CHAPTER 59: MAYBE... GOD IS FAVORING HIM.

Her clothes were plain and colorless enough not to stand out here, yet still expensive without a wrinkle.

"It seems you reached no conclusion," Miss Maleah murmured, her heels striking sharp sounds as she set her handbag on the table. "I told them Renzo was not a good idea, after all."

As she extended her hand to Taras, she muttered to Renzo with a sideways glance, "Leave."

"Yes, M’am." When Renzo and all the Awakening men left the room, most of Taras’s men also went out to escort them to the unit’s exit.

As Miss Maleah looked at Taras with foxlike, smiling eyes, Taras -once again- did not shake her hand and only met her face with his gaze.

"Look at that, so the people inside are desperate enough to spill blood," he said. This woman had a photograph with nearly every figure the Awakening movement had ever targeted; now here she was, sly enough to secretly plot against nearly every target of the Awakening movement. "I thought you were living your life in comfort as a supporter of the regime."

"I hardly look like someone who sides with the regime now, do I?" Miss Maleah said as she lowered her hand. "The problem with those in power is this: power blinds their eyes so much that they can no longer see the true faces of the people beneath them."

Taras examined her face expressionlessly, gestured to the table, and signaled for the last of his men to leave as well. Now, Taras and Maleah were alone.

With a snap of his fingers, Taras formed the black tulle above them. Guessing what its purpose might be, Maleah smiled.

"Nothing more normal than your partners not knowing what goes through your mind, huh? Do you have other evolved abilities you haven’t yet told us about, Taras?"

A smile devoid of any sincerity formed on Taras’s face. "Don’t worry, the most interesting one I used was right before your eyes," he said, referring to when he had torn apart the serpent-like shadow form on the balcony.

The woman seemed to recall it now, smiling. "Ah... yes, your full shadow form, it was magnificent. Even though you ruined our plan..."

"What are you here for?" Taras asked, pulling out a chair for her to sit. When Miss Maleah sat and Taras took his own seat, she finally answered.

"I’m here to hear you."

Taras smiled. "To think one of you could figure out I have a plan, that’s impressive."

At least within Awakening, there were a few people capable of thought. For this woman to take on such an obvious role as leading Treasure to the balcony, she was either very strong or wholly devoted to vengeance. But why was she here, independently now?

Maleah sighed. "I... am not the kind of person who can abandon my company, which is my entire existence, behind me," she said. "So even if I wanted to make people vomit blood, the next day, still being a telecommunications company which people still would want services from... is something of a necessity for me. That’s why I thought it was best to hear you beforehand."

"Then, do you not think you’re on the right side for this?" Taras asked with a mocking tone. If she couldn’t protect the company she claimed to have dedicated her whole life to by cooperating with Awakening, then why had she made that deal in the first place?

This woman was suspicious. Aware that she was being doubted, Maleah answered, "You could say I used to think so... but that was only until I saw that you might have something far more useful to me."

Tilting his head, Taras thought, this woman was the heiress and now interim president of one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies; although her father was quite old, he remained vigorous.

"Did you think I would be so kind as to tell you my plan?" he asked. "Kindness is hardly part of my plan toward a woman who smilingly escorted someone to the execution block."

The sly gleam in Maleah’s eyes gave way to a more open, honest light, as though her thoughts had shifted elsewhere. "You mean Treasure, hah. You see, he’s not even... a figure in this deal. He isn’t, truly. I realized that. He’s only a child caught in the middle of all this crossfire," Maleah said, staring at a spot in the room.

Taras saw in her eyes the same flicker of hesitation he had seen on the balcony and asked, "A child?"

"Exactly," she said, as she raised her head to clarify her point. "But not a fool. You could read from his face how suspicious of me he was until the very last moment. And yet, as though he wanted to see what I would do... he just waited. It was pitiful.

"Taking him there stopped me from enjoying it; it could have been an unforgettable moment. But instead, it only made me feel like a piece of shit, sacrificing a child. You saving him... even if it ruined things for us, in a way it felt good, do you know what I mean?"

Taras nodded, indifferent. "And you thought you’d hear a plan from me that would make you feel better?"

Maleah laughed. The man before her was someone who read people very well, and the only man so far who had spoken to her as an equal. "Yes, you could say that."

She was used to being humiliated, treated as nothing more than a source of money among men and alphas. This was new to her. Looking straight into Taras’s eyes, she continued,

"I hope to hear a better plan, and in return... if I am convinced, I will have a good request of you."

Taras chuckled softly. "And how am I to trust you?"

"Come on. I know you don’t care if Awakening learns about your plans, you know you’ve got nothing to lose by telling me," Maleah said as she smiled. "And... when you hear my request, I will already be gifting you my greatest weakness. So, you will have no choice but to trust me, and I, you."

Taras silently studied her, then, almost stingily, without giving names or too much detail, explained his plan. With or without this woman, he could move forward, whether or not he had an internal ally with a telecommunications company. There was no need to tell her everything; it could be risky.

"You put me in a difficult position," Maleah said at last, a playful look on her face. "Breaking my alliance with Awakening and siding with you without knowing what your concrete evidence is, or who it involves... I don’t know."

"Up to you," Taras said, twirling his lighter between his fingers. "We are already ahead of Awakening, regarding the experiment arranged for Treasure, for example. We have documents, photos, and recordings. I know Awakening does not have such evidence."

"..."

Maleah’s silence confirmed Taras’s guess as she sighed. Crossing her legs, she swayed her foot while thinking for a bit. Then, taking out a voice recorder from her bag, she placed it on the table between them.

Locking her eyes on Taras, she switched it on. "I, Maleah Connor. I will facilitate your illegal acquisition of certain individuals’ phone records and conversation logs," she said.

Taras, a dangerous gleam motionless in his eyes, shrugged. "Anything else?"

"I will provide you and your unit with a clandestine communication channel outside the outskirts, working with a signal in the central regions and the capital without detection. You will be able to use phones in the city as well," Maleah said, as though raising her bet without fear at a poker table.

When Taras kept his silence, Maleah smiled with a knowing air, troubled yet as if she had expected this wouldn’t be easy. "Do you have any other requests?"

Taras regarded her quietly for a while, his gaze making it clear he found her presumptuous way of striking deals absurd and daring.

Any request, huh? Actually... that... might be negotiable.

"After this meeting, the moment they realize you’ve sided with me, Awakening will threaten you, so I assume we’ll keep this between us," Taras said, his tone heavy and cold.

Without looking away, Maleah naturally acknowledged the undeniable truth. Taras nodded, then finally voiced his demand.

"In that case, Miss Maleah, let’s also add this to our agreement: Awakening’s plans involving Treasure... you will leak them to me."

It was obvious she had no choice but to accept. For a moment, her posture faltered, as if the weight of the risk pressed on her shoulders, yet her eyes revealed how much she needed this deal.

"Very well," Taras said, tapping his lighter against the table. At last, he asked the question that truly intrigued him, the one expectation important enough to drive her into such danger.

"So, what exactly are you doing all this for in return?"

At last, for the first time, Maleah’s shoulders slumped as though in weakness, but then she gathered herself again and looked at Taras with a different, vulnerable hunger.

"I want you to kill my father, Isiah Connor," Maleah said, disgust and ambition flickering in her eyes.

"That filthy bastard clearly won’t die of natural causes; he responds to every treatment. This will be my last term as interim president, because you will kill him in secret, as if he had died on his own, using that impeccable full shadow form of yours."

Taras leaned back in his chair. "I’m sure there are plenty of highly skilled assassins who could earn their payment with this job in a single night," he replied, unhurried.

Maleah returned his smile. "If he dies alone, I’ll be the first one accused," she said, her plan glimmering faintly in her eyes. "But if he suddenly collapses in front of everyone, at our company’s founding gala... no one could ever blame me. Do you not think so?"

Taras tilted his head. This woman had an evil side. "So... you’ll be accompanying your dear father all the way to the balcony, too?"

"It feels... as if you’re hung up on the fact that I was the one who brought Treasure to that balcony, as if you’re angry at me," Maleah said, her tone laced with sarcasm.

"..." Taras remained silent, but the cold fire in his eyes made the truth undeniable. Maleah instinctively looked away.

She slowly picked up her bag from the table, smoothing her hair. Her voice carried no hesitation, almost as if she wasn’t afraid of a single word she’d said being recorded. "Whatever. If it means that bastard’s death, I could accompany him all the way to hell itself."

Taras reached across the table and stopped the recorder. He played it back, listening all the way until Maleah’s final words, his eyes never leaving her face.

When the recording ended, he rose to his feet. "Then we have a deal," he said, slowly extending his hand.

Maleah seized it at once, their handshake firm. "We’ll be in touch. I’ll tell Awakening a suitable lie about this meeting."

"Hm... something like how you’re an arrogant, know-it-all leader, someone thinking of nothing but waging war against us, making a grave mistake. How does that sound?"

When a chilling smile curved Taras’s lips, Maleah briefly wondered if she had gone too far, but his reply came without delay. "Not bad at all."

Just before leaving the room, the sharp click of Maleah’s heels on the wooden floor made the boards creak faintly as she turned back. "Actually... I have another recording. I can’t say for sure whether it’s useful or not," Maleah said, her eyes flicking to the device on the table. "A recording about Treasure. An old one, from the time he was first discovered."

For the first time, Maleah caught the faint twitch of a muscle in Taras’s face. She pulled out a voice recorder, much smaller, and approached the table, placing it next to the other device as she continued speaking.

"This recording... it was taken without consent, secretly, from my disabled brother’s phone. So... it must remain hidden. Still, once I take charge, it could be used, because only then will no one be able to harm my brother. That’s why Awakening does not have it. And now I have you. But whether it’s of much use, I can’t say."

"But..." Maleah once again fixed her eyes on an empty corner of the room. For the first time, thinking of Le An, she showed the expression she usually reserved for speaking her own mind, and smiled with a hint of unease.

"Perhaps surviving death is truly a chance granted by God only to the innocent, huh? Somehow, Treasure stayed alive, and now that even you will protect him for your own plans... maybe God is favoring him. I don’t know. Anyway. I’ll leave that to you as well."

Taras gave a slight nod. The urge to play the recording surged within him immediately, but at the same time, another voice inside him screamed that he must not.

Click. Taras was alone now. And as Le An’s face came to him right at that instant, along with that strange sensation that always followed whenever he learned something new about him... Taras shoved the recorder into his pocket.

Not yet.

Whatever that recording contained, he wasn’t ready to face it.