Chapter two

You're late!' Kaitana gave him a stern, disapproving look as he carelessly dumped his bag in the back seat of car, after which he fixed his seat belt while pretending not to notice her annoyances. Kilian chuckled under his breath, musing at the fact that his flaming red haired partner is always in a mood. Today she's wearing the look of an accomplished Archietect and realtor, dressed in an olive green silk shirt, a creamed coloured, well tailored, high waist office pants and heels to match, her choice of cloth and carriage screams "successful" and confident to every eyes that saw her, interestingly, those are her exact trait and personality. Yet, Kilian knows just as well as she does that behind the facade of her professional life, there was a ruthless, relentless, overachieving and unwavering phonex that rose from her own ashes to create the world she wanted, the world she had always dreamt off all through her tough childhood. Just like him, Kaitan has had to make plenty sacrifices to be who she now is.

He watched as Kaitana well manicured fingers, painted blood red which is are favourite colour, were tapping rapidly on the staring while she spoke to him, a sign that showed she was barely containing her irritation for his tardiness

'I would have asked if it is your time of the month, but then I remember, you're a bitch hundred percent of times!' Her eyes glossed over with something akin to annoyance, she huffed indigently but said nothing more to pursue his obvious rudeness, fifteen years of friendship had taught her to become use to his brazen way of communication, so she let the insult she ordinarily won't take from anyone else, slide, instead she dug out a brown Manila envelope from the top of her dashboard and handed it to him with a knowing look.

'I found our man!' Kilian stilled at her announcement, allowing the shock he felt wash over him 'turns out he has been right under our nose all these while'

' Alvaro?' He asked for confirmation, staring at her in awe and disbelieve of her meticulousness. She found Alvaro! After all these years.

'The one and only' she replies, finally letting a genuine smile grace her nude coated lips. 'In that envelope is every detail you need to know about him, but I must warn you Kil, you're in for the biggest shock of your life' she adds with a sudden grave look that explains to him that there might be more shock to come.

Kilian stared at the envelope as different thoughts and questions raced through his brain, his usually steady heartbeat had taken to a fast thud in anticipation and utter surprise, but who could blame him? In the simple, harmless looking envelope lies the answer to the question that has tormented him for seventeen good years! The finally piece in the puzzle he had become so obsessed with completing ever since he watched "them" gun his father down like a dog, before his very own eyes and he was forced to watch him bleed until every ounce of life in his big body was drained off.

'But how?' He was compelled to ask after he regained his composure 'How where you able to find him? If it were anyone else, he would have doubted the authenticity of the information brought to him, but it's kaitana, asides the fact that she has the resources to pull such an impossible task off at, her disposal, she also never tells a word of lie, especially not to him, then add the fact that when she puts her mind to something, be rest assured she won't leave any stone unturned until she has achieved her aim. He never wanted her to get involved in the Alvaro business but after seeing all his failed attempts, she stepped in despite his disapproval and swore she'd deliver Alvaro to him before the end of the year, barely four months into the year, she's back to him with the glad tiding he least expected.

Alvaro is a man of the means, which is why he has been able to keep his real identity a top secret, just like Kilian himself. He's one of the few "straight" men who has been oppurtuned to get the full glimpse and access to the running of the underworld, yet! Despite his neutrality, Alvaro remains one of the deadliest men on earth with, a mamount army of underworld soldiers doing is every bidding like puppets at a show, killing off his adversaries like flies. Kilian first heard of him when he was ten, he can't tell exactly how or in what circumstance the name and reputation behind it became known to him, but the incident that made the cruelty of the name permanently etched in his brain happend seventeen years ago, when the masked man who ended his father said ; 'Alvaro wants you to send his regards to Lucifer when you get to hell" before he pulled the trigger and released the last bullet that pierced through his old man's heart while his heavily pregnant, terrified mother and him watched in horror... All they could do was scream up to the high heavens, wishing it will somehow prevent the disaster that occurred that fateful night.

Alvaro undoubtedly order the hit on his father, for what reason? Kilian still cannot tell, and it hardly even matters to him any more, As he grew older and stronger from that timid little boy he used to be before life dealt him the heavy blow, all he could live for was getting revenge. Revenge became his only goal in life, the reason why he joined the underworld and ruthlessly rose through the rank despite knowing his late father, who used to be just like the present him, would never have wanted that kind of life for him, his desire for revenge was the fuel that kept him going through every distasteful task and difficult step of growth to building his place in the underworld, the reason why he couldn't give up or get killed in action by his many foes... Until he became invincible, unapprehendable and on par with Alvaro.

In the past six years, Kilian has achieved all of his biggest goal as expected of any of the lords of the underworld, but his biggest dream became too elusive for him to achieve to his dismay, he had put all of his resources and weight into unveiling the face behind the dreaded name and figure, Alvaro, the man who is not a sworn brother of the Underworld but still manage to invoke fear in the heart of all and sundry, the man whom even some of the most seasoned underworld bosses were terrified off, but not him. Unfortunately all his efforts has yielded nothing positive, his best men have been working tirelessly without break, scourging and scouting the globe for every bit of information they can get on him, but they always come back with absolutely nothing on the man behind the mask of Alvaro... Until now, Kaitana turned up and once again, showing how indispensable she truly is, proving to him once more that although she may not be living his kind of life again, she still got her games.

'Do I have too divulge that information to you?' He wasn't surprised she isn't willing to share, Kaitana is very secretive in nature.

'I would have let any other thing slide, but not this one. Tell he Tana, how did you get your hands on all these' He insisted in all seriousness, unwilling to back down. Kaitana was quiet for a long while, mulling over how best to escape his enquiry.

'You know me Kil! When I want something, I always have it, so let's leave it at that!'

'No tana! That doesn't work with men like Alvaro. You need to tell me how you got your hands on this, how you found Alvaro all by yourself?' He asked more forcefully, gripping her upper arm tightly for a reply. A part of his black, uncaring stone heart was worried that she might be in eminent danger from her recent discovery, how else would she have gotten her hands on such information without doing something dangerous? The thought of whatever it is she must have done made his stomach churn with nausea and fear, the phenomenons he's not accustomed to.

For most of his life, kilian had always been surrounded by death and lost, his father was killed when he was just a child of ten, then his mother abandoned him and his newly born little brother in a dilapidated foster home and took off for good, without a single backward glance, rumor said she went with another man, then there was klaus, Kaitana's twin brother and Irene, his childhood sweetheart and lover, the only woman asides Kaitana who knows his true form and somehow got his stone cold heart to beat with unrequnited love, her death untimely death was caused as a result of her associated with him, she would still be alive today is she hasn't gotten into that bomb rigged car that was meant to kill him, he mourned her death for years and everyone involved paid with their lives in the most gruesome way, an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth. As for Klaus, he had willingly sacrificed his life to protect both him and Kaitana, he didn't even give them a chance to refuse his choice until it became too late, he chose to die instead of betraying Kilian to one of the underworld Lords, his last words to killian had been a strict admonision for him to always look after his sister and protect her from harm. Kilian had promised and it's one he intended to keep to the latter