Page 39 of Black Castle

Vivienne stills, her brow lifting at his words. He has said this before—too many times to be seen as a joke. And each time, it carries the same quiet certainty, as if his conviction alone can bend the bars of the cell.

It makes her wonder; does he actually have a way out? Some hidden plan the judge never caught a wind of?

When his case set the tabloids ablaze, there were whispers of a partner. His killings suddenly bore an unsettling resemblance to those of the killer—The Crimson Artisan—who emerged in Russia eighteen months before her father was caught. The authorities tried to fit the timeline together, cross-referencing his whereabouts with the bloodshed overseas. But every time—every single time his alibi held up. Either he was in lecture halls, at home making dinner or at a shareholders’ meeting. He was always accounted for. It was logically impossible for him to be in two places at once.

These left two possibilities; either the Russian killer—The Crimson Artisan—has been his partner all along, or he was just a fan dedicatedly taking notes. But after the father was sentenced, The Crimson Artisan went quiet for a while. But every now and then, a murder is always documented in Moscow and some small towns in Russia with the same pattern as her dad’s and The Crimson Artisan’s. This means The Crimson Artisan is still in business, but have just been laying low.

“Well…” Vivienne trails off awkwardly. “How, um, how do you plan on getting out?”

Her father tilts his head to the side, his brows furrowed as if in deep thought, then his lips curl. “Don’t worry about it. You just sit pretty and I’ll come get you when I’m out.”

“Where will we go?” she asks, playing along. Or maybe she really wants to run away into the sunset with her psycho dad.

His eyes glint with something dark. It sends a chill down her spine. “Somewhere very far. No one will find us.”

“Okay.” She nods silently.

They sit through an awkward silence for what feels like hours. Vivienne doesn’t know what to say to a possible psychopath. He already made it clear he is having the worst moments of his life. So she is just going to sit it out. In five minutes, it will all be over.

“So…?” He leans over the table where the laptop is placed, his raspy voice breaking through the silence. “You haven’t gone ahead and got a boyfriend, have you?”

Vivienne’s brow furrows. Is there a rule against that?

“Well, I had one, until about a month and some weeks ago. But apparently, a student isn’t supposed to have an affair with their teacher, so, yeah. It ended.” Vivienne glances at him. His eyes have darkened, his jaw hard. It feels like he is boiling from the inside and just struggling to keep it all together.

“And then there’s another one.” Ignoring the unmistakable change in his demeanor, she goes on. “He’s kinda way older than me. But he hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend yet. But I’ll say yes if he eventually does.”

“Foolish girl. Do you not listen?” His lips tighten, his fist slamming on the table.

“Sorry?” Vivienne recoils, eyeing him with caution, pulse racing.

“What did I tell you about boys?”

“Um, I don’t know—”

“I fucking told you to stay the fuck away from them!” He almost lunges at the laptop screen. “I explicitly said that to you, you idiot. Have you no sense?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Vivienne jolts to her feet, irritation humming in her veins. Who the hell does he think he is? Abandoned her and now making rules from behind bars?

“Okay, times’ up.”

With hands firmly on his shoulders, the officers pull him up from his seated position. Clement Baudin fixes Vivienne a dark, threatening stare before the officers veer him away from the laptop’s camera.

Vivienne rushes to slam her laptop shut as if he is going to jump out through the screen.

“What the hell was all that commotion?” Her gaze flickers to Kenji who is standing with a weary look at the entrance of the kitchen, a spatula in hand.

“N-nothing,” she says, quite disconnected. “He was just upset that the officer’s were dragging him.”

She has no idea why she lied. But Kenji already despises him. She guesses she doesn’t want more reasons for hate.

“Um, okay?” Kenji fixes her with a skeptical gaze, then shakes his head before disappearing into the kitchen.

She lowers herself to the floor, her mind reeling. She can’t grasp what just happened. This isn’t the first time he has asked if she has a boyfriend. She has always brushed it off. Maybe because he has never reacted like this, because today is the first time she told him yes.

“Well, are you done?” Kenji asks, strolling into the living room again, the smell of fried chicken following him in.

“Yeah,” Vivienne murmurs, scooting across the floor until her back rests on the brown leather couch. “Another ten minutes of my life are gone.”

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