Ashton's eyes opened wide as he saw the director was being rolled inside the room in a wheelchair. Unlike how he had remembered her, she looked extremely frail. Almost as if she had aged 50 years in a span of a few weeks. Hell, she could barely hold her head up without any support.
Her entire body was covered in scars and burn marks. Not to mention a couple of missing fingers and patches of missing skin from her face. The worst thing of all was the oxygen mask covering her face. Just with a glance, Ashton realised she had been rescued from the verge of death.
Despite having an awful relationship with her and knowing what she had done, a part of Ashton couldn't help but feel sorry for her. While the rest of him wanted to laugh at her face.
She had her eyes shut close, thus she couldn't see that Ashton was in front of her. However, the next moment, the owner of the market squatted down next to her and whispered something in her ear, she opened her eyes.
"Kar...ma..." The director mumbled in her weak voice while trying her best to smile, "One... day this... had to happen-"
Before she could carry on with her monologue, she began coughing blood. Her condition did not look good at all.
'What the hell could those bastards have possibly done to her?' He thought while the owner gave the director some water, 'She is supposed to be a strong woman. Possibly the strongest female in the kingdom and yet they reduced her to such a pitiful state?'
Ashton's mind was racing like never before. At first, he thought she could be lying to him, but that wasn't the case. The wounds scattered across her body were proof of that.
"Auntie, don't strain yourself." The owner advised, "I can tell him everything if you want me to."
The director nodded, then looked at Ashton with tearful eyes. It looked like she wanted to say something else, but choked on her blood again... before being taken away.
"What the hell happened to her?" Ashton asked the lady, "In her condition, isn't it better if you place her in a hospital or somewhere similar?"
"The treatment she is receiving here is better than those places." The woman sighed heavily, "Then there's the threat of her being killed... considering all that, it's better for her to stay here. By the way, apologies for the late introduction, I'm Calista Vonderheide. Owner of the so-called black market and Aunt Bianca's adoptive niece."
"Adoptive you say..." Ashton smirked, "I would introduce myself too, but I assume you already know about me."
After a moment of awkward silence between the pair, Callista broke the silence.
"I am aware that you have a lot of questions that you want to ask my aunt, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait till she gets a bit better. I don't want to subject her to unnecessary stress at the moment, given her fragile state. But I do have some information your benefactor would be interested in."
"You mean the king?" Ashton asked her to which Callista nodded, "I thought... whatever, go ahead."
The things Ashton heard afterwards were quite... entertaining. Callista was telling everything from the director's perspective back when the conundrum had captured her.
Although, during the tale, there were a few things that didn't make sense. Ashton allowed Callista to tell all that she had to, before interrupting her with the questions.
"How did you rescue the director in the first place? I thought you said no one was aware of her whereabouts?"
"We didn't. She found us." Camilla confidently replied, "She escaped on the day the members were taken into custody by the king. She was there, stuck in a hidden room where they tortured her to get crucial information about anyone and anything they could find. Especially you."
She continued, "For some reason, the members were adamant about killing you so their plan could proceed to the 'next phase'."
Ashton nodded along. After watching how Mike lost his shit during the trial, he knew why the conundrum desperately wanted him dead.
They wanted him dead because they knew he could kill them easily. But Ashton had his suspicion that their idea of him killing them was much different than his idea.
Judging from how hysterical Mike had become during the last few moments of the trial, he did not see Ashton as a simple killing machine. But as a weapon of mass destruction. One that could wipe out entire cities of not kingdoms. As absurd as the idea sounded.
'Let's focus on the problem at the hand for now.' Ashton shook his head and carried on with the conversation, "By the next phase you mean overthrowing the king?"
"Indeed. The conundrum had been colluding with the rulers of Vania for a long time. At least that's what Aunt Bianca could gather from the broken conversations she overheard."
She continued, "They plan to cause a conflict then under the guise of aiding Lycania, they would betray the king, get rid of him and then sign a treaty with Vania to seize any and all violence against each other."
"A conflict? What could they possibly do to instigate two kingdoms into warfare?"
"It would take a lot less than you think for a war to break out. Despite having peaceful relationships between the kingdoms, the werewolves and the vampires had always been at odds and always will be."
The look on Callista's face turned serious before talking further, "It wouldn't be wrong for me to say, the power balance between the nations has been quite delicate. Even the slightest nudge on either side could change everything. For better or worse."
"You still didn't answer my question." Ashton was getting a bit agitated, "How will they cause this imbalance that you're talking about?"
"That's the problem. We don't know what they are planning to do. My mercenaries are great when it comes to facing my enemies head-on, but they aren't of much use when it comes to spying."
"Let me guess, you want me to tell all this to his highness so that he could investigate things on his end. Is that it?"
Callista nodded with a charming, yet enigmatic smile, "You catch on quickly."
"But why are you telling me all this when you could have informed him all this by yourself, couldn't you?"
,m Ashton was taking things cautiously. He couldn't afford to make a hasty decision, especially when it came to Jonathan. No one ever knew when would that psycho decide to kill someone for breakfast.
"Simply because he would trust your words more than any of us," Callista replied with a smile while giving Ashton an uncensored view of the valley of love formed by her chest, "If you did, I would generously reward you."
"No thanks. I'm not interested in older women." Ashton scoffed, "But I will inform his highness about what you told me. What he does with that information, is something he would decide himself."