Once again, she was out there.
This was three times in a row now.
At this point, her trauma was building up.
She tugged at her scarf, making sure it covered the mark. Not that it mattered—Hades had done it, and he knew it was there. But she refused to show weakness.
The driver, one she recognized as Milo—with the weird fashion sense—thankfully look normal today. But he wore a red suit.
That wasn’t the abnormal part. The abnormal part was the way he kept meeting her gaze in the mirror.
It irked her but she didn’t comment on it.
He led her inside the apartment, opening the doors for her to step in like a grimreaper pointing at the direction of hell.
Inside, the place was quiet. Too quiet.
Alice turned, her breath catching.
Hades leaned against the grand staircase, watching her. His dark hair was slightly tousled, the white streaks catching the light. Dressed in a black shirt, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, his body ink was out there in the open for her to see. To try to guess what the dark art probably meant. He looked like a storm contained in human form—dangerous, unpredictable, and completely unbothered by her presence.
Okay, so while she didn’t fancy him, she could not deny she felt the urge to take a photo of him. He truly was Male lead worthy. She wondered how ripped he was underneath those clothes. Did he work out often? Maybe if he just take off his shirt—
"Are you done gawking?" Came his dark voice, that snapped her back to her senses.
Alice straightened her spine, refusing to let him rattle her.
Too bad for him, he couldn’t shame the shamless.
She spoke coolly. "I came for... business."
She wasn’t sure that was the right term.
Hades pushed off the staircase and moved toward her with slow, calculated steps, his gaze on the scarf around her neck. Or maybe it was not the scarf he was interested in. She was suddenly alert once again, feeling the urge to protect her neck from him.
"Business?" he repeated.
She held her ground, even as he closed the space between them, stopping just a breath away.
If he tried to lean down to reduce his height even a little, she believed he would hear her heart beating erratically.
But the crazy thing about it all was that she knew he was danger personified, but something within her seemed to make her believe he wouldn’t harm her much. And that unknown something kept her grounded. She tried to focus on breathing. To ignore whatever magnetic cologne he wore and the faint scent of mint she knew came from the vape he smoked.
She wanted to curse him and tell him his lungs would rot. But that was probably not a good idea.
"I need to discuss the case," she said, forcing her voice to remain steady.
Hades tilted his head, his gaze dipping even more to her scarf like it was an interesting thing.
And then to her surprise, he reached out, his fingers toying with the edge of her scarf. She was stunned and instinctively slapped his hand away.
Both of them seemed rather taken aback by the action and just stared at each other.
She panicked internally. He had promised to feed her her fingers if she ever touched him again. But... this wasn’t her fault, was it?
He recovered first and glared at her.
His gaze seemed to hold a promise that he would kill her one day. Then he turned and went to the couch.
She breathed in relief, but wondered what that had been about just now.
But she didn’t have that time. She went to sit down.
Just like yesterday, they sat in the same positions. But there was nothing to amuse Alice today. And she hoped that today would not end with another ’Run’. But that was all in her hands, wasn’t it?
"I need details about the case."
Hades didn’t respond. He leaned back in his chair, his entire gaze unbroken from hers.
It made her uncomfortable.
"Why did you get rid of the CCTVs?" she pressed, deciding to keep this going and not bother to wait for this taciturn man to give her any answers to statements which were not exactly phrased as a question.
"Just because." He answered with a bored look.
Alice frowned. Just because? She gritted her teeth. "Did you threaten someone to do it? Beat someone up... by chance?" She didn’t sound too confident in her questioning.
"No." His tone was clipped, indifferent.
She didn’t believe him. It was all over her face that she doubted him and from the way his head tilted to gaze at her, she knew he could tell that she did not trust his answer.
"Did you destroy the footage?" She asked.
His eyes flickered with something unreadable. "I don’t know."
Alice clenched her fists. His vague, one-word answers were driving her insane.
Anyway, she had a card she needed to play. She knew he was too smart to fall for it, but she needed to try.
"I’m sure you also collected the footage from the steakhouse." She sat up, bracing herself for the subtle threat she was about to make. "You do realize that if people find out you stabbed someone, you’ll... go to jail, right?"
Hades studied her for a moment. Then, with that same eerie calm, he asked, "Did anyone complain?"
This wicked jobless man!
Alice opened her mouth to argue but stopped. No one had. If they had, she believed it would have been a part of his summon. But there was nothing. She swallowed.
That was the kind of man he was. Untouchable. Feared.
That was exactly why she needed him too.
Hades let the silence stretch, watching her. Then he spoke again, voice deep and slow. "And?"
Alice blinked. "And what?"
"What you can offer me."
If he accepted the summon and showed up at all.
And if he showed up without the footage.
He wasn’t going to do anything for free.
He had made that clear enough.
Alice hesitated, but she had already made up her mind. "I... will move into your home." She swallowed hard as she added, "Here."