{Few hours after discovering the body- 3rd Person P.O.V}
"Jay? I am back. Are you here?" A sweet voice rang out from the entrance of the house as the sound of the door being closed was heard.
A head popped out of the kitchen hearing the name.
"Hey. Get ready, I am making something special today." Jay announced to Reeve.
"Oh! Is it Truffle Chicken and potato gratin?" Reeve guessed what her fiancé might be cooking for her.
"Stop guessing and just get changed." After instructing her so, Jay went back into the kitchen to finish his cooking.
A few minutes later Reeve came into the kitchen changed from her work clothes.
"You won't believe what happened today, Jay?" Reeve started as she took a bottle of wine from the fridge.
"Since you tried to guess what I cooked for you, it's my turn to take a guess. One of the detectives finally got a clue on a criminal for a case?" Jay guessed as he gave the oven a quick check while Reeve sat on the tabletop.
Reeve shook her head as she took a sip from the glass. "Not really."
Raising his eyebrows, Jay turned towards her "Something that has got you more excited than capturing another criminal?"
Reeve smiled "His highness Prince John Emberson came into the office today." Reeve who was sharpening the knife to cut the cooked meat froze for a second before his actions resumed back to the norm.
"The prince? As in the hero?" Reeve double-checked.
"Yeah. At first, none of us noticed or recognised him, especially when he came up to me asking where the director's office was. But after 1-hour Mary was seen running around like her tail was on fire as she ordered everyone to tidy and look presentable. It was then we were informed that Prince John had entered the office 1 hour ago.
I hardly could believe her, when both me and Rick, the security worker, were called forward by Mary to question us about our treatment to his highness.
Luckily, Rick was smart enough to notice something was off about the group his highness came with and signalled me to answer their questions. If he hadn't I would have lost my job today." Reeve rambled on as Jay set the knives on the table as he went forward to open the oven while paying close attention to the words of Reeve.
Seeing Jay was about to get the food from the oven, Reeve decided to get the plates.
"Unfortunately I couldn't meet him again..."
*Knock* *Knock* before she could complete her job and words someone started knocking on her door continuously.
"Stop, knocking I am coming already!" Stated a very annoyed Reeve.
Opening the door, all the annoyance left her face.
"Detective Connor? Alyssa? And...?" Seeing the 2 guards that were with prince John this morning were with Connor and Alyssa confused Reeve. What confused her, even more, was seeing them here at this time?
"Don't worry Reeve, it's nothing important. We were passing by here when Alyssa mentioned you live here to his highness. As we were already late for dinner, he suggested we could have dinner at your house if that is alright with you?" Connor informed the worried Reeve.
Hearing the news released the worried frown of Reeve before excitement started brewing in her.
Looking behind the 4 people she noticed it was the empty night street out there.
"His highness went to get something. He said he will join us momentarily. These two gentlemen are Luke and Ellis." Seeing her looking forward to the visit and not seeing the person of the hour; Alyssa explained the situation, while pointing to Luke and Ellis.
"I can't believe this. This is a dream come true." Reeve squeaked in excitement with a big grin plastered on her face.
"Jay! Come here! You won't believe who is here!" Reeve ran off to the kitchen in excitement.
Seeing her running figure, Alyssa looked towards Connor, who was silently looking towards the kitchen.
Ellis proceeded to close the door quietly while he could hear the excited Reeve squealing from the kitchen flaunting the good news to Jay.
As they moved towards the kitchen, suddenly the house quieted down.
Without hurry the 4 of them walked towards the kitchen.
"Reeve don't get too excited. Just stay and act calm. After all his highness wouldn't want to see you fangirling like this when he arrives." Alyssa advised out loudly.
However, in return, all they received was silence as their reply.
As the 4 finally entered the kitchen they saw a very frightened Reeve held captive by Jay who was clutching her mouth shut with a knife on her neck.
"What are you doing? Drop the knife!" Alyssa ordered.
"Don't try to fool me. Do you think I am not aware of what is going on here?" Jay smirked while Reeve had a pleading expression on her face.
"Jay, please drop the knife. I assure you nothing is going on here." Alyssa tried to negotiate.
However, hearing what she said raised a frown on everyone' s face except for her and Reeve.
"Really? Then how is it that you know the name of a no-name receptionists' fiancé?" Jay asked back.
Seeing that their cover was blown both Luke and Ellis drew their swords, just as Connor stepped in to mediate.
"Jay, we can talk this through. You don't need to do this. In fact, I can see that you don't want to do this.
I can clearly see you are troubled. We can get you the help that you need. Just let us help you." Connor tried to mediate but failed.
"Stay back and stay still. If I see as much as anyone move a finger then she is dead." Jay warned as he dragged Reeve while walking towards the door to their back garden, slowly.
"Jay, we have you surro..."
"Detective Connor allow me." Interrupting, Luke walked forward.
"Don't move! Stay there! If you move anymore closer I will kill her!" Jay warned as the knife drew a drop of Reeve's blood.
"Jay let me make something clear to you." Luke said calmly.
Hearing him Jay halted to listen to what Luke had to say.
"To be frank, I don't care what you do to that woman. She is merely a receptionist.
If you kill her, then her colleagues will attend her memorial service and in a few days' time another receptionist will fill her post. Then in a few weeks' time her parents will get enough money from her workplace protection insurance scheme along with her accumulated salary in her bank.
However, the same is not true for you. You are a dangerous criminal, who if we allowed to let go, will reap the lives of many more." Saying so Luke pointed his sword towards Jay.
Alyssa tried to speak up but was silence by Connor who held her hands.
"Are you crazy? Aren't you working to protect the innocents? Shouldn't you be more concerned about her life than mine? Why are you in the first place bothered about the lives of those cheating whores?" Jay started to get a very bad feeling as he began to move towards the door.
"No, we don't work to protect the innocents, we work to maintain the order and law. To us losing one life to capture a serial killer like you is a fair deal. In other words, your life simply outweighs that of hers." Saying so Luke ran forward after quickly casting a speed boost.
Having no choice Jay quickly slashed the neck of his fiancé and pushed her in the way of Luke, while he made for the door, while desperately casting a rank 1 speed boost, out of his pitiful rank 1 accumulation.
Luke quickly got hold of the bleeding girl, just as a loud blood-curdling scream resounded from the garden.
"Ahhhhh! YOU FUCKER! MY LEG!"
Luke gently laid the girl down. "Ms Alyssa please apply pressure on her wound." Luke ordered to the stunned Alyssa who just saw the leg of Jay being sliced off very evenly from their natural location.
Shaking her, Connor woke Alyssa up from her shock as he pointed towards the urgent Luke.
"He said apply pressure on the wound. He is going to heal her." Connor summarised what she had missed before he walked off towards where a constant set of scream and swearing was coming from.
Just as he was about to step out he saw Ellis coming in dragging a screaming and bloody Jay by his hair.
"We need him alive." Connor instructed Ellis, who in return nodded as he looked at the blood pouring from the stump on his left leg.
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{Police HQ- At the same time}
*Knock**Knock*
Amelia looked up from her case files.
"Come in." She ordered while wondering which idiot is bothering her even at this time of the day.
"That idiot would be me, Ms Amelia." A man with long hair walked in with an umbrella.
Prince John surprised her, not because of the reply which seemed as if her mind was read, but because he was here when he was supposed to be with Detective Connor.
"Your highness." Amelia stood up to salute the imperial prince as he came forward to sit down.
"Please." John motioned for her to sit as he sat in front of her smiling.
"May I enquire the nature of your visit, your highness?" Amelia asked.
However, John remained silent as he stared at Amelia.
Amelia remained silent as well. However, as the seconds ticked by, Amelia started to feel the silence was awkward when it was accompanied by the imperial princes' smile.
"Isn't it beautiful?" John finally spoke.
"...?" Amelia returned a confused face in response.
"One moment you are an intern who wanted to prove her worth as a woman, the next moment you are spiralling in an uncontrolled manner as you become the very lifeblood of every murder in the capital."
Amelia returned an even more confused face.
"Let me tell you a story.
There once was a woman who wanted to overcome her rival.
At first both she and her rival played small pranks at each other on their cases. But slowly she saw the truth; no matter what she did, she could never close the chasm between them.
This frustrated her.
Then slowly, unknowingly, the woman started escalating her pranks without realising how dangerous those pranks were getting.
At first, it was the small disruptions on the investigation paths. Then it slowly evolved to feeding her rivals opponents with the information they should not even be hearing.
In the beginning, she wanted to stop it as she felt guilty, but as time went on she started living off the elation she got from doing the wrong while acting as the enforcer of the right.
Unfortunately for her, then came along a very smart prince who figured her secret out. The woman then wanted to silence the prince. So, she asked the prince what does he want?" John finished his monologue.
"What do you want?" The confused expression slowly morphed into that of a calm and calculative person.
"Connor is going to work for me." John answered.
Suddenly the calm visage of Amelia started to fracture.
"Unknown to the woman was that the longer she played this game, the more she enjoyed playing with her rival behind the shadows, to the point she couldn't live a moment without playing and involving herself in all of his cases secretly as the criminal.
Thus, each case he received became more and more difficult, because there were always a puppeteer in the shadows unknown to the rival." John started his monologue once again.
Amelia regained her calm as she observed John while her mind tried to peel and dissect into what John wanted from her.
"What if I don't want to work for you as well? I am very busy with my cases." The women stated.
"You see the prince, unlike what people thought, was a very lazy person. He hated doing work, thus he wished everything went according to his wishes." John stated.
Her brain which was running overtime suddenly figured the answer.
Slowly the grin from the prince became contagious as it started spreading to the woman.