┏━━━༻☆༺━━━┓
𝚁𝚎𝚗
┗━━━༻☆༺━━━┛
𝘚𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 23𝘵𝘩, 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘺
Ren took a glance to his left and then to his right, like he was crossing a street. The corridor was devoid of not just people, but warmth as well.
He wondered when they had last checked their insulation. The house felt cold and drafty, despite the heater being on. He shivered as he walked around, looking for clues while descending the black, creaky metal stairs into the basement: Lennox's bedroom and workplace.
Flower boy was gone, running some errand or another, and he wouldn't be back for a while. Lennox was always holed up in his room as if he was hiding something. Ren decided to check it out, hoping to find some secrets to use to his advantage.
He looked around, seeing spines of nonfiction that read Advanced Apothecary: The Third in a Series, Budgeting for Dummies, The Road to Self-Discovery: Why It Can Wait, Identifying Dangerous Flowers, as well as a slew of dust-covered fantasy titles found in the mix.
However, there was something about the room that was almost sterile. Besides a number of personal effects, the walls and every piece of furniture that touched them were empty. Not of objects, but of a special touch by the one who owned them. Empty of love. Empty of feeling.
Just by looking around, he could tell that everything would be where it was supposed to be, so Ren began with the desk. His gloved fingers brushed past piles and piles of important documents, sifting through for anything he could use to get him closer to his objective.
When he stumbled upon an accounting book, he cracked it open, noting that the spine seemed rather new for someone who ran a shop where every sale counted.
Sure enough, only a few pages were filled. However, the pages that were filled were littered with question marks.
Ren scanned the calculations and soon found their purpose: the numbers didn't add up. Not only did the shop not produce enough profit, even after adding the fruits of the pharmaceutical pursuits, but there was another pool of money coming in, and neither Ren nor Lennox knew where it was originating.
They really were struggling financially. Ren opened the florist's closet. but if that was the case, Lennox shouldn't possess the things that he does. Such expensive and luxurious things. His shop should have gone under years ago. So why hasn't it? Why did they insist on maintaining an act of wealthiness?
He yanked the remaining drawers open, darting from shelf to shelf, shoving books and bottles and boxes aside, hunting for another ledger. If he could trace the source of the mysterious cash, then maybe he could find his answer.
Movement at the stairs impeded Ren's thoughts, causing him to jerk. His initial reaction was to slide out his gun, but then he remembered his act, his persona, and pushed the urge away. Instead, he sat atop the desk, legs crossed.
It wasn't Lennox, he couldn't possibly be back from his outing yet. He knew his footsteps too well anyway; his gait was heavier than the one he heard now. It wasn't Wade either, for the same reason.
That meant it was either Emily or the brother. He didn't care which one, it wouldn't be difficult for him to deal with whoever came down those stairs. They were scared; he could sense it by their steps. They were trying to be stealthy, to be quiet. They didn't know that it was Ren there. And he would use that to his advantage.
Before he knew it, Lennox's mother rushed to hover over him, thrusting a candelabra at him and yelling, "If you so much as move a single metre, you vagrant, more than this candle holder will be embedded in your skull for thinking you could waltz in here and—" She had her eyes clamped shut, as if that would shield her from the responsibility of the person she was about to injure. Lennox's mother opened them to see Ren, who had ducked out of the way. "Oh. I thought you were a thief... or one of those blasted Crimsons." The candelabra clanged against the wooden desk, leaving a scratch on it.
She had the same frail physique and eloquent speech as Lennox, though not his sarcasm and defiance. His irreverence was all his own.
Emily scrutinised his black gloves with a hand on her hip, her tapered eyes reminiscent of an emerald dagger in Mitsan's collection. "Besides that, why are you in my son's room when he's away?"
Lennox invaded the sniper-turned-spy's thoughts once more. Ren could vividly imagine his ire should the flower boy discover 'Renato' in his room. It would be enjoyable to surprise him, if only he could get rid of Emily.
His mission came first.
"I was just waiting for Lennox. Usually, he would only be gone this long to visit me, but now that I'm living here, it feels like he's avoiding me. I wanted to take a shufti at his latest projects without contaminating anything, so I'm wearing gloves."
"Is that so..." Emily halfheartedly replied as surveyed the room. Her gaze rested on a desk drawer that wasn't closed all the way.
All of a sudden, she whirled around, simultaneously retrieving and positioning the candelabra at his neck. "You and Lennox may think that I only vouched for you out of pity and awe of your cooking skill, but don't be mistaken, I know you are up to something. So please, go ahead, give me any reason to doubt you, to second-guess your motives, and you won't survive the night. Is that clear?"
He was conflicted. Ren couldn't risk the mission more than he already had. He had to make a decision. Should he act innocent? Invent a reason? Tell the truth? No, he couldn't do that. He had to lie.
Ren clasped his hands around the base of the candle holder and guided it from his cervix. "I don't know what you're talking about, I'm just someone waiting for his man. You know, like any girl would do in a heterosexual relationship?"
He was exhausted by this conversation, so much so that he convinced himself he needed a cigarette to cope with it. Why did he have to perpetuate every stereotype to persuade anyone of anything?
"Any woman is so much more than 'just a girl' in anything she does. You may think that Wade caught on to your deviltry first, but don't delude yourself, you aren't fooling anyone."
That, along with Wade's remarks during Ren's first dinner here was the most validating thing Ren had heard since he put his reputation at stake for this mission.
"Then why did you allow me into this house? What possibly possessed you to let this stranger in?"
"You're good for Lennox. I can see it in the way he looks at you, at the way he opens up to you in a way he never did with me. He needs someone his age to confide in. And that person turned out to be you, as much as I hate to admit it. For all I know, you could be an assassin from the Syndicate, or a Verita spy making sure that Wade isn't betraying the brotherhood like he's betraying our marriage. You could be anyone but my son's lover, but that's how you defined yourself. That's a definition I have no choice but to trust. For his sake."
Little did she know that the sniper was exactly who she thought he was.
Ren felt a tug at his heart and a clenching in his stomach. He wondered if this was how Trix felt when going undercover, or if she was numb to it like he was with sniping.
Just like that, Ren wavered, feeling obligated to share the bare minimum with Emily. "Rest assured, what I'm doing here means you are safe from the Syndicate."
She sighed. "So, it's the Crimsons you work for... I suppose it was naive of me to think my son finally found someone to love and confide in."
What did she mean? A beat.
What was he even saying? What he had voiced just now was nothing short of a confession. Not to mention, she didn't think he and Lennox had any sort of real relationship anymore.
"Wait, I don't mean it like that. It's just my brother, he works for them. He promised me our safety, despite Lennox and you, his family, being Veritas." Ren struggled to breathe. He didn't expect his first verbal mention of his real identity would be like this. It wasn't before a murder, and not before a confession, but used as a way to con himself out of a bad situation.
Ren glanced at Emily. She exhaled, something akin to a suspire of relief. Some weight unknown to him had been lifted off her shoulders, liberating her chest in the same way Ren's was confined. It was not the first time his lies had made someone feel at ease and he found that unsettling.
He was a sniper. Compassion—as Mitsan had said—should be the thing he was afraid of, not deception. He knew he wasn't willing to lie with or to anyone to achieve his goals. Not like Trixcia was.
Or so he thought.
Maybe he was more like her than he ever realized. Maybe he would end up lying with the flower boy for information like Trixcia had tried to. Would that be so bad? He lingered on it for a few more moments. It might actually help him with his accursed agenda. Or was he thinking of such a ploy for another reason?
"Oh, Lennox is home! Why don't you greet him, Renato?" Emily said, pulling Ren out of his head.
He had thought too much, so much that he hadn't heard the door unlock. That was dangerous in his current line of work.
Ren trekked towards the stairs, giving the room one a final sweep under his discerning gaze. A swatch of purple reflected onto a glass bottle caught the sniper's eye. In the neighbouring window, something akin to an amethyst cloak billowed. In the time it took for him to swerve around, the flash was gone, disappearing into what was left of the street.
Was someone spying on him? While he was spying on the florist? He peeked behind the curtains to see nothing, not even a hint of colour.
"Renato? Is something the matter?" Emily inquired. She glided over to the window. "I don't see anything, do you?"
"No. I don't." Thinking himself delusional, Ren ascended the stairs with Lennox's mother following close behind.
She greeted Lennox as he stumbled through the door, dragging pale pink plants inside with substantial difficulty.
Ren remembered them from one of the flower pamphlets he had flipped through in his downtime. "Those petunias must be really heavy."
Lennox glared at him. "First of all, if you can't already tell, these are huge. Secondly, I'm hauling ten pots. By myself."
Ren made no move to help him. "What a big, strong flower boy you are," he crooned, injecting a great deal of sarcasm—as much as humanly possible—from his comfortable position on a wooden stool.
Now it was Lennox's turn to roll his eyes. "Whatever. You'll be the one carrying in the shipments next time."
"We'll see about that." Ren grinned, mischief shining in his grey-red irises.
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
𝐆𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐠𝐨 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫? 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 --->