CHAPTER 57: LETTING JAMES GO

Dmitri calmly washed his hands. Even though they had been gloved while he ’worked’, he still scrubbed with meticulous care, washing off the bit of blood that had somehow made its way to his hands.

The water ran pink for a moment before swirling clear.

He turned off the tap, dried his hands with a cloth towel, and glanced at the bound man slumped in the chair behind him—barely conscious, but alive. For now.

Dmitri adjusted the folded sleeves of his shirt and stepped closer, his tone was polite, almost gentle.

"Now then, James," Dmitri crouched to eye level with the man, whose face was a wreck of blood, snot, sweat, and tears. "I’m willing to hear you out."

The smile on Dmitri’s face was calm, almost pleasant, a chilling contrast to James’s battered and barely conscious expression. His eyes felt heavy and they were threatening to shut permanently.

But Dmitri had no intention of letting that happen.

He gently patted James’s cheeks, his voice remaining soft. "Now’s not the time to sleep, James. We’re just getting to the part where you start talking, just like you wanted."

"Oh right," his expression was as if he had just realized something.

He extended his hand towards towards James’ face before removing the now bloody cloth from his mouth, "there, you can speak now."

James wheezed the moment the cloth was pulled from his mouth, dragging in a ragged breath like a drowning man reaching the surface of a muddy lake.

His lips trembled and blood pooled along the edges of his gums, and when he tried to speak, it came out as a wet gurgle.

Dmitri tilted his head sympathetically. "Take your time. You wouldn’t want to choke before saying anything useful."

James blinked slowly, the left side of his face twitching uncontrollably. He tried to lift his head, failed, and let it hang forward like a broken puppet.

Dmitri stood, brushing imaginary dust from his knees. He calmly waited for James to adjust to the pain.

From the corner of the room that now smelt like a mix of blood and piss, he dragged a metal chair and set it before James and took a seat.

"Let me tell you something," he began, his voice steady and unhurried. "Do you know what I appreciate, James?"

James coughed weakly, but gave no response. His body twitched again, involuntarily.

"Precision," Dmitri answered himself. "Clean work, money and above all, honesty."

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, eyes locked on James. "Now, I have a very simple question for you. One question, and I want the truth. Just one honest answer and this will all be over."

He lifted a finger in the air, as if marking the importance of what he was about to say.

"Who helped you?" He asked simply, "who gave you the idea to betray the hand that fed you?"

"—I-I...don’t know,"James struggled to let out.

"Tsk tsk tsk," Dmitri clicked his tongue in disappointment, "that really wasn’t the answer I was looking for."

"I-I promise, I don’t know who he is," there was no energy behind his words as he was on the verge of losing his consciousness, "a-all .... Know is that he communicatied with me t-hrough my PC...and he used an avatar for it."

"An avatar huh?" Dmitri asked curiously, "and do you mind describing what this avatar looked like?"

Although it sounded like one, James knew that was far from a request and he had no option but to spit everything out.

.....

After a few minutes of interrogation, or rather, James spilling out everything he knew, Dmitri stood up with a serious expression on his face.

He proceeded to relay everything he learnt to Isla, Nathaniel’s assistant before walking back to the bound James.

"You did good," Dmitri said with a small smile, "now then, it’s time to let you go."

James instantly felt relief at those words, His lips parted, perhaps to say thank you, perhaps to weep—but no sound came.

Dmitri smiled at him again, almost warmly, as if they were old friends sharing the end of a long conversation.

"Yes," he said gently, "you’ve told me what I needed. That part’s done."

He stepped behind the chair, his footsteps soft on the concrete. James’s head tilted slightly, trying to follow the sound.

"Time to let you go," Dmitri repeated, his voice still calm and polite.

There was a metallic click was not the sound of chains being unlocked, Instead it was something that made his blood run cold.

James froze, even through the haze of pain. His body knew before his brain did. That wasn’t the sound of freedom.

It was the sound of a gun being cocked.

"W-wait—" james croaked, panic flooding his broken voice. "Y-you said—"

"I did," Dmitri replied calmly "And I meant it, I’m letting you go."

A pause.

"Just not the way you hoped."

There was a short moment of silence as James’ brain tried pumping as much adrenaline needed to survive as the realization set in.

BANG.

The sound echoed through the warehouse like thunder as James was truly let go of.

_______

Nathaniel had a frown on his face as he listened to Isla relaying Dmitri’s words.

A chibi avatar wearing a suit with black hair and blue eyes? There was only one other place he had seen or heard of was from Amelia Rhodes, so he knew exactly who was responsible,

"OmniTech Corp," he muttered, a bit amused at the notion that a no name company dared cross him.

He was genuinely curious about the reason. Was it just a case of a cat mistaking itself for a tiger?

Any company with half a brain should know better than to cross the Langleys. Even if you were offended by them, the smart move was to keep your head down and carry on. Otherwise, you’d vanish without a trace.

"This is getting interesting," he murmured.

Ever since OmniTech Corp entered the picture, it had been one headache after another.

First, they managed to launch their software despite his attempts to block it. Now, one of his own had turned on him—manipulated into betrayal.

"They really should be eliminated," he said casually, as if commenting on a bug that had overstayed its welcome.

OmniTech was a nuisance—but nothing he couldn’t handle.

He just needed to clean up this mess first.

"Isla," he said, noting she was still on the line.

"Yes, sir?" she responded promptly.

"Tell Dmitri to give me the results of his background check on OmniTech’s COO," he ordered, "and tell him to prioritize it. I want it on my desk before midnight."

"Understood Sir," Isla replied professionally but before he could put the phone down, she suddenly said, "oh and Sir, it seems Master Langley has a vacation in a month and he plans to spend it here."

Nathaniel frowned, his father was one known for being a workaholic and something called vacation was not in his dictionary so it was strange that he was taking one.

"Maybe the old fox has heard of what’s going on here," he muttered.

Isla wanted to explain herself but Nathaniel cut her off before anything could be said, "it’s fine, nothing can stay hidden from that old fox for long anyway."

"Let’s just take care of this mess before he gets here." He said after putting down the phone.

_________

While all this went on, Ethan lay lazily on his bed in his room after an evening of exercise.

He could clearly hear from his PC speakers every single word that left Nathaniel’s or Isla’s mouth thank to Athena entering their systems.

There was a small smile on his face as he listened in, it seems Nathaniel was tired of playing the long game and so was he.

But unlike Nathaniel, his plan was already in motion and he didn’t have to lift a single finger.

After all, the biggest threats in the hacking world was currently cutting off all of Nathaniel’s connections and he hadn’t realized a single thing off.

This was another advantage that this distraction brought, Nathaniel is so confident in his power and connections, believing them to be absolute and by the time he would realize that it’s not, it’d be too late.

But then again, there was a bigger road block that Ethan had to deal with, Victor Langley.

He was a man with deeper roots than even his son and uprooting them would be a lot harder.

But as with Nathaniel, Ethan had the perfect plan for this former military general and it’d be set in motion once his vacation starts.

"Athena, I want you to dig into Victor and log everything ’interesting’ you find," he stated, "they might come in handy."

{Got it,} she said before pausing, {although, it might be a bit harder with my current computing power.}

"Is this a campaign for new servers?" Ethan suspiciously asked.

The Drake Systems were pretty small and Ethan definitely planned to upgrade, but not now and he knows that Athena would do fine even without the upgrade.

"I’ll think about it," he muttered with a smile.

{Fine,} she said with a pout before disappearing from his monitor, getting to work.