SETH (Book Four)

THIRTY-TWO

"I have someone after Anderson," I tell her. "But as for Hugo, I heard he's on one of Eva's private islands. Do you know why he's there?"

Paola nodded, then wheezed a cough to clear her dry throat; she weakly reached for her purse on the bed and pulled out those long sticks for her cigarette. She tried to light one in her mouth, but no flare in her lighter could ignite it.

"Shit," she groans.

"You Order fuckers never cared for one another. All you cared about is yourself and the power you have."

Paola lifts her eyes and stares.

I shake my head. "I don't know why you are brought up in this world. People like you don't deserve to breathe the same air as us."

"Honey, I don't know why you are getting worked up. The world needs a balance of good and evil. If only positive things happened in this world, don't you think it boring?"

"You think adopting young boys and making them your sex slaves is positive?" I ask, waving my gun at her boy toys. "You had them broken the moment you took them in your home. They may look happy with you, but they smile like that because they don't want to die. They don't love you."

"How would you know?" She spat. I can see how she immediately got agitated. "You don't know what it feels like to fall in love with someone you are forbidden to be with." Paola went down and burst into tears. "I saw him as a little brother; he was adorable, but as he grew into a man, I couldn't help myself with these feelings. I wanted him but can't have him. Once he told me he was getting married to a common woman, my world collapsed."

"So, you killed your family just to inherit the wealth."

"I wanted to prove to him I can give him everything the world has to offer, but you know what he said to me," Paola clenched her fist and hit her chest like a drum. Her voice croaked, and she sobbed, thinking of the man she wanted but never got. "I will always be his precious older sister; he never loved me like I did. So, you, who had killed so many, would never understand the true meaning of love. Even if I take in so many younger boys, they will never replace Kohei!"

She sobs, trying herself to be pitiful. I know her back story; I didn't have the heart to let her slide. She's part of the Order. I shouldn't feel sorry for her.

"Look, I do understand," I claim, not trying to make her feel better. "Before I met him, I didn't want to reveal my secret. Not to tell him what I do for a living because I was scared that he would get hurt because of me—scared that he would leave me and see me as a monster who loves to kill. I always felt like I didn't deserve him. So, I push him away. But despite all that, he decided to stay with me."

I sigh as Paola stays quiet while I describe my successful love life to hers. I don't want to brag, but I can't help myself.

"You can't buy love with money, even if you have all the wealth. Love is priceless. I guess that's why your cousin married a common woman. He thought fighting for the inheritance is meaningless." I read in the file that Paola's cousin, Kohei Osada, left the family to marry the woman and disappeared.

The Osada family didn't care that he left because he was considered useless. Kohei should have lived in seclusion with his wife, but when Hiroshi visited him in Yoshino, he found the house empty. But there was a struggle. Hiroshi then found Kohei and his wife's corpse in a shed with his heart cut out, and the wife's stomach was open. Kohei's wife was seven months pregnant in the report, as the unborn baby was nowhere to be found. I couldn't get the image out of my head. It was the most brutal thing I have ever seen you do on a human. I guess that Paola had something to do with it. Who else would it be other than a jealous woman?