Chapter 168: Your Name Is Hector Perex
The old man paused, his grip tightening slightly on the silver handle of his cane. He had spent his entire life surrounded by people who begged for his attention, who spun elaborate, desperate webs of words just to secure a fraction of his wealth or validation.
To be met with such clinical indifference from a street vendor in the deep sectors of the black market was... unexpected.
A faint, dry chuckle rattled in his throat.
"Arrogant," he muttered, though the sharp skepticism in his eyes softened into a sliver of genuine curiosity.
He dragged the heavy wooden chair back, the legs scraping against the stone floor, and settled his frail body into the seat across from her.
He placed both hands on the head of his cane, leaning his chin forward. "Very well. Let us see if that arrogance has legs to stand on. What do your eyes see, girl?"
April stared at him. He was just like Robert Greels. The elderly with a sense of earnestness in their eyes—She had a soft spot for them for reasons she still didn’t know, but she would not let it affect her business.
April slowly raised her hands, resting her fingers lightly on the smooth, cold surface of the crystalline orb.
[Target Lifeline Profile: Hector Perez]
[Immediate Timeline Breakdown]:
Hour 48 (Thursday): Spousal Demise. Justina Perez will pass peacefully from natural organ failure due to advanced age. Target has mentally accepted this outcome and finalized a hidden suicide pact to follow her within the month.
Hour 72 (Friday): Execution of Mistake. Target intends to finalize a 10-million-dollar contract with lower-sector mercenaries to assassinate his eldest nephew, believing the nephew is a hostile threat to his children and grandchildren’s inheritance.
Hour 120 (Saturday): Definite Demise of Target. Target will be poisoned via his daily cardiac medication.
[Critical Fatal Variable]: The mercenary contract is an engineered diversion. The true threat vector is the Second Son, who holds Power of Attorney signed 90 days prior. The Second Son has already pre-filed asset liquidation scripts and scheduled the target’s fatal poisoning to clear the estate before the nephew can legally contest the will. If the current path continues, grandchildren will be left entirely destitute on the street by Sunday morning.
Hector sat frozen cross from her, his breath caught sharply in his throat, and his weathered hands slightly trembling against the silver handle of his cane that the metal clicked against the stone floor.
"So, your name is Hector Perez, and you have an ailing old wife." she said and he froze.
He hadn’t uttered a single syllable about his identity and yet this woman staring right at him seemed to have somehow guessed it.
"But you did not come to the black market tonight to look for a cure," April continued, her flat voice striking the damp air with chilling precision. "...because you already know you cannot cure what age has taken. Your wife, Justina. You know no medicine can reverse the clock of time, and you have already prepared your heart to follow her into the dirt shortly after she leaves and I predict that date is Thursday."
"You..." Hector’s voice was a ragged, horrified whisper. The color completely drained from his face, leaving him looking like a ghost in the torchlight. "How do you know her name? Who gave you these details? And what do you mean you predict she’ll be gone on Thursday? The doctors said she could at least hold up to Sunday."
He had spent weeks in solitary torment, sitting by his wife’s bedside in the dead of night, quietly preparing for his own quiet departure once she closed her eyes.
The doctors had told him she had until Sunday but he hadn’t written it down. He hadn’t whispered the date of her demise or his plans to follow after her to a priest. It was a secret locked behind his ribs, yet she had parsed it in a single breath.
And she said his wife would die earlier than what the doctors predicted? How could she...?
April didn’t break her rhythm to answer his panic. Her eyes simply tracked the next scrolling line of the system’s threat evaluation.
"You came here tonight to write a bloody script before you go," April continued, her clinical gaze locking onto his pale face through the narrow slits of her masquerade mask. "You want to buy a high-tier mercenary contract to eliminate your eldest nephew, believing he is the parasite waiting to strip your children and grandchildren of their properties the moment you die."
Hector took a sharp, unsteady step back, the legs of his wooden chair scraping loudly against the floor. A cold sweat broke out along his wrinkled brow. The sheer, terrifying accuracy of her diagnosis hit him like a physical blow to the sternum.
He had deemed his nephew a greedy threat, and he had been actively looking for a clean, untraceable hitman to clear the path before his own clock ran out. It was all for his children. But hearing his plans being recited to him just felt... Wrong. Off... There was definitely someone behind it, he thought.
"Who sent you?" Hector demanded, his eyes darting frantically toward the shadows of the alleyway, wondering if he had walked straight into a trap set by his own blood. "Is my nephew paying you to play mind games with me?"
"You are looking in the wrong direction," April interrupted flatly, her fingers leaving the smooth surface of the orb as the system window quietly dissolved back into her consciousness.
She leaned back in her chair, the sudden movement oozing a cold, absolute certainty.
"Your nephew is not the one holding the pen. He is a distraction. If you proceed with the hit, your second son will finalize the transfer of your offshore bonds and properties using the power of attorney you granted him three months ago. You will be dead by Saturday, Old man Hector, and it won’t be your broken heart that caused it."
The old man was completely paralyzed, the air leaving his lungs in a ragged wheeze. His second son. The quiet, dutiful child he had trusted implicitly—the one he had handed his legal authority to ninety days ago out of sheer exhaustion from managing his ailing wife. He thought he was better than the eldest son who was overly ambitious but he... he had been the one working in the shadows?
The pieces of the puzzle slammed together in his mind with a brutal, sickening clarity. The strange questions his son had been asking about the offshore accounts, the sudden rush to have the paperwork signed... it hadn’t been out of filial piety at all.
"My... my son?" Hector choked out, his knees buckling slightly before he heavily collapsed into the wooden chair opposite her.
The fat skepticism that had lined his features just minutes ago was completely shattered, replaced by a hollow, profound terror.