Do you see what I see?
Do you know what I know?
For the terrors of my nightmares are true, and the reality of my life a lie.

~ from the notes written by
Axel but never given away

--------᪥-------

☘︎ Eᴠᴇ Kᴀᴠɪɴsᴋʏ ☘︎

I should stop being a creep and make my presence known.

But there's some kind of sad charm watching Axel Hernandez standing on the balcony, his elbows propped and his tall body leaning against the scottish-styled stone railing.

The crisp, Parisian air blows his silken coppery-blonde hair in every direction, before settling messily on his forehead. For the first time, he isn't dressed in his tightly pressed Tom Ford suits. Instead, his coat is missing and he's standing there just in black pants and a matching shirt.

I watch him pull at his tie as though it's strangling him. I watch him throw it to the side and unbotton the first two buttons of his shirt as though he's feeling suffocated. I watch him run a hand through his hair, pushing away the strands only for them to fall back in front of his eyes. I watch him turn uncharacteristically disoriented, betraying his stone-cold mask.

All the while I stay hidden within the shadows, reclined against a wall, slurping on a blueberry slush. I feel like I'm invading his privacy. I almost feel like a stalker. But I'm curious. He's been edgy like this ever since I found him in the theater hall next to Victoria, both of them—along with a hundred other people—staring down at Pierce's burning body turning to ash on the stage.

Ever since people had looked at him and his niece in accusation. Ever since we left the venue, after a quick police enquiry and his grandfather letting us know he can't sign the inheritance papers today with the whole murder at his party fiasco.

For a moment there, when we were driving back to the Hernandez Villa, I caught onto the tremble of Axel's hands as he gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled force, before he sensed me watching and concealed his reaction. Then we were home and he'd walked out to the balcony of our adjoined rooms and well, here we are with the conclusion that Axel Hernandez is. . .disturbed by the sight of a brutal death.

I know normal people are supposed to be like that. But I was far from normal. Besides, watching him be so riled up from something I did, put a guilty conscience in me.

Abandoning my stalker hideaway, I approach him with silent steps. I'd changed from my dress to one of my silk top and shorts pajama and I sorely regret it as the wintry wind lashes against my exposed skin.

"When was the first time you saw a dead body, Charming?" Placing my iced slush aside, I jump a little to sit myself on the wide stone railing. Propping my elbows on my knees, my palm against my cheek, my body faces his.

Axel does a good job of hiding his startlement upon my presence, his expressionless mask on place. But he doesn't know I'd seen him loose his calm the last half hour I'd been observing him.

"When I was ten." His answer surprises me, because quite frankly I'd expected him to ignore my question completely. Maybe he's more affected by the death than I'd expected.

I tilt my head to the side, appreciating the way the moonlight illuminates his bronze skin, enuciating the sharp cut of his jawline, "Was it brutal?"

Axel shuts his eyes, illegal long lashes sweeping down in a single swish, "It was. She was a child."

Oh. . .

"What happened?" The curiosity nicks at me, urging me to keep asking.

But I see it in the moment he shuts down completely, his eyes turning hard, making me realize I'd invaded unchartered territory with that question.

Axel's head cants sideways, taking me in from the tips of my feet, up the length of my exposed legs to the the silk top hugging my curves. By the time that accessing gaze feathers over my almost bare shoulders—save the thin strap of the top—and the slope of my neck to finally meet my eyes, I can't help the rush of warmth creeping over my face.

He steps up in front of me, his body settling between my legs, his arms resting atop the railing on either sides of my thighs, "I didn't kill Pierce Fangley. If that's what you are indirectly aiming to ask, you have your answer. Believe me if you may or not, I have no say in it. And I'd rather you ask me straight forward, than toe around the accusation."

He thinks I believe he killed Fangley?

I blink, even as a rush of awareness tingles each of my nerve endings at his proximity, "I know you didn't kill him. I'm sure."

Axel's brows furrow, a delirium encasing those grey eyes hidden behind a curtain of silken hair, "How can you be sure?"

Because I did. I'm the killer here.

But instead of answering, I inch forward. Axel stiffens despite himself as my hand extends towards his face. He doesn't make a move to stop me, allowing me to touch the tips of my fingers against the planes of his angled cheekbones. "Maybe I'm smitten by your pretty French boy charm and have lost my mind." I tease.

Leaning closer, holding his jaw with one hand, I brush away the hair falling all over his forehead. The coppery-blonde strands feel like velvet under my fingers, soft and tingly.

"Miss Eve." Axel utters my name in a whisper, dragging the vowels, the letters sliding against his tongue so sensually it almost sounds like a threat.

Chemically malfunctioning that I am, instead of feeling threatened, a shiver slithers down my spine. A slow, teasing smile starts at the corners of my lips, "It's Mrs Hernandez, Charming."

Axel grabs my hand threading through his hair, making me pause and glance into his eyes—

It's so catastrophic, the way every single one of my cells ignite. The way I blink like a complete biotic idiot when I register the fact that for the first time, he's letting me stare into his eyes. And mother of genetics, those are some really beautiful eyes. Dark lashes shadowing stormy grey eyes, flecked with a pinch of hazel in them. A nearly translucent black ring borders the irises, making the lighter shades stand out starkly.

"Never give your trust to anyone. They always break it." Speaking the words against the shell of my ear, Axel wounds an arm around my waist, pulling me to the hard contours of his body.

Because I'm as dumb as a unicellular organism in such situations, I mistake his action as pulling me into an embrace. And for a moment there, every dark emotion burried deep inside my soul, turns awfully quiet. The picture of every tormentor from my past dissappears until all I hear is the rapid thud of Axel's heartbeat against my ear, all I can feel is his long lithe fingers softly digging into my hips.

Compelled by the feel of it all, I wrap my arms around his torso, returning the hug, resting my cheek firmly against the corded muscles of his chest. Axel goes wholly still at my gesture.

The embrace stays for less than few seconds. Because the next minute, I'm being lifted and then settled on the ground, back on my footing.

"You were going to fall off the rail." Is Axel's form of explanation, as he distances himself from me completely. Not meeting my eyes, he turns around to leave.

My mouth opens in a gape, embarrassment flooding me. He was just getting me down the rail and I bone-crush hugged him. Why Eve, why do you always end up accidentally jumping his bones?

"Eve, you foolish amoeba!" I face-palm myself, not realizing I'd said it out loud.

Axel pauses on his steps, glancing at me over his broad shoulders. A single brow raises in question and I pass him a creepily wide everything-is-jolly-don't-mind-my-delusional-ass smile.

Axel shakes his head in disbelief. For the tiniest second there, I think I see his lips twitch into an almost smile, before he turns his head and retreats into the suite, away from my sight.

While I stand in the balcony, my body burning despite the cold, as I curse myself in every scientific curse word I remember.

The kind of idiot pretty french boys and their beautiful, beautiful eyes could turn you into.

***

"You did what?" With the burner phone stuck to my ear, the flabbergasted tone of my voice couldn't be bought down, even if someone paid me for it.

"See, shona. Nikolai is a genius. He can help us track down whoever it is that's been invading our tech systems for a year now. I'm getting old and loosing my touch with technology. And your appa only knows to use his brawns and strategy. I needed an ally." My adoptive mother explains sagely, like her act of breach isn't going to cause errors in our plan, "Besides, Nikolai doesn't know we're a serial killer team. He just thinks someone is doing privacy invasion with my blogging or clothing line."

Propping my phone between my shoulder and ear, I tap the passcode Tori disclosed to me, on the greenhouse's door, "Maa, Nikolai will find out exactly what we're doing the moment you let him go through our system's data. He has that unmatched IQ for a reason and he's way too curious for his own good. We don't want him telling Juliette. We don't want either of them dragged into this mess. The lesser people know, the better. Don't let him check our tech systems."

"Well. . ." Sonal Singh's single word sounds more like a cringe.

"You already did, didn't you?" I groan, pushing open the greenhouse's unlocked door, "Does he know about today's incident too?"

"No." Maa answers instantly, "When I sneakily added the footprints erasing chemical you created into the theater's cleaning crew's mopping water, there was no technical record about it. Even the pretty blonde girl spoke to me in person, no technology involved. There'll be no tech records. Except. . ."

"The CCTV footage you messed with. Maa." I groan again. One mission done in a haste and things start to get messy.

"Don't worry, shona. He won't tell anyone." Maa said with a sigh, as if realizing she shouldn't have included him, "He's with me and your appa too. Nothing will happen to him. And he's a Mafia kid, he can hold his own."

So can Juliette. But I don't want anyone getting hurt in my revenge. Appa and Maa being part of this plan already makes me feel edgy. But the two were too stubborn to let me do anything on my own. Even if it's torturing and killing people. We three have been a depraved bunch, bound together by different situations but similar pain.

"Fine." I grumble in defeat, "Who's next on the kill list?" I know who is. But I ask to confirm.

"Since Michael is on a halt, even though I don't know whether you plan to kill him or not. The next one. The last one before you reach the top five, is Bartholomew." There's sound of papers rustling in the background, her voice turning serious, "He's vacationing in Bali and will be there for a month before he returns for the election results. It's a golden chance for us. And since he was going to be the one to die before Pugsley got squeezed into the list, we have every single detail on his movements already. All you have to do now is cut into the chase and get him."

"I can do that. I'll just have to find a way to get to B—" My speech does an abrupt halt when I find someone inside the usually empty green house.

Leaning against the scorpion's glass cabinet, the hood of her hoodie pulled over her head and a file held in her hands, is Victoria. Her light brown eyes access me like a hawk, her feet tapping against the floor in coordinated taps.

But that's not what puts me on guard. It's the little earpiece device on her ear as she pulls back her hood. Having used a similar device while planning murders, I know what it is.

A voice catching device. She'd been listening to my call.

I cut the said phonecall as Maa bellows about why I stopped mid-speech and whether my 'sexy' husband was close by. Putting my burner phone into the pocket of my shorts, I greet Axel's niece, "Vicky."

She straightens off the wall, approaching me with confident steps, "One thing Uncle Xel always thought me was to never trust anyone and always believe my instincts." She places the file in her hands on the desk where all my chemical experiments are set up, "Good thing I never learnt to trust. And even better that I was suspicious of you from the beginning."

Victoria pushes the file towards me and pulls her hood back on, "But I've also always believed in knowing two sides of a story."

Before I can answer, she walks past me and out of the green house, like a little thief leaving the place in stealth.

Curiosity kills the cat. And a catalyst sets a chemical reaction to action. She'd set it on action in me with that file.

So walking to my desk, I pick up the file placed atop the flat surface and open it. As I flick through one page to the another, I don't know whether I should be shocked or impressed.

Because while Victoria might've helped me camp in the green house with my chemicals to return her favor, she'd also done it with motives under the rug. Motive like spying on me the last whole month.

Reading the contents on the pages, I realize that infact it isn't just this month. This spying stretched back to almost a year. The person who'd been trying to evade Maa's tech system. . . it was Victoria.

Right within these detailed profiling, lies the proof of it. She knew what I was going to do today. She knew who I was going to kill. She knew exactly who I am. A serial killer.

And for whatever reason, she'd let me kill Pierce, not speaking a word about it to anyone. In the end of it all. . .

Victoria Hernandez is a genetic puzzle of a mastermind.

--------᪥♔︎᪥-------

In compensation of this very tardy update, I owe y'all another chapter before next Friday. So let's hope I can squeeze in another update but no promises when, because I can't stick to a schedule for the life of me🥲

What do you think is going to happen now? Will Tori expose Eve?👀

Do y'all have any theory on Axel's past?👀