28 Chapter 27

Daru paces inside his hideout.

Dressed in his baggy clothes, all black and loose, a cap, over it a hoodie. From a certain standpoint, this might be overly dressed and might grab attention, but you would be underestimating the number of people with the same outfit. Reasons vary from being in the same predicament as Daru - that's all the clothes they could find, snooping around where they shouldn't - to just having this as their style.

Daru got inside his car, 'Let's first think back to all I know about them.'

If we think of the whole operation as a pyramid.

William is the top guy, the boss, the pimp. Then down the pyramid are the lawyer cum advisor, then Sydney, his wife, and his shadow Michael.

"These are the only people I care about. The rest are used hired dogs," Daru said to himself, with gritted teeth, eyes ablaze.

The lawyer will not be of any help. He is the biggest weasel of all time.

Though Michael, who always is by William's side and protects him from all the harm that he can, is the most in the know of all the happenings, it was hardly a choice to get information from the stone who miraculously came to life. All that counting, you can get a drop on him.

"Sydney…" Daru squints his eyes thinking about the shrewdest blonde he ever knew.

Sydney was no slouch; she had a special knack for keeping the books and laundering money.

"It was her that had made various ways to wash William's money.

'But she is one tight-lipped bitch.'

Sydney was a very careful woman; it was hardly ever that she slipped something if not bouncing on his cock.

But one thing she was worse at was managing papers.

Just one look around, he could find a lot of papers that roughly pinpointed locations that are most likely to be the place that launders their drug money.

As he drove by, he saw one such establishment, a nail salon, run by a Chinese immigrant lady, stereotypical much.

And there are many more, like the car wash centers a few blocks away.

Though the drug business makes them more than they can ever wash.

So the wife, though promiscuous, was a talent and was one of the major players of the gang.

"I can't trust a bitch like her."

Daru's plan requires him to have two things: all the current stash of drugs they have and their cook for the plan he has thought of to work.

The human mind is a fascinating thing; you can think as hard as you want, and you might not find the answer you desperately need, but sometimes just a doodle or a small detail will light a spark that would burn the whole town of ideas. The dots and pathways connect so well it just amazes you.

The last of the guys who know more than anybody, "Jason."

Jason is part of the top tier not because of anything else but for being with William from day one. And there is also a thing he boasts that if not for him, William would not even be in this 'field of work'.

"Jason." Daru hisses his name out.

If he is right then the reason for the gang to betray him was also him.

Jason, though a useless piece of shit, would not really be an easy cookie to get what he wants, much less this, it also didn't align with what he had planned for him.

Daru takes another turn, parking his car in a dark corner, he stops.

"Haa," Daru rests his back on the driver's seat, "she is the only option."

Daru recalls the voice again, "it's a trap."

The only reason he survived that day was he got a heads up. And used that to get a drop on them.

The fight is still hazy, and he can't even remember how it went; when he tried to recall it, it was just a jumbled mess.

He was once himself, going in with his chest puffed out.

Then he gets a call, he reaches out towards Sora and getting close to the table Sora was standing against.

Grabbing Sora's outstretched hand to take the phone, he pulled him close, grabbed Sora's gun with his deft hand, shot behind him.

And then overturning the table, shooting through it and Sora's body, then the two men who were now shooting at the table.

He didn't know when he was grazed with bullets, with the first round of their shooting, or was it when he took down one guy and the other got a lucky shot in only to follow his partner.

After them, he for sure knows the two dicks who came from the outside had gotten some clean shots at him when his back was in their full view.

"Haa," sitting in the car, he has been sighing for some while.

Deciding this was his only option, Daru gets out, then walks out keeping his head low from the car that was parked opposite to the house he was going to.

It was not his first time sneaking into this house.

So he was clearly in the know of which houses to climb into and past to reach the back door of the house he was targeting.

Jumping from one house to another, he stands in front of the back door.

Seeing it slightly ajar, he slowly opens it to not let it creak.

It was dark at the back, he crosses the kitchen, and slowly walks towards the living room, sounds of the TV running attracted him, and when he reached the place, he saw a woman watching some kind of art documentary.

'Sonam.'