MAIZE

A slam of the heavy metal door caused her to jerk straight in her chair. The last thing she remembered was seeing Alec fall, before she too had been knocked unconscious. Her head throbbed. Her forearms were tied down, her ankles too. Tight bindings strained against aching skin as she moved against the hold of the ropes wrapped around the arms and legs of the wooden chair she sat in—to no avail.

She heard the footsteps coming up behind her but she couldn't see.

And then the voice spoke and her vessel within her body went cold as the tantalizing echo of his voice carried throughout the room.

"It's pointless," he said as she felt his presence creep up behind her back.

She wanted immediately nothing more than to lash out and force it away. But she couldn't. Even if not for the primary reason of her bindings strapping her to her seat, she couldn't move. The fear she felt was near paralyzing—and she hated it, but she couldn't fight against it.

Because now; she was looking into the face of a ghost.

Slow but deliberate steps carried him from behind her around in an arc until he was facing her directly. Upon seeing his face, those eyes, that scar.

Her left shoulder began to ache.

For a few moments, it was silent. He said nothing else and merely continued to watch her with an emotionless mask and one piercingly pale eye that haunted her.

Maize felt a tremble in her hands that she immediately fought to clench a fist against. "How..." her voice came out more quivering than she had thought, and she hit the inside of her mouth as a means to steady herself as she gathered her being and glared a furrowed amber blade right through his face. "You died!"

Her outburst didn't seem to faze him in the least. He stood there, hands lax at his sides, unthreatening—for the time being.

"Well you would know wouldn't you?" His voice carried over to her calmly, but Maize could feel its deception as the next words came out with a sharper, clearer edge, "Since you were the one who killed me."

She involuntarily stiffened as a reaction to his words, and he laughed, low and tantalizing.

He gave off the air of a man who was enjoying himself in the present, ravishing as if he had finally gotten what he wanted, what he sought. And he had, hadn't he? Maize realized with a sinking feeling. This was him, he was here. The moment she had seen him she didn't know how to think, because he was alive.

He shouldn't be alive! He couldn't have survived...

But the proof was, quite literally, staring her right in the face.

He was here.

And she knew it was no coincidence. Had he been the one who they thought had been manipulating strings in the shadows? There was no question, he had to be. Maize clenched her hands around the armrests of the chair to keep her composure in control while her mind coiled.

She remembered that flash she saw at the casino, something she, at the time, had believed to have been nothing but an apparition of her own imagination. But she was wrong. He had been there, she was sure of it now, in the flesh, watching her. His presence had been silently stalking them from the dark this whole time. Maybe even since the very beginning. But then that would mean...

Kishan.

She hadn't seen the shadow that had attacked her and Alec from behind, she hadn't moved fast enough to catch a glimpse. But it had been him. It had to have been.

That meant they were being played from the very beginning.

Maize's mind was whirling.

It had been him all along. The both of them—Kishan and him.

And now, upon seeing him and despite her confusion, she had no doubts about one thing; she knew what this was all about. And from the look in his eyes, he could see that she had figured it all out, and his eyes gleamed.

"If...if you were alive all this time," she struggled to keep her voice as calm and low as possible, "Why? Why wait so long to seek your revenge?" she asked, bringing herself to stare him in the face but unable to meet his scarred eye. "That's what you want isn't it?"

"Revenge?" he repeated slowly, as if testing the word on his tongue for the first time just to see what kind of amusement it would bring him as he hummed ever so slightly, "Yes...I suppose that is what I want. But what I want and why I am here are actually two very different things."

"Enlighten me then," she responded with a glare.

"I am not the reason we are all here."

"Then who is?" she gritted out, hating the way he was purposefully drawing out his answers. She was impatient and angry and confused, none of which ever led to good outcomes.

He smiled. "You are."

She scoffed despite her better judgement. "Yeah, I'm sitting here tied to a chair on my own volition," she said before she could stop herself.

He disregarded her statement entirely and remained fixed with a solid expressionless look.

"Two years ago, you betrayed everything we stood for," he began. "You, quite literally, burned it all to the ground leaving no hopes to recover. Or, so I'm sure you thought."

A chill ran down her spine at the memory that surfaced in her mind but she pushed it down, instead, focusing on his last statement.

"What are you talking about?" A note in her voice shook as she spoke, but now, she suddenly got the feeling that she had bigger things to worry about than controlling the tremble in her voice.

"Oh were you not aware?" His tone was mocking as he gazed down at her patronizingly. "The Morako syndicate that you turned on is raising up again. Did you really think we would stay dead forever?"

His eyes closed for a moment in recollection. "Then again, you were always so naive."

With that single statement, her blood froze. Impossible. That couldn't be true. It couldn't.

"Y-you're lying..." she ground out, hating herself for the way her voice nearly caught in her throat.

"I'm not."

He came closer to her then, leaning forward dangerously as his hand, deceptively caressing, brushed a few fingers under her chin and tipped her head back so that she was forced to meet his pale gaze directly—and behold the ravaged mark across his skin.

A result of her own doing. Two years ago, on that night. The night she thought she had killed him.

The night everything was supposed to have burned.

His good eye glinted as he caught her gaze traitorously trail over the scar. "Brings back memories doesn't it?" His voice, surprisingly not enraged, sounded almost wistful at the statement.

That night she remembered. It wasn't her fault...she had no choice...he gave her no choice...

"Azeal..." His name was not one she had uttered for years now, a name she had wished to keep buried under the heap of all her other sins and regrets. His right eye seemed to twitch as she spoke it as well, and a flash of anger crossed over her face as she tried to speak. "I never meant to...you just didn't understand—"

"I both understood and understand very well," he cut her off coldly. "You taught me a valuable lesson that day...sometimes we are all pushed to do things we don't want to...so long as it serves for a greater purpose."

"What?"

"You see, Daiyu—or should I now call you Maize," the name was spit like venom from his mouth, she had never gone by from anyone with her past until Ryder, and now him, "as much as I would like to see your blood run across the floor until you can bleed no more...there are others that think you would be better suited and served alive."

She stiffened. "What are you talking about, Azeal?"

"Morako wants you back."

That's what this was all about?

She didn't understand; then why go through all this? Why not just seek her on her own? Why the mind games? Why the lies?

Then it hit her.

This was his revenge.

He said that Morako wanted her back alive, not he.

Because he didn't.

This had been his game all along. He had been trying to kill her and bring her back—for his own benefit of whatever the old syndicate had promised him.

He had done all of this, created this entire illusion, to make her suffer, to toy with her. She had been nothing but a damn mouse all along. At the mercy of the malicious feline reaching its viscous claws out of the shadows every so often to slowly drag closer by the tail until it had what it wanted.

Any struggle was useless—had been useless. It had never been anything more than a twisted maniacal game all along.

Maize was speechless for several pounding heartbeats before his words caught up to her and her thoughts roared in her mind like the pounding of her heartbeat. She was suddenly engulfed in internal raging fire.

"Like hell I'd ever go back!" she roared at him, eyes blazing furiously.

He had done all of this...for nothing but his own amusement. Like hell she would ever agree to return to them after what they did.

Her words seemed to have little effect on his indifferent expression to her wrath. Her defiance seemed to worry him little, if not at all.

He had a plan, she realized.

"Don't worry." His voice was cold. "I'll find a way to convince you."

ALEC

"What does he want with her?" Alec questioned.

Kishan, still in the sharing mood, shrugged. "I don't ask for every little detail, but apparently, he and little miss bounty hunter used to work for the big-time baddies...the name Morako happen to ring any bells?"

Alec went rigid and that was all it took for Kishan to grin his amusement.

"Thought it would. Spoiler; who do you think helped make it so they were so unrivalled by taking out the competition that they became one of the biggest criminal organizations in their region?" he asked knowingly.

"No...she—"

"Made it happen. She's hell a lot more than just your typical bounty hunter...I'm surprised you didn't see it," Kishan responded. "Though...I suppose the feelings you had must have gotten in the way of that, hm?"

Alec gritted his teeth in anger but said nothing.

Was this all really true? Was Kishan telling the truth about Maize? Impossible—there was no way she could have been the person he was describing. That wasn't the Maize he knew.

But then again, how well did he really know her?

Wasn't his whole problem with her initially because of the woman's tendencies to live upon harboured secrets? Hadn't that been the reason he had been so mistrustful at first to work with her?

He knew nothing of Maize's past...but still, he was determined not to believe Kishan's words so easily. He knew whatever was going on was centred around Maize. He knew that part of what Kishan was telling did most likely hold some truth in it. But he wouldn't objectify until he headed her side of the story.

Until I hear the words from her own mouth.

If they were both still alive enough to do so.

Things weren't looking too bright at the moment.

But one thing was going well—and that was the fact that Kishan was babbling freely now. Why he was telling him all this he wasn't sure yet, but he would not risk saying anything that might jeopardize that as Kishan continued to rattle on.

"After some catastrophe a few years ago somehow managed to kill all their leaders at once, they're finally rebuilding back up, isn't that nice?" he grinned. "Anyway, if the boss manages to get her to turn and go back to working for them again, he gets total control of their side gang. Guess who that is."

So this was a matter between two gangs instead of one. One was the thought dead Morako syndicate and the other—

"Zmeya..." Alec breathed.

"Bingo! On point as always, pal." Kishan was smiling. Then that smile dwindled slightly as he ran a hand through his hair and looked down at Alec with a sigh. "And of course, naturally, I was not supposed to tell you any of this..."

Alec furrowed his eyes further, ignoring the biting feeling in his chest and asked, "So why did you?"

Kishan opened his mouth but before he could answer, the door opened and a gang member came in. He said nothing, merely gave Kishan a single nod, before turning back and leaving once again.

Kishan looked back at Alec and shrugged his shoulders as if he were at a loss for time and smiled ruefully. "Because you're about to die soon."