The Rogues Who Went Rogue
Chapter 125

To the triplets' surprise, Greg walked over to Matthew, and he instructed, "Stick out your tongue."

Matthew's eyes widened and kept his lips sealed. He knew exactly what would happen if any of that substance in the syringe made contact with his body.

Greg began complaining, "For Goddess sake, Callow. Can't you cooperate like how we cooperated with your white mice in Blue Crescent? It wasn't as if we killed all of them."

Desmond hit the back of Matthew's head while Ivory reached in to pull his tongue out as Desmond held his head back, stretching out the pink, moist structure. Greg murmured, "Careful, Ivory. Fingers at the tip. We don't want this on your skin. Hold him very, very still, Desmond." The two complied and everyone ignored Matthew's indecipherable protests. Greg carefully pushed the plunger, and a single drop of liquid formed at the tip of the needle before falling onto Matthew's tongue. The three men observed the effects with interest.

Matthew screamed at the burning and stinging sensation. His eyes teared up at the anguish as the chemical burned through his tongue to form a distinct hole. But the ordeal didn't end there. The oleander was slowly travelling throughout his mouth and spreading to his respiratory system. If the triplets' data was right, Matthew was expected to die in less than six hours.

Greg merely nodded in acknowledgment of the results. "My bad. This one's still too strong to die by ingestion as well."

As he returned to the table to pick another syringe to play with, Nessa hissed, "You're despicable!"

Alissa's claw went right through Nessa's ear, making Nessa scream before she retracted her claw to let the blood ooze from the area.

Greg scoffed his signature dark scoff. "Do you even know what that word means?" He picked another syringe, looking at it through the ceiling lights before setting it down and moving on to the next syringe as he said, "It means 'morally reprehensible. I doubt any of us in this room have the right to use that word against each other seeing that none of us are saints. Let's get real here - being who we are, the Goddess would most likely already have our places reserved in hell."

He picked a syringe and approached Nessa, towering over her when he declared in a low voice, "I'm not despicable, Callow. I'm deathly. You f**k with me or the people I care about, and this is what happens to you and those you care about."

He stuck the syringe into her collarbone and left it there for a moment because Nessa began struggling. Alissa and Hailey held her against the wall before Greg pressed the plunger all the way through. It took Nessa a whole twenty minutes of shaking, sweating, paling and croaking before she finally died on the floor.

Greg looked at the corpse and uttered, "Nope. Still not it. It has to be longer. I wonder how long it will take before I find the one I want."

He came back to the table, and that was when he looked at the neatly arranged row of syringes again as he said in mock amusement, "Ah, silly me. It's arranged by concentration. Highest to lowest from left to right. How could I have not known?" No one believed that he didn't know. Every damn syringe was labeled. In bold.

"Any last words, you two?" Greg asked, eyes still stuck to the table. "Matthew, you first."

Ivory let go of his tongue but Matthew clearly still couldn't frame coherent sentences or utter any clear words. Between the incomprehensible muffles, everyone caught a curse word or two...or more, but that was all anyone could understand.

He panted when he was done, which was when Greg said, "Thank you, Matthew. Ourelia, you n―"

"YOU WILL NEVER BEAT US! YOU WILL NEVER BE BETTER THAN US! EVEN ON OUR DEATHBEDS, EVEN IN HELL, NO ONE WILL FORGET THAT WE, THE CALLOWS, HAD BEEN THE ONLY ONES TO FOOL GREG CLAW!"

Greg's followers growled ferociously in their boss's defense, but Greg merely smirked as he offered Ourelia a sarcastic applause. "That was a very well thought-out speech. It's too bad that I can't say the same for your plan."

"Your intelligence is becoming more questionable as this drags on, Claw! You get NOTHING out of this! Not the status. Not the respect. Not the woman. NOTHING!"

"I'm starting to question YOUR intelligence now. I'd explain it to you but I'm a little short on time, so I'll just let you figure out how you're mistaken when you're in hell." He stuck the syringe with the lowest concentration of oleander into Ourelia, and Jade and Nani held her to the wall as her body weakened painfully slowly. Greg then did the same to Matthew.

Greg didn't expect anything in return when he offered Lucianne his help. He didn't want anything from her. Not the status, respect or even her. But as time went on, he realized that he was given those things in a way.

His status during the cooperation as one of the most trusted figures couldn't be denied. Lucianne never made him or his people feel left out. If anything, she made them heard, and made them feel more belonged than they had ever been in the kingdom. On a personal level, he was given the status of an uncle when he thought he had been permanently cut-off from interacting with any future royal family members.

Respect from the creatures beyond Lucianne was more difficult to establish in the beginning of the cooperation but with time, it became doable. Even the non-rogues became more open to accepting and respecting him and his people as the decipio practice sessions went on. It was unbelievable but it happened.

As for getting the woman...he admitted that he couldn't have her the way that he wanted to, but he did get to work with her, something he never thought he'd have the privilege of doing after their rough start when they first met. He 'got her' in the sense that he earned her trust and respect to the point that she trusted her daughter with him; to the point that she trusted him to bring back every bloodsucker that was abducted; and to the point that he was given full discretion on ending the Callows however he deemed fit.

Greg wasn't planning to demolish what they had built. He knew how deep a betrayal would cut, and it wasn't as if he didn't look forward to interacting with his niece. He might even teach her a few more curse words and then put the blame on his cousin just for a few laughs. The queen would no doubt find out eventually, but until that happened, it would be fun.

The ministers and warriors weren't so bad either. They weren't as slow as those that existed during his late uncle's reign. He even grew to enjoy working with them, as did his people.

Seeing that he had time to kill as everyone waited for Ourelia and Matthew to die, Greg had a look around their lab to see what other toys they had. When he was done browsing through the shelves and books, he started looking at random things - the clock, the switches, etc. Then, his eyes stopped at the bin, where he saw crumpled waste papers.

Since he had nothing better to do, he dug into their trash and emptied the bin onto the table. He carefully avoided the broken glass pieces as his fingers extracted the papers, which he assumed would have random equations and symbols written in illegible handwriting that he might not even understand.

He smoothened the first sheet, and found a sketch of the lightbulb they found in the hideout of the Forest of Oderem. He then smoothened the next sheet, and when he saw a beautifully-written paragraph of words and sentences that any non-scientist could understand, his relaxed mental gears got to work again.

His eyes burned at the initials he found at the end of the note, and he thanked Goddess that the siblings died at the two-hour mark. He couldn't wait any longer to get on to the next phase.