Maddox clicks his tongue after ending the call. Nina ran away. It"s hard to track her down, but they know that she"s still in J country. A crazy dog is dangerous, but he can be kept alive if it"s useful. A crazy and wounded dog is too dangerous to be left alone in the world. He can guess what"s going inside Nina"s head. Those who come to DH are usually not sane. They will always take the hard road.
"Instant went back to J country," Yuan Bo scrolls up the pictures of Umezaki Rie and her family on the tablet. "They are heading toward O Island. She might settle down there. Is it okay like this?"
Exasperated, Maddox grabs his own hair. Both women are going crazy. He shouldn"t have included women in DH, but Rie is extraordinary -- a precious gem that he still needs in DH. There are things that only she can do. The current a.s.signment that he gave her is quite important and she"s playing around with her family. It"s been going so well. Why did her son suddenly demand to see Kamiyama Kiyohira?
In the past five years, he tried to sway her heart toward him. She never gave him a proper glance. Maddox grinds his teeth when he recalls how Kiyohira acted when he visited Rie at her home. There"s no doubt that Rie wants to leave DH. He won"t let her. Her son is another promising treasure.
If he can make Rie come to him, her son will be in his hands too. He can raise him into a weapon. DH is just a subsidiary branch. There are two contenders for the thrones. Both of them are young right now. In the future, there will be a battle for the throne.
He glances Yuan Bo. He is his trump card. But, he needs a backup plan. Yuta is around that person"s age. That boy is certainly born with his mother"s gift. He observed it when he saw Yuta last time at Rie"s house. The boy is going to be a double-edged sword if he is trained properly.
There"s Rie. He"s been watching her since she came to the world of hackers and changed the hacker world. He fell for her the beauty of her codes that could infiltrate nearly anything. He loved how daring she was in the world of hackers. In her early days, she was ruthless. After Yuta was born, she turned cautious. She is doubtlessly best among all the members of DH, but she"s not smart in other areas. She certainly doesn"t know what"s good for her.
"Brother Mad, they have caught her in the CCTV." Yuan Bo"s sharp voice snaps him out of his thoughts. "She has something that belongs to Instant."
He turns the screen of the tablet toward her, showing a glimpse of Nina driving a car with a man beside her. "Who is he?"
"His name is Kawamoto Ren. He was a member of outer DH." Yuan Bo informs him lazily, "He"s been picking up a fight with Nano for five years. Instant stopped her from harming Ren in the past."
"I remember." Maddox takes the tablet and looks at the details of Kawamoto Ren. Yuan Bo holds his chin, watching Maddox with his dark eyes. Maddox"s eyes slightly change. His lips curl up into a smile. "Did you find out who hacked into Nina"s system?"
"I looked into it, but the person vanished. I can"t find any trail." Yuan Bo can guess that Maddox is planning to smash two snake"s heads with one stone. But whose skulls are going to be smashed?
"Strangely, the person left a message for Nina. The hacker knew how long it would take for the a.s.sa.s.sin to arrive. I am sure that it"s someone who knows the working of DH."
How many people know the inner workings of DH? It could be his enemies. "I don"t think that Nina will be that hacker"s only target. If she was, she would be dead by now."
"Do you think that it"s one of us?"
"It"s not you and me. Nina was still useful. It"s not Rie either. She won"t risk her friend"s life." Maddox traces her hair in the picture on the screen. "She has too much to lose. Law won"t take any action that might bite his a.r.s.e back."
Yuan Bo hasn"t interacted much with Rie or Nina. Law is always drunk. Maddox has trained and raised him since he brought him out of the orphanage. He agrees with Maddox. Among the five of them, Umezaki Rie has the most that she can lose. "Sooner or later, she will be a danger to us."
"That won"t happen either." Maddox looks at him smugly. "Rie will come back to us. We only have to take care of the worldly attachments that are pulling her away from us."
Yuan Bo isn"t surprised to hear that. "I don"t think that it will be easy to manipulate her the second time. She"s not that dumb."
"We won"t manipulate her. We will create situations that will lead her back to us." Maddox has done this before. "If she comes back with her son, it"s best for her."
"What if she doesn"t?" She"s been looking at Yuan Bo with a peculiar gaze. Yuan Bo has a feeling that she has sensed the leader"s intentions toward her son. She won"t let anyone take her son away. Rie has the eyes of a mother tiger who would destroy anyone who would become a danger to her son. Sometimes, he is jealous of Yuta who has a mother like that. There are mothers like Rie and there are mothers who abandon their children at the doorsteps of the orphanage.
Maddox tells him with sorrow in his eyes, "Before she turns her weapons against us, we will remove her."
"I thought that you loved her," Yuan Bo laughs.
"Love is often a motivation for betrayal," Maddox replies to him.