Looking in the mirror, I winced as I patted concealer onto my neck. It was bruised purple-black after the incident with Ali.
I figured I'd just go apoogize to Ali since it'd been a couple of days. On the way out of the room, I came across Velda.
"Where's Ali?"
An unreadable expression was written all over her face, and she hesitated for a while before she finally spoke. "He…busy."
"It won't take much time, I just want to discuss some things with him," I said, pushing beside her. She tapped me on my shoulder warily, "Not a good idea. Maybe later…" She insisted.
"подходи себе." She murmured gently, her eyebrows tugging downwards in frustration. Was that German or Russian?
I backed up, turned around, and walked back to my room.
That was odd. Although I was back in my room to stay, the curiosity in me peaked, I needed to know what he was doing at least. That would be much better.
Once I was sure the pathway was clear, I slipped out of my room. I still didn't know where his office was located in the house, but I was sure it was somewhere upstairs. I'd figure it out by all means, surely I wouldn't get lost again. I'd also have to be silent since Velda kept popping up like a ghost in the dark of night.
I crept up the stairs, placing one foot after the other carefully. My eyes kept glancing behind me to check if anyone was coming, but I made a run for it as soon as I reached upstairs. It still looked glamorous, I'd never been up here. The rug was so soft and I could feel the soft, luxurious fibers digging into the middle of my toes.
I checked around to see if any doors were open on the left hallway upstairs, but non were. So, I went back and navigated to the right hallways. All the doors upstairs were made of glass. One could easily see through them, but there were blinds on every one of them, so it limited what I could see.
I halted in front of a door that was slightly cracked open, the breeze coming from the Air Conditioner was powerful and a very familiar scent swirled out. Ali was inside this room I knew it. The cologne was strong and smelt very woodsy, similar to the one he had used the day he came to my parent's house.
I was about to walk into the room when I heard his hushed voice speaking to someone over the phone. I hid behind the door, pressing my body to the wall. Ear peeping out slightly into the room, I could make out everything that was being said.
"The vial's location is in Switzerland. Sent the boys to it, but it refused to open." He murmured, thinking about his next action. "Send Makovich to the location to assess."
I peeked at him, he was nodding in sync to whatever the person on the other side of the phone was saying. "I won't rest until it's unlocked. We need to eliminate." He hung up, swirling around towards the door, as if he wanted to walk out. But when he turned back and started to rummage through the documents on the table, I made a run for it, very stealthily, all the way down until I was back in my room. I could swear I saw a gun on his table. But what for?
When I came out of my room, no one was around. Velda was probably in the kitchen and Ali had gone out, so I went back to the office. When I tugged on the handle, it was locked. So I decided to use my bobby pin to pick the lock. I jiggled it in the keyhole until it pushed open.
The office looked really nice, but documents and files were everywhere, though arranged in a timely manner. I moved towards the table that Ali had been rummaging through earlier, and opened the drawers. There was nothing special in there, so I looked through the rest.
A black folder that had russian written on it was calling my name, so I picked it up. The only problem was it was all in russian, so I pulled out my phone and took some pictures of the pages with very few writing. I'd upload it to my translator app later.
As I searched around some more, I didn't find anything interesting anymore. I walked towards the door, gripping my phone tight. Before I could step out, I heard someone coming up the stairs.
I quickly ran and hid under the table quietly. It was Ali, it seemed he forgot something in the office. He started lifting files from the table, flipping through them hurriedly as he communicated in a foreign language with somebody else over the phone. He turned around, so close to my side of the table, where I was crouched silently and picked up the same black folder I did.
Bzz!
My phone vibrated before I quickly switched it off, my heart thumped as I could envision Ali slowly creeping up to the table, and catching me. I tried to still my breath as he stopped in his tracks, turning around. He definitely moved closer to the table, because I could hear papers wrinkle above my head.
"Master."
It was Velda. What was she doing here? Either way, she saved me!
They discussed as they left the room together. That was so close, I let out a deep breath out of nervousness.
I waited for about 20 minutes, before I bolted out of the room, and to mine.
In my room, I pulled up the image of the black folder Ali had taken earlier and ran it through my Translate app. It detected the language as Russian. "I knew it." I muttered under my breath.
My eyes rolled over the words on the screen over and over again as I scoffed in disbelief. I just couldn't believe it.
Mafia? I thought to myself, shaking my head.
Ali was part of the mafia. He was a mafia don.