Chapter 224 - People Playing Gods

Katherine chased Styles around the living room, yelling at him to stop so she could beat him up.

"Calm down first and I will staaahh—" Styles whimpered when she caught him by the hem of his shirt. "Okay okay! Not the shirt. I will stop running, just don't ruin my shirt!"

She turned him around and clutched his collar, making him gulp as he met her glare. "Why? Did you do it on purpose? Was it fun trying to play matchmaker?!"

"Hey! Stop, okay?! Jeez. You really think I would play with your heart just like that?" Styles brushed her hand away gently and fixed his shirt, he sat back on the sofa as he explained, "I swear I didn't know anything about you and Damien's history when I did it."

"How did you even do it? I was applying for the Marketing Director's assistant!"

Styles snorted as if he was proud of what he accomplished. "I never reveal my secrets. And besides, it's not like you weren't truly qualified to be the CEO's assistant. Queen, your grades were topnotch at the university for goodness' sake! You deserve your own company and not only as a CEO's assistant. I knew that you were more than qualified."

Katherine sighed, sitting down on the coffee table to face him. "Styles, that was before I lost my memories. Chris did fake my papers but he couldn't fake what was in my head. Even after trying to self-study, there was only so much that I could learn from the course. It was like I was studying everything from scratch. It was hell. It was hard."

The agents in Shadow were all degree holders. Apart from their combat training, they would also undergo several classes and one of which was an Accelerated Online Degree that could last from twelve months to twenty-four months. For Katherine, she finished a Bachelor of Science in Business Management. 

The aim for Shadow was to have their agents fit in the real world whenever they need to go on missions and especially undercover cases.

A knowledgeable agent with the skills of an assassin could be deadly.

"Look, I only did that because I wanted to help you move out of that shabby apartment. How could you have lived in that for years? I just wanted to give you a better status. You know… have a better home. Eat better food."

"So… you really had no idea what happened between me and…" Katherine briefly glanced at Amelia who was quietly leaning against the wall on the side and cleared her throat before she continued, "And you thought you were just helping me?" Katherine looked at Falcon again and carefully spoke, "But you… I know Damien is your son."

Falcon didn't seem surprised that Katherine knew. Falcon only smiled and Styles touched Katherine's arm to get her attention.

"Queen, I didn't know you had some sort of past with this guy. And it was all my decision, Falcon didn't have anything to do with what I did at first and—"

"Wait, what do you mean at first?"

"Falcon was gone for a few weeks during that time, doing some badass things to earn money. We aren't exactly rich, okay? So I do some work, she also does the same but she has to go away for some time. And when she came back… that's when she told me about her secret." 

Styles looked at Falcon and added, "Can you believe this gorgeous woman is the mother of a thirty-year-old man? Anyway… Later, I remembered that one time you were researching about him on my computer but it looked just like one of those researches that you do. So I thought you were only learning about who you'd possibly meet in missions. I didn't know anything else… You didn't actually tell me anything about boy problems."

Katherine furrowed her brows at Styles and scoffed, "I did not have boy problems okay?!"

"Yeah yeah… Whatever. So that's that. When Falcon came back, you were already working there for a week and to my surprise… the two of you were pretty close so quickly… and he even helped you with recovering your memories—" 

"How did you know about that? How much do you know?" Katherine was starting to get annoyed that her life became like a reality TV for these people, watching her on the sidelines.

"Well, he transferred you to his friend doctor who was a neurologist. It doesn't take a genius like me to know why he did that…" Styles pursed his lips into a thin line as though trying to find a way to word his next thoughts carefully. "So… um anyway… after Falcon told me about your past…" 

He gulped and shifted his gaze to the side, afraid to look at Katherine in the eye. "We came up to a decision to just let things go naturally. I was hoping he would be able to help you remember, given how he was involved in… your past."

Katherine's jaw tensed and she looked at Styles with a stern gaze, her expression looking very hurt. She felt like her life was being orchestrated by people playing gods.

Already feeling betrayed by everything that Chris did to her, she couldn't believe that even Styles took advantage of her. Whatever happened to just talking? Why couldn't they have just spoken to her like normal people and told her who or what she was?

With mixed emotions, Katherine got up and was about to walk towards the window when she realized something. There was something off and she had only noticed it. She turned around and looked at Styles and Falcon, her gaze shifting from the two of them as she asked, "Wait… What do you know about my past? How do you know?"

Styles stiffened and had only realized that Katherine never told her about her family's tragedy. The only people who knew about her past were only Chris and Parker but even the two of them didn't talk to her about it… especially Parker. 

So, what and how did the head of IT who had no free access to the Confidential Operations and a Rogue Agent who had been out of Shadow for more than a decade know about her past?

"Styles, sweetheart… How about you grab us some coffee from the cafe around the corner?" Falcon gently patted Styles's shoulder and he immediately got up on his feet. 

He was reluctant to leave the two women alone but he knew that he needed to give them some time to talk. Turning to Katherine before heading out the door, he probed, "Warm chocolate?"

Despite herself, Katherine gave Styles a small smile and nodded. When the two women were alone, they stared into each other for a long time without saying anything.

Katherine felt a slight prick in her heart as she looked at Amelia's face. Now she knew where Damien got his youthful look — he was as beautiful as his mother.

Amelia reminded Katherine so much of Damien… and because of that, looking at her was so difficult that it hurt.