Alex was already sweating under his collar, even though Caspian hadn't said a word yet. His gut twisted.
He'd taken something big—a secure tablet straight from Varkov's office—and he knew it could expose a thousand things about the Vornshade Clan. And he had hidden it. From everyone.
" I swear, I was going to return it to the clan, but I wanted to check something inside it first," Alex said, the words tumbling out fast. His hands shook a little.
He braced for shouting. Or a lecture. Or Caspian tossing a wrench at his head.
Instead, Caspian just frowned, stepped closer, and took the tablet from Alex's hands like a teacher collecting homework.
"I'm guessing you're having trouble opening this," Caspian said, eyes narrowing as he tilted the device and scanned every edge like he was reading a map only he understood.
Alex nodded quickly.
Caspian grunted. "Well… you came to the right place. But after you're done with whatever you want inside this thing, you bring it back here. No skipping that part."
Alex let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. His shoulders dropped. Caspian hadn't exploded. No rage, no lecture. Just instructions. He'd take that blessing.
Alex handed the tablet over fully. Caspian moved to one of his cluttered tables, touched a few cables, tapped something on the side of a console, then placed the tablet under a thin scanner arm. A soft hum filled the lab. Sparks flickered.
A few seconds later, Caspian pulled it out and pressed it back into Alex's hands.
"It's open," Caspian said. Simple. Straight.
"Thank you so much… seriously, I appreciate it," Alex said, already backing toward the door, tablet hugged to his chest.
But he paused at the doorway, turned slightly, and looked back at Caspian.
"Please," Alex said quietly, "don't tell anyone what happened here. Or what you saw."
"I… I won't tell anyone," Caspian finally said. His voice was flat, but the sentence landed like a stone.
Alex didn't waste a second. He slipped out of the lab, almost jogging, the tablet pressed to his chest. The door hissed shut behind him.
Caspian just stood there for a moment, staring at the empty doorway like it had personally offended him.
"Did I just accept his promise?" he muttered.
It sounded ridiculous even to him. He wasn't the type to make secret pacts with rookies.
He turned back to his workbench. A small flash drive sat there—thin, metallic, and packed with the data he had quietly copied from the tablet before cracking it open.
Caspian walked over, picked it up with two fingers, and closed his fist around it.
The metal snapped instantly. A second later, he tightened his grip again. The flash drive crumbled into powder, the pieces dropping through his fingers like black sand.
'There. That's one less problem for the future,' he thought.
He didn't regret destroying it.
But it bothered him that he felt the need to.
"I think I need to speak with Elder Rooney now," Caspian said under his breath. No jokes. No smile. Just urgency.
He grabbed his coat and stormed out of the lab, footsteps echoing down the hall.
---
Meanwhile, Alex hurried home with the tablet buzzing in his hand like a live grenade.
His mind kept itching at the same thought:
'I hope this thing has something useful… something that explains the connection between the Vornshade Clan and the Wyndhams.'
He entered his room and locked the door behind him. The moment he sat on the bed, he powered the tablet on.
The screen lit up.
Alex froze.
Not because of the message itself…
But because of who sent it.
His stomach clenched.
His breath hitched.
"Eddie…?" Alex whispered.
The name sat on the screen like a slap.
He had opened the tablet hoping for clues about the Vornshade Clan… maybe some hint tying Varkov to the Wyndham family.
He wasn't expecting this.
He tapped the message without thinking.
The chat opened—long, ugly, and full of things no sane person should ever see.
"You son of a bitch…" Alex muttered as he scrolled. The anger came fast, hot, and sharp.
'I can't believe you went this far,' he thought.
The messages showed Eddie chatting with Varkov like they were old drinking buddies.
Most of it was filth—private deals, dirty requests, things Alex wished he could unsee.
Varkov bragging about captives.
Eddie asking for "options."
Prices being negotiated like they were shopping for groceries.
Alex gritted his teeth.
'So that's who you were… A regular customer. Paying just to spend time with their female captives.'
He felt sick.
Then he reached the newer messages.
His breath locked in his chest.
Videos. Pictures.
Varkov showing off terrified women like they were property… while Eddie picked between them.
And then—
A photo.
One Alex recognized instantly.
Him.
Taken in secret back at the mansion. His face. His clothes. The corridor behind him.
His exact home address typed beneath it.
Alex stared at the screen, fingers cold.
'I can't believe it… You were going to pay the Vornshade Clan to kidnap me?'
The conversation was clear:
Before Eddie died, he had been in talks with Varkov.
He wanted Alex taken. Delivered.
Handled.
Alex clenched his fist so hard his knuckles popped.
"I wish I could drag you back from the grave and kill you a thousand more times," he muttered. His voice shook—not with fear, but with pure, sharp fury.
The more he stared at the messages, the more another thought crept up on him.
'Did the Wyndhams know about this?'
He tried to calm his breathing, but the pieces kept lining up too neatly.
Lucius had fought alongside the Vornshade Clan.
Eddie had been chatting with Varkov like an old friend.
'If Eddie was this close to Varkov… then the Wyndham family had to know something. Maybe not everything, but definitely something,'
Alex scrolled all the way up to the first messages, hunting for anything obvious.
Most of the early chats were vague—random notes about meeting places, late-night plans, half-coded phrases that didn't mean much to him.
Still, he kept digging.
He opened the gallery, flipped through videos, screenshots, pictures, and a few old chats with people he didn't recognize.
Each clip hit harder than the last.
Women crying. People tied up. Varkov laughing in the background.
With every second, Alex felt the anger bubbling hotter in his chest.
"I'm not a saint," he muttered, jaw tight, "but this? Doing all this to innocent people… You monsters."
He almost closed the tablet right there—his head wasn't in the best place.
But something on the screen caught his eye.
A single app icon he knew too well.
A black square. A red eye symbol.
Alex felt his pulse spike.
It was the surveillance app—the same one Varkov used to control the CCTV feed inside the Vornshade Clan's base.
Alex tapped the app again, making sure he saw it right.
It made sense Varkov would keep access to all his base cameras on a tablet. A desktop couldn't follow him around, but this thing could sit quietly in his pocket like a loyal spy.
He opened the app.
A wall of footage hit him at once. Dozens of tiny screens.
Different rooms. Different angles. All running.
'Great… am I about to watch him making those illegal trades again?' Alex thought, jaw tight.
Thankfully, the clips were labeled. One in particular stood out.
Meeting Record.
It was recent. Very recent.
Alex clicked it without thinking.
The screen lit up, showing Lucius sitting at an oval-shaped table with the senior heads of the Vornshade Clan. The camera angle was high, and the audio was clear—too clear.
Every word spilled into the room.
Alex leaned closer.
'This still doesn't make sense,' he thought.
From what he heard, Lucius wasn't aware of Eddie's plan to have him kidnapped. He wasn't part of it. He had only come there looking for Eddie… and walked into the middle of that mess.
'But why step in? Why try to stop the deal?' Alex wondered, brow tightening.
'Why would he jump into the fight just to keep Varkov from following Eddie's orders?'
The video showed it plainly.
Lucius didn't agree with Eddie's demands. He didn't want Varkov carrying them out. So he offered the only thing he had—his own strength—to stop the attack and pay off whatever Eddie owed.
Alex watched Lucius argue, watched him step in, watched the room tense under his voice.
It wasn't what Alex expected.
Not even close.
'Is Varkov just Eddie's friend that Lucius happened to know… or are the Wyndhams tied to the Vornshade Clan somehow?' Alex wondered.
Every time he felt close to understanding the Wyndhams, the picture shifted again.
Just when something seemed to click, it broke apart.
'I won't lie… it's a relief to know they aren't involved with the Vornshade Clan,' he thought, letting out a slow breath.
He kept scrolling through the rest of the videos, but there were too many. Endless clips. Endless angles. Most of them showed Varkov talking with clan leaders, planning things that no longer mattered.
The Vornshade Clan was gone.
Their schemes died with them.
Alex closed half the screens. His head felt lighter.
"So that's why Varkov knew my name," Alex muttered. "He was already told to kidnap me."
He didn't want to imagine how that would've ended.
A cold room. Shackles. Experiments.
He pushed the thought away before it dug too deep.
'In the end, it didn't happen,' Alex told himself. 'And now that all this is cleared… I think I deserve my reward for killing Varkov.'
A small smile tugged at his mouth as he summoned his axe. The air around him rippled, the system answering immediately.
[Quest: Kill Death with Death]
[Reward: Unlock Special Ability]
[Quest Completed]
[Special Reward Granted…]