Chapter 92
As Owen nodded, Yuri grabbed Pavel’s back and pulled him out of the water. Then, he struck Pavel’s chest several times with his large hand.
“Grr, cough, cough!”
Water gushed out of Pavel’s mouth, making a gurgling sound. He couldn’t speak properly, his mind was dizzy. Owen finally began to enjoy the situation. The loud mouth was finally quiet.
“Huh… Hm…”
With saliva dripping down, Pavel, who was trying to stand with his arms somehow, eventually collapsed on the ice floor. When he thought enough time had passed, Yuri grabbed Pavel’s neck again and plunged him back into the water. The second rebellion was weaker than the first.
Before the struggling movements of his feet stopped completely, Owen quickly pulled him out of the water this time.
“It’s amusing that we have the same face.”
“Ugh, cough, urgh…”
Owen said slowly as he watched Pavel breathe heavily. Yuri, who had thought Owen had become more dangerous after meeting Sarin, corrected his thoughts.
He was just like usual. He was very Owen-like. He was just lowering himself momentarily to get what he liked, but his cruel nature remained the same.
“Even like this… You… think you’ll… survive?”
Watching Pavel, who was still gasping and defiantly speaking, Owen finally got up quietly from his chair. Stepping cautiously on the ice with his boots, Owen approached Pavel and knelt down to his eye level.
Then, with emotionless eyes that seemed reptilian and unable to empathize with anything in the world, he looked at the drenched body writhing on the ice.
With every struggling breath, a misty breath was exhaled. It felt distinctly different from when he saw Sarin curled up and gasping on this ice.
“It feels like watching myself die.”
After silently contemplating for a moment, Owen spat out the words behind the amusement. It felt like he was watching himself die a step ahead.
“How are you going to handle the aftermath?”
Pavel chuckled hoarsely.
“Well. That doesn’t seem to be my concern.”
As Owen lifted him up, using the strength to push Pavel’s chest, enough to make his entire body almost submerged in water. Instinctively, Pavel stretched his head out of the water to survive. He desperately grabbed the ice with both hands and trembled.
“P-please… spare me. I’ll tell you everything about the contractor’s name and… everything…”
Owen’s fingernail sharply scratched Pavel’s index finger, where the ring had been. Yuri, who had watched the two since they were young, finally let out a deep sigh.
As the headlights of the car approached, indicating that someone was coming closer, Yuri called him again.
“Owen, the elder has arrived.”
“Trying to negotiate until the end, huh? Who are you worried about now? The contract killers chasing you if you survive and leave from here. They’ll chase you, the ones chasing her.”
“Ugh… Ugh…”
The words were not wrong. But for now, they had to get out of here. Even the rationality left in the cold water was all gone.
“Don’t worry about that. There’s someone more professional than anyone on that side.”
“Ha, hahaha… You mean Kirill?”
While still hanging onto the ice, Pavel, showing a fake sense of relaxation, spoke as he swept his hair back with fingers that looked like they belonged to a reptile.
“Who taught Kirill! Haha, hahaha, Dmitry brothers acted directly. Kirill couldn’t help it.”
Nikolai’s old hunting dogs came to mind. They were almost like the ones who assigned the dirty work to Kirill Belov. As old and aged as they were, they were as cunning and keen as ever.
Nikolai never expected Dmitry brothers to be used just to kill one woman. He knew that even though Kirill was with her.
His lips dried up knowing that.
“You’re trying to provoke me. Don’t get involved.”
Yuri said gravely. From afar, he could see someone Nikolai had sent walking on the icy path.
“I won’t set foot in Eden City again, never again.”
He wouldn’t be close to such a lunatic. The guy’s words about feeling like he was killing himself were sincere.
He, too, wanted to kill Owen, and he wanted to see him fall. It was true that he was ambitious, and as much as there was ambition, life was exposed to danger, but this was not a mere dog’s death.
Unlike Owen, who was born and raised by Nikolai’s side, he received his father’s affection. Although he shared only the outer shell with Owen, his upbringing was different. The place Owen stood was originally his place.
Avoiding Nikolai’s eyes after his father’s death was a fatal mistake, fearing that he would reveal himself to be the cause of death. Half of the sin he committed was Owen’s share, who added weight with a cunning tongue. When Owen shamelessly piled up Nikolai’s favor, Pavel was drugged with medicine.
There was nowhere to escape except for the medicine to lose his mind and flee.
“You won’t be able to come back now anyway.”
As the man sent by Nikolai approached, Pavel, who couldn’t get out of the water, blinked and slowly bowed his head to Owen.
“Ah, no.”
“I won’t lay a hand on you. Your fate is not mine to decide.”
He intended to leave it to the hands of the one he trusted the most. Owen stepped back. As the man grabbed Pavel’s back and pulled him out of the water, Pavel pushed the man’s hand away and crawled towards Owen like a dog.
“Don’t send me away. Just let me leave. Don’t send me away!”
“Nikolai always adored you. Wouldn’t it be better to try your luck there?”
Since he never admired him, Owen smiled with a distorted face, suggesting that Nikolai’s side might have more potential.
“You… You’re going to kill me.”
Pavel grabbed Owen’s leg with his wet hand.
“Pavel.”
The slow voice sounded like a death sentence to Pavel, who took a deep breath.
“We’ve never grown up as brothers, but…”
The tip of Owen’s finger touched Pavel’s wet hair, which was clinging like a dog. His chilly hand came down on Pavel’s forehead. And when it touched his eyelids, Owen spoke.
“I always wish for your peace.”
“Owen! Owen!”
The farewell was over. Pavel would return to where he should be.
The man roughly pushed Pavel away from Owen and dragged him onto the ice. Pavel reached out desperately, but there was nothing he could grab now.
“What’s Belov’s response?”
Owen, standing in place with his fists clenched, suddenly asked Yuri. He slightly tilted his head and answered.
“Kirill couldn’t persuade him.”
“Because he’s someone who can only kill someone who couldn’t be persuaded in the first place.”
Belov had been with Nikolai for a very long time. He was the man who held Nikolai’s hand and ruled Russia. He wouldn’t easily change his mind. Even if Owen cut off Nikolai’s illicit funds from this side, it would be meaningless without Belov, the president of Russia, moving.
Then Nikolai would not fall but remain as the eternal emperor.
There was no one on Owen’s side here. They came for Owen because they needed him, and he also used them out of necessity. Just as they survived by borrowing the body temperature of the dogs in the dark, here they survived by using Nikolai.
“Sigh.”
Owen’s waist suddenly sank deeply, as if sighing deeply.
“Owen!”
“…Make sure she’s safe. Even though my woman is with her and will protect her no matter what, still…”
If he had left Sarin here, the guys who would break into the hotel room and shoot her in his absence were a threat.
It was better to move with someone trustworthy.
“I didn’t realize I was one of yours because you didn’t tell me.”
“Dmitry has already moved. Go back to Belov. Eventually, you’ll have no choice but to take my hand.”
Everything was faster than planned. He couldn’t hide his impatience since Sarin, the variable, appeared. All he could do was to erase the expression of being okay. Danger approached right in front of Sarin’s nose.
But he couldn’t touch Nikolai in Eden City. His death would be the death of Russia’s night.
Nikolai was a legend to them, the finest living star. When that star dies in Eden City, the barely maintained order of Eden City becomes a lawless zone.
Those who followed him would come looking for the cause of Nikolai’s death, and they would surely be in a situation where they could no longer be controlled due to pressure from Russia.
Russia would become the enemy of Eden City.
With all these assumptions in mind, Owen’s eyes darkened.
“And you?”
Nikolai’s car had already left. Owen knew where he was heading.
“…I have to wait until Nikolai safely arrives in Russia.”
Since he knew that everything of Nikolai’s would eventually come back to him anyway, he wasn’t too impatient.
The reason for Owen’s changed plan was that Sarin was his target.
***
When the car entered the Russian border area, Gaeyun and Sarin in the back seat were already asleep, leaning on each other. After Kirill checked Gaeyun through the rearview mirror and confirmed that she was deeply asleep, he quietly turned off the engine at the destination.
He didn’t want to wake them up.
As the car with the bodyguards arrived behind, Sarin was the first to open her eyes when things became unexpectedly busy and noisy.
It was a place she had never seen before in her lifetime. A stately mansion, a river flowing not far behind it, and beyond that, a dark forest could be seen.
In front of the sturdy mansion made of granite, a woman with a shawl awaited the early morning visitors.
