The Fall of the Cavendish Family

"No, you can't. You really can't. Please, I'm begging you, spare her." Oliver had lost all strength and all means to act. Before absolute power, even a man in his high position was nothing more than a lamb waiting for slaughter.

"We're not discussing this with you, Councilor Cavendish. It doesn't matter who does it. If you can't bring yourself to do it, someone else will do it for you."

"The meeting is over. There are no objections to the voting results. Meeting adjourned."

"No! You can't! Your Highness-" The connection was ruthlessly cut off. Oliver sank to his knees, his face streaked with tears and mucus, his expression already blank.

Meanwhile, Emily quietly slipped out of the bedroom on the other side of the wall. Her steps were light but firm, each one sinking deep into the carpet. She didn't want to cry, but she couldn't control her tears. They fell one by one, spreading across the carpet's pattern.

She wasn't afraid of dying. She was only afraid that her death would be meaningless and the team's great plan would come to nothing.

"Grandpa Cuike." The old butler suddenly appeared in her room. Emily hurriedly wiped the tears from her face, pretending to be calm as she asked why he had come.

Old Cuike said nothing. He lifted a neatly packed travel bag in his left hand and handed her a slip of paper. It bore an address, one where her safety could be assured.

"Go, quickly." Old Cuike opened a secret passage from the bedroom to the greenhouse and motioned for her to leave through it. After Andrew went offline, the whole villa had been under surveillance by the Gear Society's eyes and ears. As expected, they would become the next Trevor family to be purged.

The back garden was being cleared that day, and the only way out was to sneak aboard a gardener's vehicle.

Paying no mind to the filth, Emily clutched the pillow-sized travel bag and climbed into a garbage truck full of discarded grass and broken branches. After an afternoon of labor, the gardeners finished their work and left without incident.

The old butler stood by the window in the young miss's bedroom, his eyes full of reluctance. His master had treated him with great kindness and loyalty; he had to do something.

"She's gone, hasn't she?" Oliver appeared in the bedroom doorway, his eyes bloodshot. He looked exhausted, bracing himself against the doorframe as he struggled to ask.

"Yes, sir. She's gotten away safely." Cuike stepped forward to support him, but Oliver waved him off and forced himself to sit on the sofa nearby.

It was Emily's favorite spot, with a perfect view of the sweet cherry blossoms outside the window.

But the flowers weren't in season now, and his daughter would never return.

"Are all her documents in order? Did you give her enough money? Isn't that house a little small? Cough, cough, cough..." A metallic sweetness rose in Oliver's throat, and a dark trickle spilled from the corner of his mouth. "It doesn't even have a swimming pool. Will she have trouble getting used to it?"

"But it's all right. My darling is so capable, she won't starve wherever she goes." Oliver kept swallowing, and his vocal cords began to swell with blood. "She's not even thirty yet... She still has... a long life ahead of her."

"Don't worry, Oliver. Everything's been taken care of." For the first time in his life, Cuike overstepped and called his master by name, but Oliver only smiled. They had been good brothers who grew up together.

Class had set them apart in status, but their bond had always remained.

Cuike knelt on the floor, both hands gripping Oliver's cooling hand. The neurotoxin acted swiftly, and Oliver was already slumped on the sofa, unable to get up.

"Once I'm sure Emily is safe, I'll come down and join you."

"No!" Oliver grabbed him by the collar.

On the very first day he joined the Gear Society, he had foreseen this ending. Those devils who devoured people without leaving so much as a bone couldn't be shaken in the slightest. Anyone who dared dream of harming their interests would meet a fate little better than going to hell.

"In the name of the Cavendish family, I order you, Cuike Cavendish: find Emily, stay by her side, and protect her from the shadows until the day you die!"

Oliver took a key from inside his clothes. It was the third layer of security for his safe.

"Forget it. Let fate decide." He changed his mind again.

"Take what's in the safe and run far away. Find some beautiful place to spend your old age, if you like. Do whatever you want. I want to rest, and it's time my old friend rested too."

"The combination is my birthday, Emily's birthday, and your birthday."

Cuike looked at Oliver in disbelief. Oliver smiled slyly. "See? I knew you'd make that face. Tell me, who would think a political titan would include a butler's birthday in his safe combination?"

"No. One more person at Emily's side means one more danger to her. I can't let her sink into that mire again." Cuike gripped the key tightly, his resolve wavering.

"Go on, get out of here. Emily needs you. Compared to me, a father who's done every kind of evil, a reeking executioner for the Gear Society, she might rather see you still alive."

"How long has it been since the meeting ended? The Gear Society's assassins should be here soon. If you don't leave now, you'll never have another chance to see Emily."

With that, he flung Old Cuike's hand away in disgust. He was the one going to hell. Cuike had done nothing much wrong; he couldn't get blood on his hands.

Seeing the master he had served for decades barely clinging to life, Cuike gripped the key tightly. As if he had made a decision, he staggered to the safe in the study and took everything inside before the assassins arrived.

"According to reports, Mr. Oliver Cavendish, a prominent political councilor, was found by police on the afternoon of the Xth at his residence in the city, where he had taken his own life. A preliminary forensic examination indicates suicide by poison."

"Not long before this, his direct subordinate, Councilor Charlie Andrew, also died a horrific death at home in an apparent accident. Is this a coincidence? Or a major purge over political missteps? Please stay tuned to our station. We will bring you the latest reports as soon as they come in. At the scene..."

The television in the café continued dutifully broadcasting the day's news. The noisy patrons paid it no heed, absorbed in their own conversations, though the guests at the table by the window seemed to be in a poor mood.

"Still no sign of her. Mycroft said his team turned all of London upside down." Sitangna listlessly poked at the tiramisu on her plate.

"It's just as well we can't find her. It means she's hidden well enough." Watson drained his coffee in one gulp.

"The worst possibility isn't that we can't find her, but that we can't even find her body." Sherlock leisurely read the newspaper, looking not at all worried.

"How can a mouth that's thirty-six degrees say something so cold?" Sitangna was terribly upset. She slumped over the table and buried her head in her arms.

The plot simulation she had asked Candy to perform a couple of days ago had been no help at all. It had cost her ten points and revealed one major turning point, scheduled for sometime in the next two days, which meant it would happen very soon.

The problem was that it hadn't told her anything else. Whose major turning point was it? Surely it couldn't be Emily's father's? Please, let it not be Emily!

[Don't worry. Those two are just outsiders to the plot. Even if both of them died, it wouldn't qualify as a 'major turning point.' I think your three-person team should be the ones on guard.]