Chapter 173 - A Strange Chat Group

Edward was exhausted. The only highlight of his day was meeting Scarlet in person for the first time and talking to her even though they barely exchanged any words. Alicia and her two hags were behaving more oddly than usual and Edward didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.

He reached his apartment and wanted to do nothing more than having a hot shower before he looked through the data dump that Elfie prepared for him. Just listening to the sheer volume of files Elfie found made Edward want to take back his word. He didn't want to sacrifice his sleeping hours sieving through millions of financial files to find something that looked suspicious. It was akin to grasping at straws when it came to finding something against Anastasia.

He didn't think that his day could get any weirder but he was proven wrong. While waiting for Elfie's call, Edward received a strange message. Alicia was up to one of her antics again by adding him to a group chat. If this was another one of those online university social groups, he was going to delete it.

To his shock and panic, Alicia added a familiar number to the new group. Edward wanted to curse when he realised that his phone number would be exposed and Scarlet would quickly realise he was Jedd77. It was too late to leave the group because Scarlet and Alicia had been chatting for a while now. Edward cursed and checked the history. Then he remembered something. He gave Scarlet his personal phone number, the one that only a few people like the agents he worked with, his father and Elfie had. The phone number that Alicia added into the strange chat group was a different phone number that Edward subscribed to for his university life and student cover. This was the number that he freely gave anyone because he knew he would be deleting it completely once he graduated, erasing the identity of Edward Bayon and returning to his spy life.

Feeling the tension pass, Edward felt as if he had lost ten years of his life from the scare. Now he understood why spies who fell in love usually left the service. It was difficult to keep a cool and collected head when it concerned the people they loved. An exception to this rule was his father. Edward both admired and hated his father for being a very cold man when he needed to be even if Edward's mother understood the situation. When Edward was much younger he remembered how his father would always prioritise his work over his family. For years, Edward would only hear stories about the man who was his father from his mother. If he didn't run away from home to try and track his father down at the age of ten, he would never know the man who was his father.

Becoming a child spy was something Edward decided to do because he wanted a way to be closer to the world's most important man in the intelligence department. He worked hard and discovered that he had a talent that he could exploit, making his father treat him a little more warmly even though Edward still did not have any special privileges when it came to working.

Now that Edward was benched, he was considering if he should continue living the life of a spy after helping Elfie out with Anastasia's mission. If they succeeded in what the a.d.u.l.ts failed to do, there would be no doubting about his future career path as a spy. However, Edward wasn't a fool. He couldn't deny that he had feelings for the second Wilde daughter even though she was very out of his league if he removed his spy identity. She was rich, talented and beautiful like a fairy that didn't belong to Earth. Edward didn't know how he could possibly make someone like Scarlet look his way.

Thankfully, Alicia was a witch who loved meddling in other people's business. This strange chat group was definitely another one of Alicia's matchmaking ploys and for once, he wasn't against the idea.

Edward: What's this group? @Alicia you better not be up to something funny again. I'll tell on you to the professor that you've been missing from his classes for more than three weeks and faking your attendance.

Alicia: No! I swear this is a group for friendly seniors like us to help Scarlet out. The poor girl is so lost and doesn't have friends other than us in the bridging program. She'd be thrown to a different course after the three months of bridging courses are over. Poor thing... so I thought we could still be here for her even after she completes her bridging program.

Mandy: No offence Edward but you could do with more social life. You're the only one permanently in New York so after the term breaks the rest of us will go back to our hometowns leaving lonely Scarlet all alone in this big city. As a senior, shouldn't you take care of her? You're both in the same state anyway.

Beatrice: @Edward if you dare quit this group chat or delete the app again I swear you're not going to have a group to team up with you for your next assignment!

The spy inhaled deeply to suppress the irritation building at the three-way attack of the hags. Although he knew many ways to take down people from inside out, there was absolutely nothing he could do to these three brutal hags. Edward ignored them and muted them while back reading Scarlet's messages. If it wasn't for Scarlet, this new group chat would have been utter hell. Thankfully, there was always a silver lining.

Scarlet: Why is the group chat's name Edarlet? What does that mean?

At the innocent question about the obvious ship name created by Alicia, the chat went dead silent. Edward didn't know how he should reply to the writer or if he should even attempt explaining it. Alicia was really shooting herself in the foot by doing such things. He wasn't going to offer his help this time and set the chat group to mute. After he showered, he was going to look through the files.

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Scarlet didn't understand why everyone kept dodging her question about the strange chat group's name but she didn't pry any further if it made them uncomfortable to talk about it. Still, she was rather happy that she had the phone number of the silent gentleman who escorted her to her afternoon class.

Then, Scarlet recalled the scene straight out of the movie where Edward cleaned her face with a tissue. Her blood pressure rose and Scarlet buried her face in the pillow, groaning when it made her feel all sorts of weird. She didn't think that she would enjoy attending university as much as she did because she had been so occupied with her work and tracking Anastasia's tail. In less than a week, Scarlet had a completely different opinion about attending university. It was probably something she was looking forward to doing from now on until she graduated as long as Edward was still around.

Alex was busy preparing for her lessons but she hasn't moved into the apartment yet. Claire noticed that Scarlet was out of sorts when she picked the writer up earlier today but didn't comment about it. Scarlet was practically glued onto her phone for the whole journey in the car. Alicia was a very fun person to talk to even though she could come off as rather arrogant at some point in time. Mandy was quieter but she had a savage side to her while Beatrice was a total basic white chick.

For Scarlet, she found the dynamics of this strange clique interesting. On the surface, Alicia would look like she was the leader of the group because of how outspoken she was. However, the more Scarlet got to know them individually, the more the writer came to understand that there were no clique leaders in their small group of friends. Everyone was unique and people were able to tell Alicia no when they didn't like something. Mike and Edward were the best examples, constantly making Alicia mad.

While Alicia had a very terrible opinion of Edward, Mandy thought that Edward was cool and great to work with because he was very smart and efficient in group projects even if he was a man of few words and fewer expressions. Beatrice didn't know what to think of Edward and was neutral about his existence, claiming that they weren't very close and that he was hard to read. Scarlet did sense that Beatrice actually might have a thing for Mike because she turned all odd and flighty when Scarlet brought that subject up.

The writer spent a lot of time chatting with the girls so she didn't realise how much time had passed until Claire informed her that dinner was ready. With the company of her new friends, Scarlet couldn't help but feel as if she was forgetting someone important. Whatever, she will deal with it when she remembers. For now, she was going to fill her stomach, have a shower then go through the day's recordings and prepare the notes so that she could revise them at a later date if necessary.