CASE FILE NO. 3

"MY BROTHERS ARE IDIOTS. Do they really want to get punished so badly?" Catalina asks.

I waited for her to calm down. And when she did, she instantly looks back at me and says, "You have to kill Luis and accomplish your saint role."

I sigh heavily and brush my hair back with my fingers. They're acting like killing a person is as easy as killing a fly.

"And then what?" I ask.

Catalina walks towards me and hands me back Tobias's knife. I look down at my hand and realize that she handed me her lighter too.

"Let me ask you Vincent Carter...what comes after saint?" She asks me.

I went through the roles again. Like what Chance once told me before, the roles are: act like a saint, talk like a boss, tempt like a slut, and kill like a gentleman. So after saint is obviously...

"Boss," I answer her, and Catalina smiles and walks towards a small table on the left side of the room. The table had an expensive-looking wine inside a bucket of ice and a glass.

Catalina pours some wine on the glass and drinks from it before walking back to her desk to sit down. As she places the glass on top of her desk, she says, "Well then. You're looking at the person who mastered that role more than Cyrus Delton." Catalina adds, "And you know what the bosses are good at?"

"What?" I ask her curiously.

Catalina was tapping her long nails on the desk as she looks at me with dominance and power, "You're being taught the saint ways, so let me teach you something about the boss role in advance."

I gulp and take a step closer.

"Talk like a boss. My role establishes fear. And fear is what makes this family strong." Catalina says as she takes another sip of her wine.

"So bosses are good at establishing fear?" I assume, but Catalina shakes her head and finishes her wine before correcting me, "No, we're good at taking control."

"Taking control?" I repeated.

Catalina licks the side of her mouth, then she started tapping her nails on the desk again.

"Yes, taking control." She answers.

"And how do you do that?" I ask her. But instead of answering me, Catalina takes her wine glass again. She was about to drink from it, but I noticed that it was already empty, so I instinctively took the wine on the other table and poured some on Catalina's glass to fill it up for her.

Catalina smiles and looks at me with the same look that she's been giving me ever since I've met her. It was only then did I realize that Catalina might just be the only Delton that doesn't have to act out her role because her personality already fits it.

Catalina doesn't drink from the glass that I filled and gently places it back on the desk instead.

"That's how." She suddenly says, confusing me.

It took me a couple of seconds to finally realize what she was talking about.

"You take control. You manipulate your environment through small signals and gestures. Without saying a word, the person in front of you will do what you want him to do with no question." She explains to me, and I place the wine bottle on the desk in defeat.

"How on earth will a master something so complex?" I ask.

"Like the saint role, you have to figure that out yourself. Acting is for saints, lying is for gentlemen, and manipulating is for bosses. You control the game so you don't lose. Because in this family, losers die, and I have not died yet, which is why I'm good at what I do." Catalina explains to me, making it harder for me even more.

These siblings are crazy if they expect me to comprehend all those concepts easily.

"There's one last thing that I want to teach you Carter," she says as she stands from her seat again.

I watch as she takes the wine glass from the desk and drinks from it again before standing in front of me.

"You're holding Tobias's weapon." She suddenly points out, and I look down at my hand and stare at the ivory-gold knife that Tobias's handed to me earlier.

"I'll give you three chances. What do you think my weapon would be?" She asks me, and I look back at the other item that was on the same hand that was holding the knife. It was Catalina's lighter.

I place the knife on the seat so I could scan the lighter better. It was ivory-gold like Tobias's knife. I opened it up and pressed the crest in the middle, making the fire appear.

"Fire?" I guessed, but Catalina laughs upon hearing my answer and suddenly hands me her wine glass.

"Wrong. Two answers left Carter." She says with a smirk.

I cursed and look down at the glass that she just gave me. I was supposed to answer her again but then I saw an eyelash on her glass, so I picked the eyelash with my thumb and index finger before wiping them off on my shirt.

She leans on her desk and looks straight at me again. She was waiting for me to make another wild guess, but I couldn't think of something.

I looked back at Catalina as she licked the side of her mouth again. I took a deep breath and look back at the wine that she handed to me. Since I literally dipped my fingers on the wine, it would be rude to give it back to her. I was supposed to drink from the wine, but then I stopped when the glass was just inches away from my mouth. I'm being manipulated again. She's been giving signals that I should take a sip of the wine that she's been savoring a few moments ago. If she didn't explain her role, I would have done it with no question.

Catalina chuckles and walks towards me to take the glass from my hand.

"You learn fast. But I still asked you a question that you still haven't answered yet." She says as she walks towards a plant and pours the wine on the pot.

"Do you even have a weapon madam Catalina?" I ask her, and Catalina looks back at me amusingly.

Catalina places the empty wine glass on the desk and asks, "Do you know why I threw the wine away Vincent Carter?"

I look at her confusingly. Why did she pour away the wine on the plant? Why did she waste such an expensive wine? Only an idiot would do that. Or maybe that person really isn't an idiot. Because the only reason why someone would do that would be because it tasted awful, or if it was...

My eyes widen from shock when I finally connected the dots, "P-poison? Your weapon is poison?"

Catalina smiles and nods her head to confirm it.

"So you wanted to poison me? You literally put poison on the wine when you knew that I'd drink from it?" I ask her.

If I wasn't conscious enough, I would have drunk the wine. Without struggling I could have died so easily.

"No need to get pumped up Carter. I didn't add the poison on the wine." She tells me, confusing me even more.

"What do you mean?" I ask her, and Catalina takes the lighter from my hand and answers, "You did."

I was obviously surprised by what she told me, but then Catalina suddenly opens up her lighter. Inside her lighter was some kind of powdery substance.

"A few sprinkles of this and a person could be paralyzed. A few more and that person could die." She explains to me.

I didn't understand what she meant, but then I remembered clicking the crest on the lighter, and then I remembered the eyelash on the wine. When I finally understood what happened, I couldn't help but laugh at myself. Catalina manipulated the situation again. Everything she did and everything she said, made me do everything that I just did.

"That's how you take control, Vincent Carter. That's how you control Cyrus Delton." Catalina tells me.

I couldn't say anything because of amusement. I wanted to applaud her. Because just in a span of a few minutes, I was able to learn a few things from her. But then there's something else that I was able to learn other than what she showed me.

Like what chief Philip told me before I got this assignment, Adam Delton was reported to have died...from food poison.

I don't know why Catalina said these things to me. I don't know if she doesn't know that I'm aware of Adam's supposed cause of death. But one thing's for sure. I have to be careful with the information that's given to me. Because knowing Catalina, she's definitely manipulating me into doing something about this. And it's obvious that it would benefit her more than it would benefit me.