Just as he was about to barge through the back door into the house, he heard a noise from somewhere behind him. Someone was running through the maze in the garden.
“Over there!” Edwin shouted. The men followed him immediately.
He ran like a madman, having no idea where he was running. He was simply following the sound. It didn’t even occur to him that it might be a squirrel or some other irrelevant animal taking his focus away from the house. Something assured him he was on the right track. Some inner feeling told him not to go back, not to wait for anyone, but to keep going. So, he did.
He fought his way through the maze, turning left, then right, listening to the sound which was becoming louder and louder, until finally, he saw someone’s back.
“Stop!” he shouted, gripping the pistol in his own hand. This time, he would not be frightened into backing down.
The figure instantly stopped. It raised its arms into the air above its head. It was also holding a pistol.
“Turn around!” Edwin ordered. The figure did as it was instructed.
It was the Viscount. Edwin had no idea why he was running through the maze. Perhaps there was an exit on the other side, and he needed to run away before they entered his house and found him there. This time, fortune had truly favored them.
“Drop your pistol!” Edwin ordered.
“Or what?” the Viscount hissed back, unwilling to obey.
“Or I will not be as kind as you were when you left me last time,” Edwin warned.
At that moment, his men came running. It was obvious that the Viscount was outnumbered. He could take out one, perhaps even two or three men, but not all of them.
“The game is over,” Edwin pointed out. The gun in his hand was unnecessary at this point, but he still held onto it, just in case.
“The game is over when I say it is over,” the Viscount corrected him.
“You have no more control over anything,” Edwin told him. “You’d best admit to everything, and the constables might be lenient with you. But if you make me angry, I will not be held responsible for my actions.” Edwin meant every word of it, and obviously, the Viscount knew it. He dropped the gun to the ground, not taking his eyes off of Edwin.
“I am not really Daniel Pearson,” the Viscount revealed, much to Edwin’s shock. “My real name is Nathan Anderson.”
“Who the heck is Nathan Anderson?” someone from the group inquired, and Edwin had to admit that he was asking himself the same question.
The man’s cold blue eyes seared through Edwin, but he endured the look. Then, the man continued. “Daniel Pearson is my cousin. You see, Daniel also comes from a commoner family, but his mother married a Viscount. Thus, they climbed the social ladder, leaving the rest of us far behind in the gutter, pretending to be so much better than us.” There was obvious derision in his voice. “They never even tried to help us get out of poverty. We almost didn’t exist to them any longer. That was when I realized that the people of thetondidn’t deserve the happy, rich lives they got to live. What had they done to truly be deserving of it? Nothing!”
“That is not up to you to decide,” Edwin reminded him.
“Why not?” the man glared at him viciously. He was obviously not sorry for a single thing he had done. “Someone needed to teach them a lesson. Why couldn’t that someone be me?”
Edwin didn’t know what to say to that. The man saw it as an excuse to continue his story.
“So, I decided one day to abduct my cousin while he was traveling abroad. It was so easy. Too easy, almost. My next decision was to take revenge on thetonby targeting what they cherished the most: their insecure, youngest daughters. They were an even more rewarding prey. They ate every single word I gave them, ate it up like the good obedient daughters that they were without questioning a single thing I told them just because I showered them with what they needed the most. Attention.”
“The girls?” Edwin demanded, his voice akin to a growl. “Are they alive?”
“Who do you take me for?” The man frowned in disgust. “Of course, they are alive. But for how long, I cannot claim to know.”
“Tell me where they are,” Edwin ordered, feeling his fingers squeeze around the handle of the pistol.
“I shall do no such thing,” the man almost laughed in his face at his pain.
Edwin could not take it any longer. He threw the gun to the ground then grabbed the man by the collar, pushed him down, knelt on his chest, and started to choke him.
“You have three seconds to tell me where they are, or I swear to God, I will strangle you with my bare hands, and no one will consider me guilty of what I had done because you are nothing, and you will never be anything more than nothing… One…” he started counting. “Two…”
“The… base… ment…” the man started to gargle the words, mixing them with the air he was trying to draw into himself but wasn’t allowed to.
When Edwin finally released the man from his grip, he could feel his own fingers stiffening under the strain. His entire body was trembling. His mind still hadn’t had enough time to process what he just heard.