The Devil’s Cage

“What are you talking about Teresa?”

Kieran looked at the female chief officer with a confused and baffled face.

There wasn’t the slightest delay throughout his expression nor did he reveal the slightest surprise.

When Kieran noticed Donna was up to something suspicious, he knew Donna would eventually cause him problems. Whether it was revenge or to stall him after the incident, she would definitely do something.

And, who else was more suitable than Teresa?

Firstly, Teresa wasn’t a mystic, so she wouldn’t cause any kind of real trouble.

Secondly, Teresa was the chief officer, she has the authority to mobilize her men to make Kieran anxious.

The last and also the most important point was, Teresa and Kieran had a somewhat close relationship.

Regardless of the close relationship between them being real or not, in Donna’s point of view, Kieran must have his own plans for his actions and her purpose was to mess up his plans.

Therefore, Kieran had predicted the scene before him happening, especially when he had a certain level of understanding of Teresa.

The female chief officer was not only hot-tempered but deeply knew the importance of the element of surprise. She had a heart of justice and was very experienced in allowing herself to “capture” her targets.

Kieran knew Teresa well and so did she him, at least it was what Teresa thought.

She looked at Kieran’s confused face, it looked very genuine. She slightly frowned.

“Someone tipped me off, saying that you are the new owner of Winchester House,” Teresa said.

“Someone tipped you off? Who?” Kieran presented a surprise and heavy expression.

“What?” Teresa asked unconsciously when she saw Kieran’s expression.

“These few days of going after the Winchester House’s explosion case, I’ve been thinking about a certain question. Why was I at the Winchester house? Based on the habits I displayed these few days and the identity you’ve gotten, I wouldn’t be stopping at that kind of average family hotel and based on my observational skills, combat abilities, shooting skills, I’m definitely not someone normal based on regular people’s standards either.” Kieran responded with the answer that he had prepared.

“You are saying…” Teresa’s brows almost cramped into a single line. All sorts of guesses started to bloom in her mind.

“I think I must have noticed something went wrong, that is why I was there! There is a high chance that… I was lured there!” Kieran said.

“Someone’s trying to kill you?” Teresa revealed his guess.

“It wouldn’t be possible for just a simple murder. There were five bodies found in Winchester House and we’ve identified four out of five. Mayoral candidate, Symende Augen and his driver cum bodyguard, Tonita, the university professor Harondentte, and Barney the Jackal’s man, Rudal. So who does the last body belong to?”

“Or, let me say it this way, all the four victims had their own goals to achieve there, that “nameless” person is no exception. Let’s call him that for now.”

“Back to my previous theory, I was lured to Winchester House and based on my travel path, myself and the other four don’t seem to be connected or even know each other. So, the “nameless” existence was to lure me over there! The “nameless” existence might even badly affect me because only then would the mysterious killer have the confidence to kill me!”

“Based on this new route on the theory, the “nameless” person should be someone important to me… Though, I forgot who it might be,” Kieran then smiled bitterly as he stopped.

“I’m sorry.” Teresa might be hot-tempered but wasn’t without a sense of empathy.

After hearing Kieran’s analysis, her face had apologies smeared all over.

Soon enough, it was replaced by her seriousness.

“The culprit didn’t only plan beforehand but killed every attendee just to kill you. including the person who is important to you. The culprit seemed quite confident in killing you but wouldn’t it seem a little too much of an effort? Picking the outskirts in the middle of nowhere, an abandoned factory would even be more suitable. Don’t forget there’s a powerful person like Symende Augen on the victim list,” Teresa muttered softly.

“That is why I said it wasn’t a simple murder case. Discarding the boasting element, any culprit out there would hope the case would not spread further and quickly end it. However, this mysterious culprit took the other way instead, yet they didn’t present any means of boasting about their work. It doesn’t make any sense, which also leaves us with a single possibility: the culprit wanted someone else to take notice of this murder case!”

“Including killing me, it was all the within the goals of what the mysterious culprit wanted to achieve with their means. But now, I am still alive and a flaw occurred in their plans, they wanted to compensate for their flaws. So can you tell me who is the one who tipped you off?”

Kieran didn’t say the theory about escaping through faking his death blindly.

Truth be told, as a person who was being “set up”, he did quite a lot by coming up with such a theory, any more than that would draw unwanted suspicion.

Humans were suspicious beings and were also responsible for their own actions.

They would rather believe the rumors of others than believe the truth. They only choose to believe what they want to believe.

What Kieran need right now was to draw out more rumors to mess up the original “truth”!

According to the information he grasped, Kieran was very confident that the “nameless” shared heavy similarities with him in his arbiter identity, he might even be vital evidence!

For example, the exchanged heart!

That was the only way he could ditch the pursuit of the organization’s executioner.

Once he died, everything would be done for.

If the real Kieran didn’t appear, the plans would have succeeded in a high chance. As an arbiter, he wouldn’t have shown any more interest to that heart that clamped him down.

Yet Kieran came into the picture. He was different than his arbiter identity.

Kieran was very concerned about the heart that got exchanged.

However, he couldn’t move recklessly unless he wanted to expose himself completely under the law enforcer’s sights.

Kieran never doubted the executioners’ abilities.

In order for him to smoothly escape the organization, he as the arbiter would have left all kinds of confusing trails to mislead the law enforcers, pointing them towards the “nameless” person and make the executioner believe he was the “nameless” person.

Yet it wasn’t a simple process.

The executioners would surely verify the body meticulously, those who went near the “nameless” person without a reason would be a priority in their investigations.

Therefore, Kieran needed an excuse and in order to solidify the excuse without fearing verifications from others, he had to lie to the chief officer and purposely mislead her investigation.

Kieran apologized in his heart silently while he looked at Teresa who was in deep thought.

“Donna! The message that tipped me off came from Donna Bar. When I wanted to drop by to investigate, an explosion went off… All my mind could think of was killing the witness, then I guess the recklessness had gotten the best of me. So, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have doubted you who helped me before.”

Teresa apologized again.

“It’s fine. Those people are too cunning.”

It added more sense of guilt to Kieran when Teresa apologized again but when he thought about the outcome if his main mission was to fail, Kieran suppressed the sense of guilt and said with slight hesitant, “Teresa, can I have a look at the “nameless” body? Although I don’t remember him, I wanted to say my goodbyes.”

Teresa thought for a while when she saw Kieran’s hesitant face.

Eventually, she nodded.

“Fine.”