RICO SPADES

Episode 10

Episode 10

"Then kill me if he fails."

Nicholas, together with the other tenants, continued to listen to the conversation they were wiretapping.

"I'll take that as an oath," Trimmittee replied.

"I want all of this to be over," resigned Aling Shirley.

"I would like to do you a favor."

"What is that?"

"On your behalf, I'm going to tell General everything that he needs to know."

"Everything?"

"Everything. Now if I may excuse myself, Shirley. I have to follow the last tenant your apartment will ever have."

When all that they could hear from the landlady's room was silence, Nicholas communicated with Jotham and Ratshi, the owner of the rooms next to General's.

"We don't have much time left," he told them. "We need to get General's copy of his contract now."

"How about the surveillance cameras in his room?" asked Ratshi.

"They are now transmitting pre-recorded footages," Nicholas told them. "Right, Loida?"

"Yes. It's safe to go," she replied.

The two then made their way into General's room through trapdoors.

Nicholas closed his eyes as he tried to contain his excitement. He had spent a long time planning his escape and endured a hard time making sure he will not forget any important detail about it.

He was once a tenant living in General's room, but he failed.

It took him a long time to figure out what was going on in the apartment, owing to the fact that he loses a lot of his memories every time a new tenant comes in.

"We found it," Jotham whispered into his radio.

"Great!" Nicholas exclaimed, getting back to his senses.

"We also need a clear copy of the inscription found in the bathroom," he told his co-tenants.

Ratshi tried going into the bathroom first but the moment he touched its door, he suddenly fainted and fell on the floor.

"Something's wrong," Jotham told Nicholas.

"DJ's texts might mean something different, something less worrisome, if we take into consideration what he did last night," Zenith suggested.

"What did he do last night?"

"He lied to Blanco, remember?"

Finally getting her point, General's eyes widened.

"But why did Aling Shirley ask me not to let him know that I have her phone?"

Zenith read aloud the most recent text DJ had sent to Aling Shirley's phone: "I hope you succeed." Then she added: "I feel like he supports your and Aling Shirley's bigger plans."

General attempted to continue Zenith's train of thought by saying: "And he probably knows that Aling Shirley and I meant him no serious harm."

A middle-aged man walking by the aisle of the bus approached the twins from behind and said something inaudible.

"Sorry, I didn't hear what you've just said," Zenith told the man.

"I noticed that the bus has taken a different route."

"I think we did not pass by the expressway, Sir," General replied. "But we are nonetheless heading back to SADE-Ocabu Terminal."

"Thank you," the man told them, still standing on the aisle beside their seats.

After a while, he said: "I am not very familiar with the buildings and landmarks that I can see on the window beside my seat over there. I am worried that I might miss my stop."

"We can exchange seats, Mr.?" Zenith told the man, trying to get his name as she felt something suspicious about him.

"Trimmittee," he answered. "By the way, thank you, Zenith."

"Excuse me?" she asked as the bus sounded its horn right when he was speaking.

"Thank you for the seat," Trimmittee told her as he sat on the seat she had just vacated.

General looked at where his sister sat before texting her phone: "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she replied.

"Is she your sister?" the man asked him.

"She's my twin."

"I am here to help you. I know what Aling Shirley needs from you."

General sat frozen and speechless after hearing what Trimmittee had just said.

"She needs you to turn the wildest dreams of all the tenants in herapartment complex into realities."