14 No New Chapters?

Waking up in a customized designer mattress on a four-poster bed, Ignatius recalled the events from yesterday. A certain hostage who was probably sleeping on the cold hard tile in his cleaning closet proved to be a great stress relief from his mundane work.

Whistling a merry tune with a cup of coffee in his hand in the morning, Ignatius sat in front of his laptop. However, the mood quickly plummeted after an hour of comparing performance graphs. His little muse must still be sleeping and exhausted from yesterday’s cleaning spree. Feeling slightly generous, Ignatius decided to give her more time to rest as he checked the Wang Novels app on his phone. If there was one thing he loved doing as a hobby that didn’t seem like a mafia boss, it was reading the two ongoing books of his favorite web novel author.

Ignatius was a dutiful fan who was always the first to leave comments and read her updates. Expecting a new update to relax from the stressful reports, the smile on his face fell when there were no new notifications in his inbox. Gingeromance628 usually uploads new chapters at midnight. She was a responsible author who would inform her readers if there were no uploads, so he found it very odd. Did her stockpile chapters run out?

He still remembered the strong cliffhanger in [Misleading Leading Man] and was looking forward to the villain’s identity! Apart from the disappointment at not getting a new chapter, the mafia boss started to worry a little. Could something have happened to her? Maybe he should gift her a little more and send her encouraging comments to find out why she missed an upload.

Before the mafia boss could top up his reading account to gift his favorite author, he heard a chime. An email notification appeared at the upper part of his screen that made him smirk. Titled ‘Leona Sandersmith - BG Check’, Ignatius quickly dropped his phone to read the anticipated email.

Attached to the email was a two-page PDF file that would contain all the answers to his questions. Was Leona a college scholar or a chess player? Her creativity and intelligence wasn’t something common. He liked how unpredictable she was and wondered what she did for a living.

Starting with the Sandersmith’s family background, Ignatius learned how unfortunate fate had been for her. The girl shouldered a colossal debt from her late mother’s hospital bills and chose to skip college so that she could work and repay the loans. Her older brother, who should have been feeding her, was involved in dangerous jobs and gang fights, adding to her constant troubles. Yet, Leona didn’t give up on her only remaining family and struggled to support both of them.

With Leonard Sandersmith working illegally for many troublemakers and being a huge troublemaker, how did Leona pay for all the debts?

Scrolling curiously down, Ignatius read about Leona’s past and present employment history. Then, he frowned. Although Leona wasn’t actively employed at present, she could make enough money by writing. The mafia boss had no issues with writers, but the warning bells went off in his head when he saw a familiar platform name.

Leona was a web novel author on the writing platform “Wang Novels”. Ignatius tried to brush it off as a coincidence. Surely, it couldn’t be, right? The fact that Leona and his favorite author both loved the same writer had to be a coincidence. Many people also loved Destiny Aitsuji’s works. He might be overthinking.

“...gingeromance628…?”

Laughing, Ignatius blinked at the pen name his informant provided. No, it wasn’t possible. He must have seen it wrong. It can’t be. They must have made a mistake somewhere.

In complete denial, Ignatius dialed for one of his capo to confirm the information. There was no way Leona Sandersmith was gingeromance628! It shouldn’t be! In his mind, his first meeting with his favorite author would be at a web novel convention event after he helped her become one of the top ten best-selling authors on the platform.

Somewhere in a very dark room despite the bright sun outside, a certain night-owl was sleeping soundly before his cellphone blasted in his ears. Although having rock guitars as a ring-tone was a great way to ensure he never overslept, the pink-haired sleepyhead groaned. He had just gotten in his soft bed after working all night for the Teivel famiglia. Who dared disturb him?!

Rolling his top half out of bed, revealing bare skin and drool-worthy firm muscles, Chrisvan blindly located his cellphone. In the process, the blankets exposed lower, and anyone who had eyes could marvel at the sight of six well-defined packs. As he finally found the source of annoyance, Chrisvan reached it out with an equally well-proportioned arm with lean but shapely triceps. Who could it be that early in the morning?

The Teivel capo cursed the caller in his sleepy state but quickly swallowed the insult back down when he saw who was calling him. After digging through various sources, Chrisvan thought the job was completed after sending the information about the female captive to Ignatius. Why was the mafia boss calling him? Did something bad happen?

Chrisvan cleared his throat nervously before answering neutrally. "Yes, boss?"

"Chrisvan? Double-check the damn file!" from the other side of the phone, Ignatius sounded five times more intense than when he was about to shoot someone between the eyes. Chrisvan shivered at the enraged tone. His boss was scary on a good day and downright piss-in-the-pants kind of terrifying on one that didn’t involve coffee.

File? Initially, Chrisvan didn’t know what Ignatius was referring to. However, there was only one file, and he just sent it less than five minutes ago. What could possibly be wrong?

"What's wrong, boss?"

Chrisvan only had his striped green and white boxer shorts on in the air-conditioned room. Too lazy to get dressed to check the file his boss insisted on, he padded over to the desk, dragging the whole blanket with him.

"Did you double-check everything?" Ignatius asked as Chrisvan waited for the computer to start. Against his boss’ impatience, this cutting-edge technology worked too slowly! Why did it take his computer one minute to start? Couldn’t it be any faster?

"Yes…” Chrisvan replied cautiously. “Was something missing?"

As a careful person, he would always check the facts after receiving the background information from his father. That was his practice ever since he became a capo. What was Ignatius getting so worked up for? He shouldn’t have missed anything from the earlier checks.

"I want you to confirm this woman's job. Double, no, triple-check it.”

Hearing Ignatius’ unreasonable demand, Chrisvan frowned. Everyone knew how meticulous he was when he worked. Ignatius wouldn’t have promoted him without knowing his abilities. Was the boss doubting his loyalty? From the tone, that didn’t seem to be the case. If that wasn’t it, there could only be one other possibility. The boss must have been swayed by the captive.

After some hesitation, Chrisvan finally pulled up the files he had been working on previously. Everything that needed to be included in the report was already there. Knowing that Ignatius wasn’t keen on details, he deliberately removed the sources. However, if the mafia boss still doubted it, maybe he should send the evidence over.

“Boss, Philip hacked Wang Novels to verify Miss Sandersmith’s submitted IDs with that pen name. We also confirmed it after bribing an editor working with the platform that she was indeed the writer in question. Would you still like me to reinvestigate?"

There was no trace of hesitation in Chrisvan’s voice apart from the evident exhaustion. His capo must have stayed up all night and pulled every string he had at his disposal to obtain the information. Nobody else in his famiglia knew that he was a fan of gingeromance628. His informant had no reason to lie to him.

How unfortunate. He felt as if fate played a cruel joke on him.

“No need,” Ignatius replied before ending the call curtly, leaving the poor capo confused.

After hearing the monotonous beep, signaling the end of a call, Chrisvan slammed the laptop close and dragged the sheets draped around him. Diving on his soft bed, he stared at the ceiling, wondering why the boss acted so out of character. Ignatius was the epitome of a dark overlord who ruled with a cold iron fist bathed in crimson from head to toe. He treated allies and enemies alike, cutting down those who stood in his way without hesitation. Why did he suddenly develop consideration for another person’s profile? Information was just another tool for him. Was something more serious brewing beneath this suspect’s case? Did the captive confess being directly involved in her brother’s business? What triggered Ignatius’ intense suspicion about her? Then again, it might be a problem with Wang Novels and not exactly the hostage’s job. He didn’t really know as Ignatius didn’t give him more information than required for his task.

Whatever. The tired capo decided not to overthink. Ignatius would call him again if he needed his expertise. There wasn’t much else that Chrisvan could do now. With the missing people report filed by the captive's troublesome police officer friend, Chrisvan had a bigger fish to fry.

Chrisvan turned to his side in the most comfortable position with a clearer mind and slept without care.

After the call ended, Ignatius fought an internal battle with himself. He finally understood why there were no new chapters. If gingeromance628 couldn't upload, gifting her expensive gifts and leaving a thousand messages would be useless. She wouldn’t be able to see them or upload anything while she was under his watch!

Thinking back to the times he mistreated his favorite author, Ignatius wallowed in guilt. How could he insult her about having refined taste in literature?! The time when he watched her freeze after the faucet accident and the intentional torture of making a starving person watch him eat started weighing heavily on his conscience. The more he reflected on what he did, the paler Ignatius became. With nobody else to share his woes, Ignatius picked up his phone and dialed for a familiar number once more.

Angry electric guitars woke the pink-headed capo, who had only just drifted into a dream about him in the sunny meadow. He could see several cows munching the grass beneath them from left to right. What a good break from the noisy city! He lifted a cow like dumbbells using his bare hands. Suddenly, the cow made a loud moo with the sound of rock guitars. Startled, Chrisvan lost his strength and dropped the heavy cow. Just before it could smash his head open, the capo woke up, and was dragged back to reality unwillingly. Reaching for his phone on autopilot, Chrisvan bit back a groan when he saw who it was.

"Boss?" If the caller was not Ignatius Teivel, Chrisvan would have thrown the 80-pound dumbbell at the caller’s face.

"I have an urgent job for you," Ignatius went straight to the point in a no-nonsense mode full of seriousness. In reality, it could be a dire situation if matters were not handled properly. His relationship with his favorite author was on the edge of a very rocky cliff now.

Hearing the word ‘urgent’, Chrisvan lost all his sleepiness and snapped into work mode. Whatever it was, the boss’ order came first.