The Black Lily- chapter 4

A robbery

“Where have you been?”, said Malhaar furiously.

“I went for a sail”, I murmured.

“a sail? Now? Seriously- “

She cut herself off and started again.

“we’ve been robbed”, she simply said.

Only then did I register the scene behind her. I stood there not able to register what had happened. Ughhh! this was the second time in a week that I was seeing this kind of a scene. I could see papers flying out of windows and a loose curtain on the third floor that had tumbled out of the window. It was now hanging by the last thread on the grill of the second floor. I ran up to the island.

“where’s Asmi”, I asked her cautiously.

“she’s out”, said Malhaar shortly.

“MALHAAR!”, I said flaring up and making her look up in surprise.

“This is my island, my case, my choice. You can’t keep secrets from me.”

“Oh.”, she said confusedly “yeah, I’m sorry”.

“where’s Asmi?”, I asked forcefully.

“In Havelock. She went to review and go through the backgrounds and other info on people who work at your agency”.

“Why?”

“Because these people are working for you. It's just a routine background checkup.”

I nodded and was about to say something when Hana, who had been standing nearby, impatiently said, “Are we ever going in?”

“yeah “I said “now”.

The scene inside was not better than the one outside. Everything was ruined. The large chandelier (ok fine, it wasn’t large but still) had fallen on the ground and was now lying in pieces.

“Any idea what they took?”, I asked.

“A bunch of things from the files and your room”, said a voice behind me.

“Hello Rahul”, I said coolly.

“My pleasure”, he said with a smirk “I would now request you all to please turn around slowly.”

Hana glared at me. I gave her a look that said quite plainly that I had a plan. We allowed ourselves to be led till the stairwell. The second the door snapped shut, I began to struggle furiously. I threw back my head and knocked Rahul of balance. He staggered. Knowing I had only seconds, I unleashed a ferocious kick on Irlene, who was holding Hana, releasing her. She then raced to the wall, fumbled for a fraction of a second and threw me my knife. I caught it and whipped around to stab Rahul, drawing blood. But he caught my hand as I wheeled in for a second stab. We grappled furiously. In the briefest glance of the stairwell that I allowed myself, I gathered that Hana was pinned against the wall and Malhaar was trying not to get thrown over the rail. It all came down to me. I feinted weakness and then plunged the dagger into his stomach. Panting I turned to Irlene and yanked her off. Hana and me together brought down the third guy- Cristen. We ran out letting the door click close behind us.

After locking the doors on all three levels, we glanced at each other. This was a lot more trouble than it was worth.