Under The Veil of Night

Kanae smiled wryly. Knowing Mike, he must have done it to not hurt this girl feeling. After all, they knew each other after talking for some time and occasionally met. Besides, it was just a simple dance that wouldn’t hurt anyone.

"I’ll surely miss you two," Kanae smiled. "It’s just one month, but it might feel longer if I continue thinking about it."

Alice nodded her head. "I’ll surely miss you two, Kanae and Misae."

"The one that I miss the most will be your cookie, Alice. I won’t miss Kanae for her cooking as it’s already good enough that you make the mess salvable before," Misae frowned when she remembered that. She didn’t want to have her kitchen in a mess again.

"Alright, see you two next year."

"Happy Early New Year," Kanae joked.

The three of them laughed before they were going their separate ways. Today Kanae didn’t have any work because Kevin allowed her to go home. Because of that, she quickly went home and rested. The past few days of working to make sure the event went smoothly were quite tiring.

When it was morning, Kanae woke up early as usual. She felt her body was freezing as she looked outside. It has started to snow. Although the time for snow in this place was not that long, they were still rather cold for at least two months.

She still did her work as usual, but now she arrived at work from the morning. Kevin had told her that he would pay her double for the time being if she worked from the morning. Towards his generous offer, she would not hesitate to accept it.

She still spent the time in Kevin’s office as usual after her work and time passed swiftly with her daily routine. Except on Saturday, she didn’t come to his workplace. She also changed her jogging route in case she would stumble with him again and so far, she didn’t meet with her president anymore, so all was good for her.

This vacation should be filled with only her work and free time, but the call that night changed them all.

Bzzzt!

The vibrating sound was awfully familiar in her ear. Because she didn’t have any cell phone, the only device that could make the sound like this was her special phone that her group used. Those were modified specifically so only the members of her group could use it.

Her eyes landed on the small device near her bed. She picked it up and put it right in front of her mouth.

"You better speak fast for disturbing me during this time."

"Yikes, Captain, what makes you so emotional? Don’t you miss us after not meeting for months?"

Kanae frowned. "Tommy, what is it? We have been meeting in the school just before the vacation starts."

"You got me," Tommy scratched his head on the other end of the call. His playful tone immediately turned serious. "Since you’re already healed, there’s a job offer for us. I’m thinking about asking you first because you might not want our group name to ring on the street so fast."

Based on the previous estimation, the groups were reported to be unable to operate until the end of this year. At the quickest, it should be early next year, especially those among the strongest. If Fiore Group suddenly appeared, this might attract a lot of attention. After all, their leader was one of those who was wounded the heaviest during that time.

"Tell me what the content of the job is."

"Do you remember Souhon Clan and how much you say to me that they are a joke to play that card a month ago?"

The incident was not that long ago, so the memory was still fresh in Kanae’s mind. Besides, this brat Tommy had come to her specially to ask for permission to help his friend. After the crash that Tommy did, the Souhon Clan has gone quiet and the other clans seemed to accept it and acted as if nothing happened.

"Is there any problem with the Souhon Clan?"

"More or less, the Zone Clan seems to be dissatisfied with Souhon Clan’s conduct at that time, but they still behave themselves. Right now, the Souhon Clan’s elders are going away because their Clan leader’s sickness got worse. With only Jay and Roy as the leaders, they are being attacked recently."

"What about the elites?"

"They are away to protect the clan head."

’Are they stupid?’ Kanae truly thought that the clan head was incredibly stupid. Souhon Clan was the second biggest clan in this city and their territory spammed nearly a fifth of this entire city. Couldn’t they just deploy the men they had from all over the place?

However, she could guess that the clan head also wanted to see how his successor was going to do without him. This time, the problem no longer escalated to the street, but if they couldn’t handle Zone Clan, a clan far smaller than them without those older generation elites, the Souhon Clan would die sooner or later.

’This is what happens when one doesn’t have the powerful offspring.’

Kanae sighed. "The Souhon Clan really needs to reeducate their young members. What do they want from calling us?"

"They want us to guard them for the time being."

"Guard them? We don’t have enough people we can deploy at this time. Those two are surely busy and those second rate members are still trying to fix up their condition."

Fiore Group only has four core members, including Kanae. The rest of their members came from the people on the street that they found and trained to be their member. Even though they were good, they couldn’t be compared with the core members. Besides, those people would not be able to move right away when their leader hadn’t come at all lately.

Tommy also knew about that, but he got a phone call from Jay that noon. Jay didn’t have the contact number of Fiore Group since the group changed their number after the incident to avoid any task given to them. As the result, he was being called from the number he had in the school.

He almost had a heart attack when he heard the request. After that, he had to ask the people to clean up his phone because he was worried that someone eavesdrop their conversation.

"With you around, there’s no need for them, right?"

"You know that I can’t come and skip my work just for them, right?" Kanae asked in displeasure. She was trying to have a normal life on the day over here, and this person just asked her to work from day to night. She was fine going out at night to do the job, but all day was off limit to most cases.

"They’re willing to pay a lot," Tommy added.

Kanae rubbed her forehead. Even if she needed the money, she would not be that desperate to cling onto the belief that she had to accept all job offers.

"You just negotiate with them. If they agree to have you protect them while the others only come when it’s needed, then accept it. If they want a full time protection, ask them to hire professional bodyguards instead of us."

With that Kanae hanged up the call. She dropped her body to the bed with a sigh. To get out from Nali Family proudly, she still has to work hard and the word ’peace’ seemed to be unattainable.

On the other end of the line, Tommy nodded his head in satisfaction. He made his way into a rundown building and get into one of the rooms. It was a small place, consisted of only one bedroom, one living room that acted as a kitchen too, and one bathroom. Tommy didn’t bother coming into the bedroom as he headed straight to the living room. His hand was holding a plastic bag with some edible food inside.

"Mom, I’m going to leave your food here," Tommy said loudly, yet what greeted him was only the voice of some bed activities coming out from the room.

Not feeling disheartened, he picked up a paper and wrote down a note for his mother, saying that this was for her, and he wouldn’t be able to go home for the next few days. Not that his mother cared, but there was no harm telling her about this.

Finishing them all, Tommy walked out from the place and made a call to Jay.

"Hey buddy, we need to talk about the term. Can you spare some time to meet up?"