7 Chapter 7: The Hidden Facts (1)

They were back at the hideout with Kriti attending to the little boy that she had saved. Katya and Kovit were in her office. In front of her sat Touya and behind him stood his gang, overall there was an oppressive feeling inside the office, centering from Katya and the man in front of her. He appeared to however be looking out through the blinds outside looking at Kriti and the boy she was tending. He had brought her back quickly now citing that he had somethings to discuss but they had been in this room for a minute or so now and no one had spoken a word. Katya finally cleared her throat to catch Touya's attention who turned around to her slightly surprised.

"You wanted to say something?" she said.

"Ah…yes, does that boy look familiar to you?" he asked nodding outwards.

Katya frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm just curious," he said with a light smile. "Have you seen that boy before?"

"No," she said bluntly.

Touya turned towards Kyler with a knowing smile and Kyler nodded as if to affirm his thoughts, something that Katya found immensely curious but at the same time annoying. It appeared that there was some sort of secret here that she wasn't privy to.

"Is there something I should know?" she asked looking carefully at the man in front of her.

Suddenly he stood up and closed in on her bending to look straight in her eyes and she found herself examining what were the finer features of his face. She gulped as she froze and right hand unwittingly moved to pull her bandanna over her face but Touya's hand shot out to stop her.

"What are you doing?" she asked softly unable to move away or break free as his face approached even closer to hers.

His eyes shot to the left and then the right and then he proceeded to straighten placing a hand over his chest. Someone suddenly called Touya's name interrupting what was perhaps an examination of her face.

"Strange," he said and Katya's heart skipped a beat.

"Wh..what are you talking about?"

He grimaced now as he looked at her and she felt her rage building again, was she being made a fool of. She was a bloody gang leader, there should be some semblance of respect shown here even if it was out of here so why on earth was this man doing whatever he wanted and why on earth was she just letting him do whatever he wanted. He then looked at her absentmindedly and it was at this point that Katya thought about reading people's minds and what a wonderful power it would be to have, it didn't even have to be everyone's, she just wanted to read this man's mind, find out whether he knew her secrets, or what exactly he was thinking.

"Boss," Kovit's voice came from behind her.

She turned around with an icy glare and Kovit took the full brunt and gulped.

"What is it?" she said in chillingly low voice, her anger out on full display.

"The place…" he said swallowing down a gulp. "La Fleur…"

He got up to her face but she pushed back, she had enough of people getting up in her personal face, especially up close to her face.

"Dammit Kovit, you pull that again and I will lay you out," she hissed but at this point she had unwittingly backed into Touya.

"Really now," said an annoying person's voice from behind her as she felt her shoulder's being grabbed. "Be careful where you're walking to."

She gritted her teeth, clenched her fist and shrugged off the hands that were on her and turned around looking at the man ferociously.

"You lose your temper a lot don't you," he said with a snicker.

"No, I'm fairly friendly," said Katya sarcastically. "It's how I got the name Xander the Maw."

"Touche," he said chuckling. "Anyhow, onto business."

"My hotel is pretty much in shambles," he said with a shrug. "Now I admit I haven't exactly kept it maintained but believe you me, it's not just dust, malfunctioning lights etc, I mean it's like typhoon just went through there, if I didn't look carefully I'd believe that there are dead bodies in there, with the way the place has been trashed."

Katya frowned, La Fleur should have been untouched, it was kept exactly as it was, the place was only under her protection, she ensured that nothing illicit happened in that place. Such a place, abandoned and large was exactly something gangs would use for their daily dealings and other such things and the place had no claim or ownership, it stood like an abandoned tower under the skies. She looked at Kovit questioningly and he gulped.

"That's what I was about to say boss," he said. "A couple of our people would go there occasionally to let loose so to speak."

"Let loose…?" she repeated in a questioning manner.

"Oh yeah," cackled Quedell suddenly from behind. "It looked like my kind of party, every thing that could be broken was broken, there even slash marks and stab marks."

"Seriously?" Katya asked. "What was going on there, some sort of underground fight club, free for all…?"

"No...god no," said Kovit quickly but then he chucked nervously. "But it did get out of hand as I hear, quite a few times and they got into some scraps."

"Why was I not told any of this," she said gnashing her teeth and finally spoke the last sentence in an almost shout. "I'm the goddamn boss of this gang, what the hell are all of you thinking, does Shade know and what about Emilia!?"

"Shade doesn't know," said Kovit quietly. "I don't know about Emilia…but she should know considering…"

"Yes, she should," agreed Katya calming down for a second but then she erupted, her cold blue eyes exuding the heat of magma.

"Is there anything else I should know Kovit?" asked Katya gritting her teeth. "I don't like all these surprises."

"Nothing else…absolutely nothing else," he said quickly but then he paused for thought which didn't look like a convincing notion to Katya.

"How exactly did they let loose?" she asked slowly looking at him in a careful manner.

"Ah…that…uh I…I don't know," he forced out his words as he looked down.

"I can tell you that," piped up Touya even as he received a pleading look from Kovit. "It requires extensive renovation and reconstruction procedures, the reconstruction part, that's been done already, it was done a couple of weeks prior to us landing here."

She turned again towards Kovit, "There were constructions happening at a place that under my thumb?"

"Uh yes…I told you about it?" said Kovit but he didn't sound so sure.

Katya however paused to think for a second and then she closed her eyes and sighed, "Yeah…you might have told me about that."

Kovit let out a sigh as Katya turned back to Touya with drooping shoulders, "How much?"

He raised an eyebrow, "How much…what?"

"How much do we need to pay for the damages?"

He let out a laugh, "Oh no, I'll still pay you, I'm thankful to you for taking care of place to this extent at least…but, I require your assistance for the renovation purposes, you see there are a lot of people expecting the opening of this hotel and I don't want to disappoint-."

There was a loud bang outside the room and a sound that could only be described as a growling screech. Katya bolted towards the door and pulled it open to see an unexpected sight. Shade was pinning the boy Jin down with his hands behind his back as he put up the mother of all struggles to break loose, kicking at air, growling and scratching with his free hand. Kriti knelt on one knee some distance away clutching her now bleeding shoulder as she looked in worry at the boy. On the floor in front of the boy was a dropped knife, it's edges coated with a layer of blood.