Chapter 21

After Bo Li left, Eric read for a while longer.
Then he heard voices in the corridor.
Tricky Terry and Boyd.
They were standing by the stairwell, certain no one else could hear them.
Unfortunately, Eric’s hearing had never been normal. His pitch sense was terrifying.
In a tangle of orchestral sound, he could pick out which musician had made a mistake, in which bar, on which page, in which phrase. He could even hear exactly how hard a pianist had struck each key.
To him, Tricky and Boyd’s muttering was as loud as shouting in an empty square.
“You sure she’ll come?” Boyd’s voice was low, edged with anxiety.
“Of course,” Tricky said. “What girl would willingly stay by that freak’s side?”
“What does he look like, really?”
“Can’t exactly say he’s ugly,” Tricky replied. “Half of his face is perfectly fine. But once you see the other half, I doubt you’ll say that.”
“What if she doesn’t read our letters? What if she just throws all three away?”
Boyd’s voice dropped. “You’ve no idea how guarded she is. I’ve been seeing her for days—walking, theaters, songs. Any other girl, I’d have had her by now. But her? She won’t even let me hold her hand.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot,” Tricky said, impatient. “Too hung up on playing the gentleman. If you’d just hardened your heart and taken what you wanted, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Boyd fell silent.
“So. Are you in or not?” Tricky pressed. “If it works, the girl and the wallet are yours. Eric is mine—”
“Think this through. That’s Dawes’s wallet. The kid’s nastier than I am, practically a bandit. To get that money, he’s killed more than a few freaks… You saw how stuffed that wallet was.”
After several long seconds, Boyd made up his mind and gritted out, “Fine.”
“You send her to the house on Garden Villa,” Tricky said. “And remember—we’re not Dawes. We’re not common thugs. If we can handle this quietly, we don’t use blades or guns.”
“I’m just afraid—”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Tricky said calmly. “You may have lost some fingers, but you’re still a handsome young man. Women like handsome men.”
Boyd hesitated. “You’ve never spent time with her… She doesn’t seem interested in my looks…”
“God above,” Tricky snapped. “Where’s your confidence? Let me put it this way: unless she’s blind, she’s not choosing Eric.”
At that, Boyd stopped wavering and agreed.
They flagged down a hotel waiter, slipped him some money, and asked him to deliver three letters—one with lunch, two with dinner.
The waiter agreed quickly, promising to see it done.
Once everything was arranged, Tricky and Boyd left.
The corridor fell silent again, leaving only the sound of a cleaner’s cart rolling over the carpet.
Eric stared at the book in his hands, thoughts unreadable.
It was something he’d pulled from the room’s shelf at random—only because she’d said she could “keep you company.”
No one had ever said that to him before. Curiosity had kept him there.
The book itself was dull—a mediocre novel. The hero and heroine meet, fall in love, drawn together like magnets, tasting each other’s lips and tongues, drinking each other’s saliva.
Halfway through, they suddenly begin to doubt. *Do you only love my face? Do you only love my wealth?*
Eric closed the book, expression unchanged, and put it back.
Unlike other men, he felt nothing from explicit scenes. No fantasies. No “relief.”
He treated desire the way he treated everything else—coldly and ruthlessly. He would watch his own untimely impulses with a detached, cutting gaze until they withered away.
Likewise, the love in the book did nothing for him.
He would never love anyone. No one would ever love him.
From the moment he was born, he’d been marked for hatred, exile, and pursuit.
He had never seen himself as human. Why would he feel anything for them—or owe them anything? 1
The next second, the words on the page seemed to rise into the air, like dark, blurry phantoms:
*Do you only love my face?*
*Do you only love my wealth?*
Did he have wealth?
Yes. He was a master assassin, able to take lives without a trace.
After he left Persia, Hamid II himself had written to invite him to Constantinople, to build hidden doors, secret rooms, and safes for the Ottoman Empire. 2
The rich knew how to make money. He knew how to strip it from them, shaving off fat and carving meat.
Reputation and fortune were nothing to him. Both were always within reach, endless.
What he truly lacked was—
*Do you only love my face?*
Eric hesitated, then took the book from the shelf again and tossed it into the fireplace.
The flames hissed, devouring the pale, fragile pages.
But those lines—their self‑pitying questioning—had already slipped free and now stood in front of him.
Wrapped in flame, those words, those lines, slowly turned dark red, as if soaked in blood—harsh and glaring.
*Do you only love my face?*
*Do you only love my wealth?*
Now they had become questions for him.
Once the book had burned completely to ash, Eric left Bo Li’s room.
Bo Li had been waiting for him to show up so she could hand him the three letters herself.
It was the perfect chance to raise his favorability. She had no intention of wasting it.
But for some reason, Eric vanished again—as if into thin air.
Her heart thudded faster. Was he going to disappear for days again?
Saturday was almost here.
Her original plan had been to give Eric the letters, complain at length about how vile Tricky and Boyd were.
Then she would go to the so-called mediums’ gathering, and once Tricky and Boyd revealed themselves, she’d nudge Eric into robbing them.
Most importantly, who knew how many “freaks” were trapped in Tricky’s lair, waiting to be turned into specimens?
If she could free them, she’d prove she didn’t judge by appearance *and* save herself the cost of hiring freak performers.
Three birds with one stone.
The only problem was—the “stone” was gone.
Bo Li was a little sulky.
She should never have pinned all her hopes on someone else.
Eric was too hard to predict. She needed a backup plan.
She changed back into men’s clothes and went out to buy a revolver.
She’d assumed she’d have to show ID to buy a gun. Instead, the gunsmith only wanted money. Nothing else.
He laid out a row of pistols on the counter. “All of these are good stock. You can see the markings on the underside. If you pay in full, no credit, I’ll even cut rifling for you. You’ll hit what you aim at.”
“If you’re short on cash,” he added, nodding toward a glass case, “those are pawned guns. Work as good as new.”
Bo Li didn’t know much about firearms—only that small calibers kicked less and were easier to control.
She picked a Colt revolver and tried to handle it like someone who knew what they were doing—pulling the hammer to half‑cock, spinning the cylinder, then snapping the hammer back down with a click.
She’d never fired a real gun, but she’d picked up a little from acting gigs.
And plenty of games featured revolvers. She was familiar enough not to be completely in the dark.
That didn’t make guns easy to use—especially handguns. Past fifty meters, unless you were a sharpshooter, you’d struggle to hit anything.
Rifles and snipers were worse, requiring you to calculate wind, gravity, and bullet drop.
Bo Li regretted not signing up for a shooting course back in Los Angeles.
Still, a gun was better than no gun.
If Boyd threatened her life, she’d press the muzzle to his body. At that distance, she couldn’t miss.
Days passed. Eric did not appear.
Bo Li tried everything she could think of—calling his name, knocking on the walls, scribbling notes on the desk in her room in case he saw them.
But it was as if he’d evaporated.
Nothing. No answer.
Before, even when he vanished, she’d still felt watched.
Like he hadn’t really gone—just melted into the shadows, observing her every move.
Now even that feeling was gone.
Bo Li’s heart sank completely.
The biggest threat in her life had disappeared. She should be happy.
Why wasn’t she?
Was it because other dangers were looming?
That was the only explanation.
Either that, or she’d gone mad—becoming addicted to the sensation of cold steel at her throat.
To most people, Bo Li was unremarkable. Her greatest “feature” was winning the genetic lottery—her looks a perfect blend of her parents’ best traits.
Beyond that, she was a little “dull”—not fond of socializing or outdoor sports, preferring to sink into books, games, and scripts.
She liked the details in stories more than the details of real life. Liked the scenery in games more than the scenery outside. Liked plot in scripts more than the random chaos of reality.
She’d always thought she’d only ever feel *this* alive—this heightened—inside novels, games, and plays.
Until Eric appeared.
His mind wasn’t rooted in reality. His past wasn’t rooted in reality.
His very existence had nothing to do with reality at all.