, boss."

"Give me an address." After Dimitri provided him with the address, he replied, "Got it," and then ended the call. He left the room and then headed to the living room, where two katanas were displayed. His eyes glared at them.

"My lord, you're not planning to do some cleaning, are you?" It was Cloud, who was standing at the top of the staircase.

He took the two katanas and walked toward the front door. "I'm bored. I'll play a little."

"Well, then, my lord. Have fun."

Knight nodded and then left the house, heading straight for his car. He drove toward the address and fearlessly parked his car outside the gate. He rang the doorbell and waited for the gate to open.

"Who's—"

Without hesitation, he stabbed the chest of the gatekeeper using the katana. "Thanks for opening the gate. I appreciate it."

After withdrawing the katana from the now lifeless body of the man, Knight entered through the gate. Gunshots filled

Gunshots were fired, but he evaded all the bullets, even at close range, using his katanas in both hands as his shield and his weapon.

He gripped his katanas tighter before fluidly twirling while brandishing his weapon, slashing and stabbing every person near him.

Knight was agile. He eluded every bullet coming his way. His katana moved to the rhythm of his hands, slicing flesh and drawing blood from his enemies. The moment he stopped moving, the ten guards of the gate fell dead.

He coldly looked at the only guard remaining.

"You..." He raised one of his bloody katanas and brought its tip to the neck of the remaining guard. "Go to your boss and tell him to get ready. Tell him Minrod wants to play."

The terrified man scrambled into the mansion.

"Sub-HQ, huh?" He roamed his eyes to observe the mansion. "I hope you're all fun to play with. I'm bored and pissed."

With both hands gripping the katanas covered with blood, he walked toward the mansion's door.

He could hear footsteps nearing him.

Knight closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, he was the monster his father made him to be.

Enemy aggressively rushed toward him as the door opened. He kicked them one after another and quickly ran inside. He slashed, stabbed, sliced, and killed everyone who got in his way, unbothered by the bullets raining on his parade. He evaded them, blocked them with his katanas. His body moved with agility, like that of a monster that his father trained him to be.

His eyes were dead, ears sharp, movements emotionless and seamless. His hands delivered death at their every sway and motion.

Knight did not stop attacking and moving with the weapons he was holding. As long as he could hear footsteps, his body seemed to move on its own, seeking to finish them off.

He killed everyone who greeted him.

When Knight reached the top of the staircase, he looked down to see his work. Bodies were piled everywhere, blood splattered on the floor and walls. Everyone was dead.

This... this was a massacre. And he didn't even feel a thing.

How many had he killed this past decade? Countless.

He redirected his attention ahead and walked toward the first room. When he opened the door, no one was there. He opened the next door, and no one was inside either. The next was empty as well.

He went back to the stairs. He looked down and started counting the corpses. "Did I kill every single one of them?" he asked himself.

Then he heard a faint sound of footsteps on the third floor.

A cold, inhuman smile stretched his lips. "Not quite, I think."

Quickly but quietly, he ran up the stairs to the third floor of the mansion and swiftly threw one of his katanas to the first enemy he encountered. And he quickened his pace more when his enemies, who seemed to have been waiting for him in the area, fired gunshots at him.

Knight jumped, flipped in the air, landed smoothly in front of the man he just killed to get his katana, and then jumped again, moving swiftly with the agility of a feral animal readying to attack while evading the bullets.

He smiled cold-bloodedly when his opponents ran out of bullets and they needed to change magazine.

"My turn," he said before bending and then drawing his katanas in both of his hands while stepping his feet in a circular motion. His enemies' blood splattered on his clothes, hair, arms, neck, and face, but he didn't care.

After knocking down all the guards on the third floor, he went to open all the rooms, but all of them were empty—until his eyes settled on the last door of the third floor.

With his bloody hands, he twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open.

Gunshots welcomed him. But since he was standing sideways, he was able to hide behind the doorframe. Not one bullet hit him.

Knight only entered the room when he heard the sound a gun would make when it was out of bullets. There were only two people inside—the one who shot the door and the one sitting comfortably on the single sofa, unarmed.

It was Mr. Hitadaki. A Yakuza.

"You bastard!" shouted the guy who fired at him. "I'll kill you!"

Knight moved, and in a blink of an eye, he was already in front of the man. His katana penetrated the man's flesh through and through, then he pushed him toward the wall. The tip of his katana pierced through the wall at the back of the man he just killed.

"Stay right there," Knight told the man, pressing his katana embedded on the man's stomach and through the wall behind him to put him in place. "Don't move."

He then turned to the man sitting on the sofa. "You're unarmed."

"I underestimated you," Mr. Hitadaki said as calmly as he could. "But noble warriors such as yourself don't kill opponents without a weapon."

Knight walked toward Mr. Hitadaki and stopped in front of him. "A noble warrior, huh?" A cold smile appeared on his lips, wiping the calm expression on Mr. Hitadaki's face. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm no noble warrior."

With that, he plunged his other katana on Mr. Hitadaki's heart. "That's for hurting my brother." Then he plunged it again on his throat. "And this is for making him bleed. And this," he said as he plunged his katana on his stomach and twisted it, "is for boring me."

Knight pulled out his katana from Mr. Hitadaki's lifeless body. He then turned to the guy he pinned on the wall and pulled out his other katana. The man coughed blood as his body fell to the floor.

"P-please... d-d-don't k-k-kill m-me..." begged the guy, who was now lying on the floor. "I... h-have a f-family..."

Knight crouched down and answered, "I apologize, but I have a motto, you see... It's 'leave no survivors behind.'"

With that, he plunged his katana on the man's heart. He then sighed, stood, and exited the room.

This is no fun, he thought as he passed by corpses after corpses.

When he had gotten out of the gate, he rode his car and called North, the head of the clean-up crew of Asia under the Orgánosi.

"Where are you?" Knight asked North.

"Vietnam, but my crew is nearby," North answered. "Cloud called, so I got them ready."

"Good." He revved the engine of his car. "Tell your crew that I made a little mess."

"I'll take care of it," North replied before the line went dead.

He drove the car back to his house in BV. Since it was a protocol to stop the car and roll down the window, he obliged when he was asked to do so. Shock was evident in the guard's face when he saw Knight covered in red.

"S-sir?"

Knight smiled. "It's just paint."

"Oh." The guard smiled back. "Welcome home, sir."

He nodded, rolled up the car window, and then drove to his house. When he had the car parked in his garage, Cloud was already waiting for him at the door.

Cloud immediately used the wet towel he was holding to clean the blood on Knight's face and hair.

"I have already prepared your clothes and something to eat," Cloud said afterward.

Knight nodded and released the blood-soaked katanas, which fell to the floor with a loud clang.

Knight walked toward the stairs. When he was halfway up, Cloud asked, "Did you have fun, my lord?"

He continued walking as he answered, "Not in the slightest."

He went straight to another room because Night occupied his and immediately took a shower.

As he stood under the warm shower water, his attention was on the tiles beneath him, which were now covered in red liquid from the blood of those he had killed.

Suddenly, SM entered his mind. What would she think of him if she found out the truth about him? If she saw this monstrous side of him?

I'm sure she'll run, he answered himself. I'm a monster after all. There's no denying that.