Chapter 95

The next day, Toren was no longer tucked in bed with Airen.

His soul had returned to the void, while his perception returned to Coen's reality.

Toren was inside his apartment, observing his brother once again.

Whether it was for another attempt to murder someone, not knowing why he should or just another landing to a different job, he was just about to find out.

Coen's room was quite uncharacteristically messy for someone who experienced different kinds of occupation, whether it was legal or not. The plastic bags, crushed cans, receipts, and food delivery boxes were just scattered pell-mell.

The room was always dimmed unless morning and noon sunlight passed through.

Coen would not use the lights inside, leaving it dark from late afternoon till the next dawn.

He was often just watching some television show or talking to his buyers from the illegal market for transactions. Hidden at his personally built hideout were stuck up artilleries and weapons which all seemed to be his solace.

Toren could not understand such a habit and where it had been rooted from.

He wondered a lot about his brother's previous occupation, but ended up swirling in several hypotheses and wild guesses.

None of them had been proven accurately, but he thought that his brother must be formerly an activist. Coen was quite proficient in filtrating through gangs and organizations, providing him a fluid network of people – from drug lords to conglomerate magnates.

Some were rich and famous celebrities, hidden with their personas and wealth.

The business, Toren learned along with his brother, turned out to be a much bigger universe than how it actually seems. Coen had dealt with lots of things and played every time safely.

He would not easily expose his identity and intentions.

As the modern world solidified physical evidence, Coen also had to go through a lot of trouble in registering his identity, constantly faking his death, and erasing all his evidence in every platform.

Legalities had made things more difficult to work with as the world progressed.

And maybe that was the reason he was getting more and more in a rush.

Yet in the crevices of his painstakingly careful manipulation of other's perspective towards himself, Toren noticed his brother's worries. It was buried deep in the undertow, looming beneath his heart and lingering at the oldest parts of his consciousness.

It was quite difficult to explain in detail, but Toren could see it clearly exuding out of his brother's shell. Inside the young and undying flesh, there was an underlying rotten soul, sick of reality and the world's mockeries.

Toren could feel the anxiety, the troublesome emotion, and the ridiculous pain.

During those times, Coen would go into hiding at the rear part of the complex and open up a hidden trapdoor.

It was one of the oddest habits his brother would have – building secret rooms underneath every single time he would have to go somewhere else.

If he had to reside in and stay at a different apartment, at a different mansion, or at a different establishment, he would fix some underground room somewhere nearby.

Inside, he would smoke cigarettes and most often, the drugs he was supposed to sell.