The Faceless Billionaire Celebrity Wife-Chapter 231: Illusion Hall

"Wow, you keep surprising me as time goes on. As expected of a DeLoach," the man chuckled.

"What...do I have to do?" Ethan questioned impatiently, in no mood for the man’s subtle taunts.

"Hmmm, what’s the best you can do, Young Master Ethan?"

"Anything..." As he talked, Ethan’s eyes searched the hall as he tried to see where the exit door was.

"Cool! Where’s your backpack, Ethan? Bring out the gun in the smallest section," the unknown man instructed.

Ethan paused and looked up abruptly. Was it the hunger that was making him hear things? Or did he really just hear that there was a gun in his backpack?

"Be fast with it unless you want me to leave!" the man threatened, making Ethan realize that he had heard well after all.

"There’s no gun in my backpack. I packed it myself," he stated, without moving from the spot where he was standing.

"It’s obvious, Ethan. Which adult would pack a backpack for a kid without adding a water bottle? Or even snacks? Now do as I said and go take out the gun!"

Ethan complied this time and searched his backpack, his dull eyes sharpening when he felt a cold, hard metal graze his fingers. He wasted no time in pulling the gun out.

Before Ethan could speak up to notify the man that he had retrieved the gun, the man spoke,

"Good. I trust that you know how to use it owing to the amount of training you have been put through this past few days. You should show me just how much you have learned now."

"How do I do that?" Ethan asked. He could not see a target board in sight so he was confused on how he was expected to show his shooting skills, which was still poor by the way.

The man didn’t reply, but Enoch soon saw the answer to his question. There on the podium stood a lady who was tied to pole. He wondered how he had failed to notice her in the first place or how she had been brought into this place without his knowledge, for he knew he had been alone for the past four days.

"That’s your target, Ethan. Shoot!" the man’s voice came.

Without hesitation, Ethan raised the gun and pointed it straight at the target. For once, he was trusting in his poor skills that he would not be able to reach the woman. And apart from that, he could not be holding a real gun, right?

"Please! Don’t...don’t do this please! I’m begging you..."

The screams from the woman on the podium made Ethan hesitate a little, until he concluded that she was probably acting her part. Plus the voices in his head were supporting his actions and even though he didn’t like them, he knew the only way to escape them was to leave this dark hall.

He took slow steps closer to the podium until he could see the woman’s face clearly before lifting the gun in his hand to aim at her.

The woman’s scream didn’t stop until...

Boom!

Ethan was sure he did not pull the trigger. In fact, he was not even done positioning the gun well but...that was blood rushing from the woman’s chest. Her eyes which were widened in shock seemed to be staring straight at Ethan as life drained out of them.

The gun fell from his hand just as Ethan fell to the ground, his legs suddenly growing weak.

"I didn’t pull—"

"Good job, Ethan," the man’s voice interrupted him before he could say he was not the one who killed her. "I should let you go now but there’s a tinny bit of problem that you should know about."

Ethan who was still numb in shock as he stared at the woman who had died before him, and perhaps by his hands, could barely hear what the man was saying. His attention was only attracted when the light brightened in different corners of the hall to reveal numerous people sitting on the chairs there with their eyes widened in horror.

"That small boy just killed her, right?!"

"That’s what I saw..."

"How can a young boy do this!"

"You should have seen from his eyes! He’s a monster and a psycho!"

Voices streamed into his head from all corners of the hall and he absorbed them all, not bothering to think if they were real voices or not.

"Murderer!"

That loud exclamation from a hate ridden voice was the last straw to break Ethan down, as his eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out on the ground.

When he woke up next, the bright light of the sun was the first thing to reach his eyes. He rose up with a start and felt water being pushed into his mouth by someone who was sitting beside him.

The man was wearing a mask.

"Am I out of that place?!" Ethan asked the question which looked stupid to he himself.

"Of course, as I promised. And I will let you go now with some brief warnings."

He continued before Ethan could respond, "You saw in there that some people saw what you did, a mistake on my part. How could I have allowed them to see you killing people?!"

"Uh?!" Ethan was shocked. He had really killed the woman.

"You don’t have to be scared. I know your face has been imprinted in those people’s mind so there’s only one way out now; do not ever show your face in public."

"I...I can’t," Ethan whispered. The training he underwent with his father was to teach him how to conduct himself in public, but this man here was asking him to not ever show his face.

"You can’t?! I expected you to be smarter than this, Ethan. Don’t you know that most of them in there had their cameras with them and they photographed what happened? If someone recognizes you by chance when you show yourself in public, what would you do then? Kids this days do go to prison too, you know?"

"Isn’t...isn’t it supposed to be—"

The man cut him off, speaking with an angry tone.

"I won’t say much. Just that prison is pretty much like that hall you just escaped from, and it isn’t a pleasant place to stay in."

★★★

Raine ran through the hallway to the room at the far end, Ethan’s room. The usually quiet hall was pretty chaotic as all the maids and butlers of the mansion were loitering around the small, cramped face.

"Did he reject the new set too?" she asked the head butler when she got close enough for him to hear her. The middle aged man gave a small nod in reply.

On hearing the madam’s voice, the maids and butlers fell quiet as they watched to see what she would do. Their eyes followed her as she walked to Ethan’s door and knocked.

"Baby, you there?"

She got no reply, so she continued in her soft voice.

"Ethan, did you refuse your nanny again? Did any of them hurt you?"

"No."

"Then tell me why you don’t want to see any of them?" Raine pressed. "Are you angry that mommy didn’t find you earlier?"

"No, I will see them only if I’m wearing a mask."

Raine frowned at that reply. Turning to the butler, she asked,"What kind of absurd request is that?"

The man had no answer to her question and ten days later, when Chris asked Raine the same thing, she still had no answer.

The man came back early that morning after being away from the house for half a month, and the first person he asked for as he stepped into the house with dirty clothes, was his first son.

"Where’s Ethan?!"

The maids had gone to alert Raine and she came down to the living room to receive him, a nervous look in her eyes.

"Where have you been?" she questioned.

"Will answer that later. For now, where is Ethan?"

"He came back some days ago, but he’s now acting strange," Raine replied.

Chris only heard the first part of Raine’s reply and the second part fell on deaf ears, as he slumped down on the sofa.

"Thank goodness!" he breathed out in relief.

"Now will you tell me what happened?" Raine requested.

"I..." Chris started. "I was training Ethan in the illusion hall—"

"What?!" Raine exclaimed, "You took him there when he’s just ten?!"

"I did. Anything can happen and I won’t let my son be deafeted by a slight pressure caused by illusions. Better to torture and train him myself before that happens!"

"That’s absurd!" Raine yelled. She had wondered why her son was suddenly acting strange after an outing with his dad and this was the reason? No, she was beginning to wonder why the young boy hadn’t gone crazy yet from spending days in that place.

"I know it would seem absurd to you as you are his mother, but trust me, you will think otherwise when I’m done with what I saying."

Raine wanted to argue, but she kept her mouth shut and decided to listen. At least, she needed to know why her precious son was left alone in that god-damned illusion hall.