Chapter 249: A New Enemy

Chapter 249

He pushed that thought away and decided to go upstairs to change his clothes. But just as he put his foot on the first step, he stopped because thanks to his superhuman hearing, he caught something that sounded like a heartbeat, coming from the kitchen.

Alex froze on the stairs, and his whole body went rigid.

Wait a minute. Was he just hearing things?

He shook his head. No. He knew what he had heard. It was definitely a human heartbeat, slow and steady, coming directly from the kitchen. That could only mean one thing, someone was in his penthouse.

’Crap. Someone is definitely in my kitchen. But who could it be?’

His first thought was Celine. She could have come back while he was busy listening for her, and it would make sense. But something felt off. This person’s body scent was different from Celine’s own. But weirdly it smelled familiar, like he had perceived that scent from somewhere else.

Alex lowered his foot off the step and moved quietly across the floor, making no sound at all so as not to alert whoever it could be. Since his senses were wide open now. He could hear a soft scraping noise, like a spoon hitting the side of a bowl. Then he heard something else. It sounded like... a low, happy moan?

’What the hell? Was this intruder seriously eating the food that I had bought with my own hard earned money?’

He crept up to the kitchen doorway and peeked inside. The moment he saw who it was, he relaxed a little since it was a certain baby faced blondie he knew all too well, then he got confused.

"It’s you," he said.

Standing next to the open freezer, wearing her a white sleeve executive top that showed those wonderful chest in all their glory and a black pencil trouser that accentuated her slim waist and legs, was Doris. She was holding a big tub of ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other. Her eyes were closed, and she was moaning with joy as she pushed another huge spoonful into her mouth.

Wait a second, the ice cream she was eating from was not just any kind of ice cream. Alex’s eyes went wide. That was his Rocky Road. His favorite! The one that had sold out in the mall but he was lucky to get the last one. And the same one that he had been saving for later. That was the one in Doris’s hand!

"Hey! That’s my ice cream!" he shouted, pointing at the tub like it was a crime scene. "By the way, what are you even doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work or something? And why the hell are you eating my ice cream?!"

Doris opened her eyes slowly, not looking worried at all. She licked a small smudge of chocolate from the corner of her lips with her tongue, then looked at him like he was a bother.

"Oh, it’s just you," she said calmly.

"What do you mean, ’it’s just you’? This is my house!"

Doris shrugged and took another bite before answering.

"I wanted to talk to you about something important, so I decided to come and visit. When I got here, the door wasn’t really locked, so I didn’t bother waiting and just came in. Then my stomach started growling because I’ve been so busy at work all day, and I couldn’t help myself. So I only took a little bit of your food."

"A little bit?" Alex walked over and looked into the tub. More than half of it was gone. His heart hurt. "Doris, there is hardly anything left!"

"It was only a little bit," she said again, with a straight face.

Alex groaned and rubbed his forehead. ’Why do I always get the strange ones?’ He took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. "Okay, fine. But did you really have to take the Rocky Road? There were other flavors in there like vanilla, strawberry, even cookie dough. Why didn’t you just pick one of those?"

"I just wanted to try it," Doris said, completely unbothered. Then she pointed her spoon at him. "And besides, you should stop complaining. You have enough money as it is to buy like a million tubs of Rocky Road if you want. So don’t be so stingy."

Alex opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. She was right, and that made it even more annoying. He let out a long sigh and leaned against the kitchen counter.

"Fine, fine. Forget about the ice cream," he said. Then he remembered what she had said a minute ago. "Wait. You said you wanted to talk to me about something important. What is it?"

The moment he asked, the playful mood in Doris’s face disappeared. She put the spoon down inside the tub, closed the lid, and set it on the counter. Her eyes turned sharp and serious, which was entirely different from the normal one she usually had.

"Thanks to the Boss’s private network, and all the spies we have around the city, I found out something you need to know," she said in a low voice. "Someone powerful is coming after that woman, Black Rose, and you. It’s connected to the Marcus incident."

Alex’s face became serious too. "Go on."

"More exactly, this person is looking for the identity you used that day. The Black Rose and her mysterious partner with the black skull mask," Doris said. "We couldn’t find out much about him. But we did learn that he is related to one of Marcus’s subordinates, someone who was killed by you guys during that fight."

Alex crossed his arms and frowned. A relative of a dead man, looking for revenge. That was a story as old as time. To be frank he hadn’t really been expecting something like this to happen so soon, if anything he had hoped it would take a little longer.

"Is the person an Awakened or just a normal human?" he asked. "And if he’s an Awakened, what realm is he?"

"Oh he’s an Awakened alright," Doris said. "And a very dangerous one at that, from what I heard. But we don’t know his realm yet. Our spies couldn’t get close enough to find out." She paused and looked straight at him. "So I’m just telling you to be careful. Don’t do anything stupid. Because if you die, then who’s going to bring back Miss Nyx and Jade?"

Alex felt his stomach tighten when she mentioned those two names. She was right. He couldn’t afford to be careless, not now, not when he was so close to getting stronger.

’Great. Just great,’ he thought bitterly. ’First Julian and his bodyguards, then Henry and his stupid graffiti boys, and now an Awakened coming for my head. Why can’t I just have one peaceful week?’

He forced a small smile and nodded at her. "Thanks for the warning, Doris, I really owe you one. This is really important. I’ll make sure to keep my eyes open."

"Good," Doris said. She waved her hand at him like she was shooing away a fly. Then she opened the tub of ice cream again and picked up her spoon. "Now that the serious part is over, I can go back to eating in peace."

"Hey! That’s still my ice cream!"

"You said you didn’t care anymore," she said, shoving another spoonful into her mouth.

"I never said that!"

But Doris wasn’t listening. She was already moaning again with her eyes closed, enjoying every bite, as if the world had no problems at all.

Alex shook his head and gave up. Some fights were just not worth having. He turned away from her and walked out of the kitchen, his mind already busy with what he had just heard.

A dangerous Awakened coming after Celine and him, or more specifically his black mask persona. And that person was someone with a personal reason to hate both of them, but he had no information about how strong the man was.

It’s not like he was afraid or anything, it was just that not knowing more about the enemy was such a hassle. If the man was in the Early Realm or even the Vanguard Realm, or even Ascendant Realm it would be manageable. But if he was a Master Realm expert, that would be a different story altogether.

He climbed the stairs slowly, thinking about all the ways this could turn out in the end. For now, there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was wait and hope that the person was not in a higher realm or had some broken ability.

’Hmm... There’s one thing I can still do for now. That’s to take a good shower and clear my head.’

He walked into his room, took off his shirt, and tossed it onto the bed. A long, hot shower sounded like exactly what he needed right now. The warm water could wash away the stress of the day, and maybe it would help him think straight.

As he walked toward the bathroom, he could still hear the sound of Doris’s spoon scraping against the bottom of the ice cream tub downstairs.

He sighed, shook his head, and stepped inside.