Emperor of Mayhem

t h i r t y - o n e

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It was again, a lazy Saturday-just like all the past lazy ones I'd had to survive ever since I became the unfortunate captive or should I say, darkest desire of a tyrant king of the underground.

I had read all the books I was able to snatch along with me from home for more than twenty times and I wasn't sure my brain could take rereading them. I needed to renovate the little shelf I had at the corner of his study by buying new books. But sadly, I wasn't exactly financially buoyant to do that.

At a desperate point, I thought of asking him for money, I mean I felt he should be willing to at least do this much for me. But whenever I would want to ask him, I would suddenly remember mom's strict, very personal warning to not rely on any man for trivial things. She made me swear to not resort to asking unless the issue was critical and couldn't be avoided by taking another route.

I was never exactly able to tell if asking Mikhail for money for books was a perfect example of me depending on a man or if it could be seen as just a helpless, poor girl needing a means to stay alive because she had hit her very rock bottom.

Since I hadn't made up my mind and I was still contemplating, I decided to go through a copy of one of my favourite books of all time again, Archer's Voice. Out of all the rest stacked up on the shelf, I could read this piece a hundred times and I wouldn't get tired of fawning over the male character due to the stomach fluttering things he would always say or do. There was a reason he was still my number one book boyfriend.

"What's this madness about, though?" A deep, almost irritated voice intruded the fangirl moment I was having by rolling on the floor, kicking my feet and giggling like I was high on sugar.

I peeled the book away from my face, needing to reply to him even though whatever I was doing wasn't his business to begin with.

"Bree doesn't like thunderstorms so it was raining and Archer walked in the rain to her, hehehe." I continued to giggle.

Even saying it out loud got my heart dancing with glee, my face crumbling and tears almost pouring out in awe.

Mikhail stared impassively at me for a couple seconds after what I said, an unreadable expression in his eyes before he shook his head in an act of helplessness, turning his attention back to the large television screen displaying the security footage.

There had been some sort of uneasiness from his stance since this afternoon and I didn't know why. He told me at one point not to leave his sight without his knowledge and that there was a rat in his house. Ever since then, he had been pacing back and forth in front of the CCTV footage, looking for God knows what and making one call or the other, barking out orders.

I didn't even bother wanting to understand how he intended on using a security camera to catch a rat nor why he couldn't just get a rat trap. I just decided to distract myself by doing what I loved to do most; bury my nose between the pages of a good book.

Now it was already 7 PM and he didn't seem to have found the rat. Frustration had twisted his handsome face into a permanent scowl. And I had a feeling this poor man would be in front of that screen for another two hours because I was sure there was no way in hell he was going to find a rat detected by the CCTV footage.

"There are sudden blindspots from some footage from the cameras outside. May I know why it's like that and why has no one bothered to fix it?!"

I looked over the page of my book, my head slightly raised from the floor to see him with a cell phone pressed against his ear, fingers locked into his curls, almost uprooting the poor hair. I dearly hoped he realised that the mass of shiny black locks on his head was a great contribution to his beauty and that if that hair was gone, there would be a great problem concerning his outward appearance.