The next morning, Kyro told Iris to pack up after breakfast, and she looked at him in surprise. Were they traveling somewhere else again? This soon?
"We're going to a safer place. It needed to be cleaned yesterday, but it's ready now."
"Safer place?" Iris asked while folding the last of her clothes and putting it into a plastic bag.
Kyro nodded. "Gregor had a key to this apartment, which should have been impossible. Someone from the staff must have been bought, and I don't want to stay here until they're weeded out."
Yet they still stayed one night. It was a scary thought, thinking that someone might have entered as they wished during the night, but Iris quickly subdued such images raising in her head. Nothing had happened. Both of them were fine.
Her mind then latched onto another thing. "Gregor? You know him?"
"He was in the same class in college. Haven't seen him afterwards."
That sounded reasonable, so Iris let it go and they left the apartment. Kyro held onto two suitcases with his own stuff, while she carried a couple plastic bags. It had never entered her mind when shopping that she might need to move and carry her stuff in something.
During the journey, Iris watched the passing streets, not wishing to play the old 'are we there yet' game. And from experience, she knew that Kyro wasn't going to give her a straight answer if she asked where they were moving.
In an hour's time, they reached an area warded by a two-three meter tall wall with spikes at the top. Blocking the road was a dark gray metal gate. It wasn't pretty, but looked sturdy and able to resist even the impact of a truck.
Kyro stepped out of the car to talk with the guards, then the gates opened and they passed through. Inside the closed off area, there were dozens of houses. Most of them were small, with a little garden around them, but all looked fancy and recently built.
They stopped before one bungalow, and Iris looked at Kyro with a questioning gaze. He nodded. "We'll stay here for the time being, until I learn how Gregor got into my place."
A thought suddenly struck Iris. "Can he escape punishment? Be bailed out somehow?" From what she knew, everyone in Kyro's circles were filthy rich, and money did rule the world.
"He can dream," Kyro said, his voice going low and eyes flashing with a dangerous light.
The expression worried Iris for a moment, but then she remembered Lucy. Like a cold gust of wind, it froze her pity and compassion. That guy had hurt Lucy, so he deserved whatever came his way.
Upon deciding that, Iris turned to the light blue house. There was a waist length hedge around it, with a black gate that Kyro went to open. Behind it Iris could see a space to park one car, but no garage.
Once they stepped out of the car, her eyes were attracted by the well-taken care of lawn. It seemed to be just mowed, the grass as short as it could get. To the left, near one of the windows, a bunch Hydrangea bushes flowered, their blooms the white of first snow.
Noticing her looking around, Kyro said, "There's a housekeeper that takes care of this place. My parents lived here before moving out a few years ago."
"So you grew up here?" she asked with surprise.
"You could say that. But I often stayed at private schools, so I didn't spend as much time here as you might think."
Inside the bungalow, there was a giant living room that was the size of two rooms and an open kitchen at the end. Almost all the walls were wall-length windows, some of which could be opened to go outside, but most were covered by curtains.
Everything was in shades of blue and yellow, creating a light and cheerful atmosphere. The little sun that passed through roof windows only added to that effect with its golden-colored light.
"It's beautiful," Iris said, smiling. The place wasn't large, but it seemed to have a good character.
"Glad you like it."
Kyro then pointed her to a bedroom, which was to the right of the kitchen. It was really small, with only a double-bed and a wardrobe by the feet. Besides that, there was only space to walk around.
"What about your room?"
Without answering, he led her to the next room down a mini corridor. To the right was a decent-sized bathroom, with a shower and two sinks with small shelves above them.
Next, on the left, came another room. To Iris's surprise, it was even smaller than the bedroom she saw before. In front of a window stood a dark brown desk and a simple chair, while the bed was on a loft above it.
Although calling it a bed was giving it too much credit. It was just a futon placed over a wooden section, which left only half a meter to the ceiling. A sense of claustrophobia assailed Iris just thinking about crawling up there to sleep.
"That was your bed?" she asked in disbelief, turning to Kyro.
He smiled ruefully. "Yeah, for some ten years or so. Although I changed to a private school around high school time, so I stayed here only for summers and some holidays."
"Still…"
This revelation left Iris a bit dumbstruck. She had thought he'd always been rich, maybe as he was now, but not too bad. But this didn't seem like a place to stay for a high class people. It wasn't bad, and everything looked well-made, but she couldn't imagine anyone who had money living in this kind of limited space for an extended period of time.
"This neighborhood hasn't seen a crime in forever, since everyone knows everyone here, so don't worry about anything. The worst thing you'll face here will be nosy neighbors."
"No—"
Before Iris could even finish her thought, there was a ring of a doorbell. Kyro gave her a look and sighed. "This level of nosy. Even coming early in the morning doesn't help to avoid them. Come, let's introduce ourselves and get it over with."
With her mind blank, Iris followed after him. Introduce themselves? Meet neighbors? Wasn't this moving a bit too fast? Why did it suddenly feel like they were a recently married couple that bought a new house to start their life together…
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