A country that I've lived all of my life up till six months ago felt foreign to me as soon as I stepped off the plane.

I left for Russia early the next morning at Singapore time and reached around noon Russia time. After everything that Helena told me, I had been thinking about talking to Anton. It was not like I had any choice since he was the only one in the love square who was still alive. Other than that, I also get to see Peter and Marlene, both of whom were tied up in the plane crash that killed my biological parents.

As soon as I made it through security, I saw Peter waiting for me at the exit as he said he would in his text. He was elated when I told him I was returning to Russia, even though it was only for two days. I would stay a few days longer if I could, but I have school the following Monday. I gave him a friendly hug before we made our way to his new car; looks on the expensive side too, which he was a proud owner of.

We managed to have continuous conversations throughout the car journey to Adequate Diner. I talked about my ridiculously expensive lessons with my prestige tutor, Susan Hargrove and about my successful adjustment into the school in Singapore. He shared his experiences of hacking into firewalls of security companies to up his game as he now helps small companies with their security systems.

As I walked into Adequate Diner, I remembered the first time I stepped foot into this place. I had just gotten out of the police station from questioning Zari's murder thanks to Detective Barnes courtesy and had planned to meet with Viktor as he had information about my biological parents' death. I took a sit with Peter at a booth right next to the window and felt my stomach grumble as I looked through the menu.

I was going to pay for the burger, fries and milkshake that I ordered but Marlene insisted that it was on the house. It was nice to see Peter and Marlene had gotten along and even he occasionally helped out with the administration part for the diner. Both of them had lost Viktor; it was wonderful to see in spite of the travesty, two grieving souls managed to form a bond.

"I told him she didn't have good intentions when he went on the first date!" Marlene was currently retelling the story of this woman who Peter went on three dates with a few months back turned out to be married.

"And I listened to your warnings!" Peter countered back. "On the third date, I hinted at her subtly if we could go to her house and she suggested some cheap motel. Of course, that isn't suspicious, but she was wearing a Rolex watch and carrying a Chanel bag. So why would someone rich suggest to go to a cheap motel unless she has something to hide?"

I nodded in approval of his smart tactics. "So how did it all play out?" I asked, curious to hear how he handled the rest of it.

"I faked an excuse that something important came out and went off. Was hoping she didn't contact me after that but she did, so I sent her a text asking if she's married and she blocked me. The end." Peter ended it dramatically.

"Boo, how anti-climatic." Marlene deadpanned and I chuckled at that.

After I was done with my meal, I helped out with washing the dishes for a while as Peter as some urgent thing came up with his client. Peter and I then head to his apartment where I would be staying for the night. I was already quite tired when we reached even though it was only late afternoon, but since Singapore's timezone was five hours ahead of Russia's, it was night time in Singapore and the time difference was affecting me.

Peter's apartment looked simple; too simple actually. You could clearly tell he was a simple guy based on the lack of nicknacks in his apartment, it almost feels like an Airbnb. Since there was nothing much to look around, I made myself in the spare room before falling asleep not soon after.

I woke up two hours later to see the sun setting and decided to take a shower before going out of the room to see Peter. I opened the door and walked into the living room to see Peter typing away on his computer.

He noticed my presence quickly. "Hey, you had a good rest?" I nodded my head and gave him a smile. "Great, I got some mac and cheese for you. I can't cook so it's those microwave ones. You can help yourself out."

I went into the kitchen and saw a bowl of mac and cheese in the microwave. I took it out from the microwave and took a spoon from the box on the counter, then joined Peter in the living room.

"What are you working on?" I asked as I took a seat opposite him at the dining table.

A frown formed on my face when he hesitated to answer. "Please don't get mad at me." He finally said and I waited in silence for him to explain.

"I have been digging into Felon's operations."

That sent a shock wave into my system. "Peter-"

"Before you panic, I have stable firewalls when going into his systems and my firewalls have fail-safes. Plus, everything in his system is a code which only the people working for or with him knows because I've run it through like fifteen code crackers and nothing." I was actually glad he wasn't able to crack the codes because if he did, god knows what could've happened to him by now.

I gave him a look of understanding and he continued. "That was two months ago. Then I got to thinking, since Felon became public on his identity, there must be people who he had hurt and wanted justice like me." My heart sank at that. He lost his brother all those years ago and when he finally got out, Viktor was dead before they could reunite.

"I hacked into government intelligence agencies from all over the world and in the last five months, seven of Felon's drug operation locations have been burnt down, and all of them have been taken down the same way; electrical surge. That can't be a coincidence." Peter further explained and I listened closely.

Someone was taking Felon down, and it wasn't any of the government agencies. No wonder he hasn't made a move on the Spain royal family since the winter ball, he got his own hands full.

"I saw in a report that from what the forensics team was able to conclude, the total net worth of the drugs lost were up to fifteen million dollars. The research team said from what they gather, those seven locations were one of the bigger ones. That meant whoever was behind this knew how Felon's operations work and where to hit. It also meant they have been onto Felon most likely years before the winter ball incident."

I took my time to absorb all this information. Someone or people actually have the power to destroy Felon's network? I wonder if they knew of Peter and I's existence since we're the only ones aside from Felon to survive the plane crash.

"Whoever they are... whatever Felon had done to them to make them spend years devoting their life into taking him down and is finally doing it. I think Felon is really going down and I..." He trailed off.

"You want to be a part of it." I finished his thought.

He nodded. "That's what I've been trying to do the past few weeks; somehow get in contact with them. So far nothing though."

I fully understand why he feels the need to do this, but I can't help myself to ask. "Even with the risks that it comes with, you still want to do it?"

"There's this hole in my soul that I can't fix. I know taking down Felon won't fix that, but at least it won't feel like a void anymore." I wondered when he said 'taking down' Felon did he mean to put him in jail or kill him. I didn't put much thought into it though, as if that was even possible, there was still a long way for that to happen.

"Do you- do you think about taking down Felon? I know the will won't be as much as mine, but is there any?" His eyes darted to my face before looking away.

"Of course. He didn't hurt me as bad since I don't remember anything about my biological parents, but he's still a bad guy who hurts people to get what he wants. If he gets taken down, I feel that I'll finally have the freedom to my real identity and put this chapter of my life to rest. Something which happened recently made me even think about that more often since it happened."

Peter looked at me with curious eyes, encouraging me to explain and that was what I did. I told him everything that happened with Helena and Leah; how she was posing as Breton's girlfriend to get close to me, all the way to Leah leaving for France. It surely felt nice to let everything out; there weren't a lot of people I could say all that to anyways.

"So you coming back isn't exactly a friendly visit?" Peter asked.

"Unfortunately not. I'm having a surprise meeting with Anton tomorrow before leaving." Hopefully, I'll get the full truth out of him this time.

I finished up the rest of my dinner quickly while Peter let out his frustration of trying to find a trail of this secret group. It couldn't be just one or two people doing this, we concluded. We decided to call this group Operation Safari, as that was what the CIA called them in their reports and we thought the name sounded cool.

To end off the night, it wouldn't be right without a movie. Breton chose this movie called 'The Greatest Showman', which was a musical type movie. During the upbeat songs, especially the last one, it managed to lift our spirits and at that moment while jamming to the song, it felt free to be carefree before going to sleep and thinking about how the conversation is going to go.

"Tiana, wait up!"

I clenched my eyes shut. Damn it.

I forced a smile and turned around. "Walter, hey."

He caught up with me. "What are you doing? Wanna hang out?"

At the corner of my peripheral, I saw Yonna with Emily and Daniel and felt her death stare at me. This needed to end today. "Sure, grab lunch then Outram Park and chill?"

He gave me a dashing smile. "Sounds great."

We decided to get lunch from this new diner called Rosie's Delicacy. I got a chicken burger with fries plus a vanilla milkshake and Walter got a beef burger with fries plus a strawberry milkshake. It was a ten-minute walk to the park and we sat our usual spot at the bench, digging into our meals.

The spot was isolated and peaceful, away from houses as it is shield by bushes. We discovered it during summer break and declared it our spot ever since. I figured this was suitable to tell him.

"You're awfully quiet," Walter remarked as he finished the last bite of his burger.

"Do you like Yonna? Like her romantically." I blurt out.

That took him by surprise. "No, I don't. Why?"

I let out a sigh of relief. "Well she likes you and she won't stop tormenting me. She thinks I'm in her way of the both of you being together."

Walter was looking at me with an unreadable expression now. "She thinks that you like me?"

"Whatever she thinks, every chance she gets, she'll shoot me a dirty look and it's getting freaking annoying." I scoffed. "I need you to tell her straight to her face that you're not interested in her and hopefully she'll leave me alone."

"The reason you weren't speaking to me that much this week is because you thought I like her? Why would you think that?" He asked me the questions as if he hadn't listened to what I just said.

I answered his questions anyway. "Obviously. And which guy in school isn't attracted to her? Plus, Toby said that you like someone, and the timing was dangerously convenient."

He studied my expression. "You don't seem mad that I didn't tell you or interested in who it is."

"I'm disappointed that I didn't hear it from you, but I get it. Guys don't feel like talking about their crushes to the opposite sex unless they're attracted to the same sex. And also, of course I'm interested, so spill." I nudged him in the arm.

Instead of answering my question, he leaned toward me and I felt his lips touching mine before I could react.