Murderous Love

Title: Murderous Love

Chapter: One

Author: SnowIce

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Kaiba Seto. Who didn’t know him? He was the world’s youngest multi-millionaire and CEO of Kaiba Corp. And, while running his company, he also had to look after his younger sibling Mokuba and had to attend high school. He could have, of course, just quit school to look after Kaiba Corp. and Mokuba instead, if it weren’t for one tiny detail. When Gozaburo, Seto’s and Mokuba’s stepfather, died, he had had to ensure that Seto would finish his education and graduate. If he didn’t, Kaiba Corp., as well as Mokuba, would have been taken away from him. He’d finally graduated a couple of years ago and was now fully concentrating on running his company.

Of course, running a big, multi-million dollar corporation had brought the necessary problems and enemies with it- something Seto had found out only a couple of days ago. The problems had always been there. For a while, someone was always trying to sell top-secret information to competitors or trying to sabotage his latest inventions. And they’d mostly succeeded in their plans, since Seto was, at that time, usually still in school. But now that he was spending every minute in his company, making sure everything went smoothly, the sabotages had stopped. Several of his employees had been arrested, and others were fired for selling top secret information. After the first couple of months, everything had finally calmed down. He’d even hired some new staff and had reorganised his entire corporation. Everything was running smoothly. Until last Wednesday.

Kaiba had been working late, as usual, leaving Mokuba home alone. The cooks and maids had had the day off and no one, except the guard at the front gate and Mokuba himself, were at the mansion. The young teen picked up the phone and started dialling a very familiar number. After two rings, the person on the other line picked up.

“Who is it?” It was more a demand than a question.

Mokuba sighed.

“It’s me, Seto. I was just wondering when you were coming home.” Seto sighed heavily.

“I’m sorry, Mokie, but I still have to finish reading four contracts, and I need to re-program the software for tomorrow’s presentation.”

“So, you’re sleeping at the office again, huh?” Silent tears began sliding down the boy’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Mokie. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow evening, okay?”

“Whatever. Bye, Seto.”

Seto felt really bad for leaving his brother all alone at home again. Mokuba was just too young to understand the responsibility he had towards his company. Seto sighed one more time and then continued with reading the contracts spread out on the table before him.

With nothing better to do, Mokuba made his way up the stairs and entered his room. He brushed his teeth, put on his PJ’s and went to bed. A couple of minutes later and the boy was fast asleep.

Outside the mansion, shadowy figures had snuck up behind the guard and had knocked him out cold.

“His room should be on the second floor, third window from the left on this side of the mansion. I’ll go through the kitchen; you take the side entrance and you the front door. If anything goes wrong, we immediately abort this, understand?”

The other two nodded and went to take their places.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

Slowly, the shadowed men entered the house, leaving no trace of breaking in behind and not making a sound. They met at the hall and proceeded by climbing the stairs. They made their way over towards the wooden door.

Still without making a sound, they entered the room. The leader of the group grabbed a cloth and a small bottle from inside his pocket. He dampened the cloth with the liquid inside the bottle before putting the bottle away again. Very carefully and as silent as a mouse, he approached the sleeping figure lying on the bed, the other two standing at the side and the end of the bed. The leader motioned for the two to proceed.

The one standing at the end of the bed grabbed the boy’s ankles and held them down firmly. The second figure standing beside the bed grabbed the boy’s arms, pinning them down over the boy’s head. The leader then pressed the cloth under the boy’s nose.

Mokuba was startled awake when he felt someone pinning his legs and arms down. He started to panic when he felt a piece of cloth being pushed against his nose. Out of instinct, he held his breath, but unfortunately, like every other living thing with lungs, he had to breathe some time. When he did, he inhaled the fumes coming from the cloth as well. His vision started to get blurry and he couldn’t think straight anymore. A couple of seconds later and he was out cold.

“Let’s go.” The leader grabbed Mokuba and flung him over his shoulder, knocking the bottle of liquid out of its pocket and onto the floor, where it rolled under the bed. Neither of the men noticed. Before they left the room, one of the other two left behind a note on Mokuba’s desk.
A few minutes later, the shadowy figures and Mokuba had disappeared into the night, leaving only the bottle and letter behind.


The next morning, the maids and the cooks arrived at the mansion. What they found was something they weren’t expecting, at all. The guard was still lying on the ground, out cold. One of the maids quickly went inside the house, searching for Mokuba. When she couldn’t find him, she immediately called Kaiba Seto’s office.

“What?” Seto snapped. He hadn’t had any sleep at all last night. He was still working on one final contract. It was a deal with one of the companies creating military equipment. Gozaburo had contacted this company shortly before he died, and now the CEO was left to deal with it.
He didn’t trust these men. There was something off about them, but he couldn’t find out what.

“Sorry, Sir, but you have to come home immediately. Something has happened to Mokuba.”

“…”

“Sir, are you there? …Sir?”

After having heard that something had happened to Mokuba, Seto had left his office as fast as he could, the phone still lying on top of his desk. After a couple of minutes, he finally reached the mansion. He quickly rushed inside and went up to Mokuba’s room. Once there, he saw the maid who had called him and one of his bodyguards standing near the boy’s bed.

“WHERE IS HE?!”

“He’s not here, Sir. I’m afraid he has been kidnapped.”

“WHAT?!” Seto felt his knees going out from under him. He fell to the ground.

“How? Why?”

“We don’t know, Sir. But they left this behind.”

The bodyguard gave Kaiba the letter. On it were written three simple words: ‘sign the deal’.

“They also forgot this.”

Seto looked back up at the maid; she was holding up a bottle containing some sort of liquid.

“Chloroform.” Seto whispered.

“Yes, Sir. Do you want to call the police?”

“No. I’ll handle this myself.”

Almost a year ago, Kaiba Seto had done some research and had found several contract killers. He had written down their numbers and kept them close by just in case. This was such a case in which he needed one. He wanted those kidnappers and, if possible, those responsible for hiring the kidnappers, dead. He pulled out the number of one of the most known and efficient killers. He dialled the number and waited for a response. After three rings, the person on the other end picked up.

“This is Dark Raven. Who is this?”

Seto could have sworn he knew that voice from somewhere.

“This is Kaiba Seto. I want to hire you.”

“S-Seto?”

“…Jou?”