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Veronica

V eronica’s father confessed in court to finding pleasure in the fear he saw in his victims’ eyes while holding a knife to their throats. And he said it with a gaze so gaunt, Veronica had to double-check if that was really her dad, the kindest man she ever knew.

Yet his confession, delivered without remorse and with a calm demeanor, did not sway Veronica. A part of her still believes he was lying. He was always a skilled actor. He even told her one time that if he hadn’t made it as a successful college professor, he would have made it to the movie screen.

Ten years have passed since his sentencing. Ten years since Veronica was forced into premature adulthood for survival.

She was only nine when it all happened. Now nineteen, you will think she knows now how to separate truth from lies, deceit from sincerity, and a conscious act from manipulation. But no, she is still so adamant on believing he did all those killings because he wasn’t in his right frame of mind. Something happened to him then. A voice in his head, perhaps could have compelled him. And if a voice was in his head, then Jacob Durand isn’t the killer the court charged him with being. A prominent psychologist could have come in handy.

Or it can be that Marlene Mendes was right all along and Veronica is as depraved and psychotic as her father—trying to excuse a serial killer’s villainous and morbid actions.

Maybe her father’s black blood really is flowing through her veins.

Back in front of her laptop, its screen displaying the Marseille prison’s visiting room, she waits, as always, for prisoner 4156 to appear, cuffed and chained.

One year has passed since their last conversation. Ten years prior, she had secretly left school to see him in prison. She had just turned ten then, two weeks after his trial.

That day, she had longed for a hug, a retraction of his words, an apology, and a return home to her and Marlene. But he couldn’t really do much. He just promised that he would come back home soon. But it was obvious he was lying, just trying to make her feel better. The guards were really mean and their eyes were cold. It was obvious they wouldn’t let him go home so soon and so easily.

She had been so unashamed that day, she cried all the way to the train station. And so unbothered that people were watching as she blew into her neon green sweater.

That was their final physical encounter. Marlene moved to the States with her two weeks later.

Each year following that, a video call connects them. She consistently visits Shiro’s house for that because Marlene will wring her neck if she ever stumbles upon her talking to that man. She has specifically forbidden that.

Now in front of her, Veronica almost blurts out “Dad” when Jacob Durand appears on her laptop screen, exiting a gated hallway. In contrast to other nations, France does not enforce uniform policies for its prisoners. So he shows up again in his typical white sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. It might as well be a uniform now.

“Juliette,” he drawls.

Hearing her long-forgotten birth name, tugs painfully at her heart. Her eyes itch, and she thinks she wants to cry.

They made her change her name to Veronica Beaumont a few weeks before they left France. Though she understood it was the only way to shield herself from the frenzy targeting Jacob Durand’s relatives, it felt like a vital part of herself was being violently taken. Her late mother, Elodie Anne Durand, had given her that name. And she grew up loving it, for reasons other than her childhood reading of Romeo and Juliet.

“Hi,” she whispers.

Watching her dad through the camera, she feels cheated thinking about the easy communication, home visits, and proud mentions of fathers she’d had to witness among her schoolmates. Whereas, her father’s imprisonment has prevented her from mentioning his name. And she dares not stay in a conversation where people talk about their dads. Because she will be too ashamed to say her dad was convicted for multiple murders.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you, little rosette ,” he says, a twitch at the corner of his lips hinting at a smile that belies his cold-blooded nature.

She notices how his once luscious hair black hair, full of sheen, is now dry and marred with breakages.

Across from her, he stares, his blue eyes as still and lifeless as a river. Not a flicker of emotion can be seen in them. Is the love she used to see in those eyes really just an illusion?

Can this really be the same Dad who would take her to amusement parks, make her breakfast, go on drives with her, and tell her countlessly how much he loves her?

“How have you been?” Veronica asks. But it’s obvious how he has been. He is fading away, getting noticeably thinner in the face.

He scrubs a hand down his face, his fingers dragging over the years-old stubble shadowing his jaw. “I’m stuck in a building filled with fools of different kinds, the food tastes like cardboard.” His jaw tightens when he exhales, his lips curling into something that isn’t quite a smirk. “But it’s fine. I’ll be out of here soon.”

Veronica stills, her brow lifting at his words. He has said this before—too many times to be seen as a joke. And each time, it carries the same quiet certainty, as if his conviction alone can bend the bars of the cell.

It makes her wonder; does he actually have a way out? Some hidden plan the judge never caught a wind of?

When his case set the tabloids ablaze, there were whispers of a partner. His killings suddenly bore an unsettling resemblance to those of the killer— The Crimson Artisan— who emerged in Russia eighteen months before her father was caught. The authorities tried to fit the timeline together, cross-referencing his whereabouts with the bloodshed overseas. But every time—every single time his alibi held up. Either he was in lecture halls, at home making dinner or at a shareholders’ meeting. He was always accounted for. It was logically impossible for him to be in two places at once.

These left two possibilities; either the Russian killer— The Crimson Artisan— has been his partner all along, or he was just a fan dedicatedly taking notes. But after the father was sentenced, The Crimson Artisan went quiet for a while. But every now and then, a murder is always documented in Moscow and some small towns in Russia with the same pattern as her dad’s and The Crimson Artisan’s. This means The Crimson Artisan is still in business, but have just been laying low.

“Well…” Veronica trails off awkwardly. “How, um, how do you plan on getting out?”

Her father tilts his head to the side, his brows furrowed as if in deep thought, then his lips curl. “Don’t worry about it. You just sit pretty and I’ll come get you when I’m out.”

“Where will we go?” she asks, playing along. Or maybe she really wants to run away into the sunset with her psycho dad.

His eyes glint with something dark. It sends a chill down her spine. “Somewhere very far. No one will find us.”

“Okay.” She nods silently.

They sit through an awkward silence for what feels like hours. Veronica doesn’t know what to say to a possible psychopath. He already made it clear he is having the worst moments of his life. So she is just going to sit it out. In five minutes, it will all be over.

“So…?” He leans over the table where the laptop is placed, his raspy voice breaking through the silence. “You haven’t gone ahead and got a boyfriend, have you?”

Veronica’s brow furrows. Is there a rule against that?

“Well, I had one, until about a month and some weeks ago. But apparently, a student isn’t supposed to have an affair with their teacher, so, yeah. It ended.” Veronica glances at him. His eyes have darkened, his jaw hard. It feels like he is boiling from the inside and just struggling to keep it all together.

“And then there’s another one.” Ignoring the unmistakable change in his demeanor, she goes on. “He’s kinda way older than me. But he hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend yet. But I’ll say yes if he eventually does.”

“Foolish girl. Do you not listen?” His lips tighten, his fist slamming on the table.

“Sorry?” Veronica recoils, eyeing him with caution, pulse racing.

“What did I tell you about boys?”

“Um, I don’t know—”

“I fucking told you to stay the fuck away from them!” He almost lunges at the laptop screen. “I explicitly said that to you, you idiot. Have you no sense?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Veronica jolts to her feet, irritation humming in her veins. Who the hell does he think he is? Abandoned her and now making rules from behind bars?

“Okay, times’ up.”

With hands firmly on his shoulders, the officers pull him up from his seated position. Jacob Durand fixes Veronica a dark, threatening stare before the officers veer him away from the laptop’s camera.

Veronica rushes to slam her laptop shut as if he is going to jump out through the screen.

“What the hell was all that commotion?” Her gaze flickers to Shiro who is standing with a weary look at the entrance of the kitchen, a spatula in hand.

“N-nothing,” she says, quite disconnected. “He was just upset that the officer’s were dragging him.”

She has no idea why she lied. But Shiro already despises him. She guesses she doesn’t want more reasons for hate.

“Um, okay?” Shiro fixes her with a skeptical gaze, then shakes his head before disappearing into the kitchen.

She lowers herself to the floor, her mind reeling. She can’t grasp what just happened. This isn’t the first time he has asked if she has a boyfriend. She has always brushed it off. Maybe because he has never reacted like this, because today is the first time she told him yes.

“Well, are you done?” Shiro asks, strolling into the living room again, the smell of fried chicken following him in.

“Yeah,” Veronica murmurs, scooting across the floor until her back rests on the brown leather couch. “Another ten minutes of my life are gone.”

Reaching for the bowl of fried chicken Shiro has placed beside her, she grabs a piece.

“So same result, I guess?” he says with a confirmative tone then whirls around, walking back to the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Veronica mumbles, shaking off the memory of what just transpired between her and her dad. She doesn’t want to think too hard about it. She has no room in her head for that. So she shoves a drumstick into her mouth, taking a slow bite.

From a distance, she overhears Shiro grumble, “I can’t fathom why you persist in this. It’s literally the same result every damn time.”

“Well, he’s my dad,” she mumbles around the chicken in her mouth.

“No one is fighting over that fact with you.” She can almost see him rolling his eyes. “Keeping in touch with him won’t change the story or the narrative. He’s a killer. Will always be a killer.”

The truth, they say, hurts. Indeed, Shiro’s comment is a cold slap to the face. She hates to hear it, but it is the truth.

Or it can be a lie. Maybe her dad is a runaway spy. And because he doesn’t want to come back, they threaten to either hurt his family or he agrees to confess to a heinous crime so all the secrets of the country he has learned would remain sealed off with him behind a prison wall. And his family will be safe. So her dad being a very selfless, family-loving man, sacrificed his life to save his family.

Wow, this can really be a perfect plot for a good book.

“What do you think about soju?” Shiro asks from the kitchen.

“You have soju?” She quirks a brow, a little excited to feel something other than this disgusting thing swirling in her chest. She hasn’t taken soju in a long time. And she feels like shit right now, so she may as well get wasted a bit.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, his footsteps echoing into the living room as he returns with five bottles of soju and two shot glasses. “Got them yesterday.”

He drops to the floor next to her, his back to the couch. He pushes two bottles and a shot glass to her, then reaches for the bowl and grabs another drumstick.

“So…” He stretches his hand for the remote control next to Veronica’s laptop on the table. “Should we watch a Cdrama?”

“A sappy one? Yes,” she replies, pouring soju into the shot glass.

“What to watch, what to watch, what to watch…” Shiro chants in a hushed voice as one hand flips through drama channels while the other holds his drumstick firmly to his mouth.

“This sounds like some Cinderella type of shit,” Shiro says, glancing at Veronica, who is downing the second shot of soju.

“Rich man, poor woman?” She reads out, her face squeezed from the burning sensation of the spirit going down her throat. “Sounds cliche. Let’s watch it.”

“Okay,” Shiro cheers as he selects the series. He presses a remote he nabs from the couch and the lights in the room suddenly dim.

The theme song of the series kicks in, the characters introduced through comic-style animation as they float around the screen.

For the first few seconds, there is nothing but silence except for the faint, hollow sound of Veronica gulping down her third shot of soju like water.

“I’ve been meaning to ask.”

Her gaze flickers away from the screen, a piece of drumstick frozen between her lips. Shiro isn’t looking at her, but his words hit with precision.

She pulls the chicken from her mouth, a slow, deliberate motion. “Ask what?”

“What’s really up with that dude you’ve been talking to?” His tone is casual, uninterested, but she knows better. He doesn’t even bother saying his name. Because he doesn’t really know it. Because he never cared enough to ask.

At the thought of Raidon, though, heat spreads across her cheeks. The mere mention of him drags him into the room like a ghost, his presence flooding, painting over reality in a shade of him—his eyes, his voice, the way he speaks her name like a promise wrapped in danger.

“Raidon?” she asks, reaching for her phone on the cluttered table, her fingers brushing against the cool metal. Now that Shiro has brought him up, she might as well send him a quick text. She hasn’t spoken to him all day. And that’s unlike her.

“I don’t give a damn what his name is,” Shiro scoffs. “I just wanna know what your deal with him is. I mean, like you talk to him all the time, and he has even flown down to the States just to take you on a coffee date.”

Veronica rolls her eyes, her thumb hovering over the text button. “He’s my friend,” she says easily. “And who knows, a potential boyfriend soon?”

“Potential boyfriend?” his tone sharpens, like he can’t quite swallow the words.

Something tightens in her chest. Does he think Raidon is too much for her too, too out of reach? Is that why he never showed an ounce of interest whenever she brought him up?

“Yes, Shiro.” The word comes out clipped, defensive. “Boyfriend. Or what? You think he’s too much for a girl like me, too?”

“Come on, you know that’s not what I meant,” he defends quickly, his voice losing its teasing edge. “It’s just that...”

“Just that what?”

Shiro hesitates. Then, with complete seriousness, he says, “He’s technically Russian, despite his Japanese heritage.”

Veronica blinks at him, disbelief settling into her features. “What does his nationality have to do with this?”

Shiro takes a dramatic inhale, glancing around for any threat before his eyes fall back on her. Then he whispers, “What if he’s using you to spy on America?”

For a few seconds, she genuinely wonders if he has lost his mind. Then he bursts into laughter, his entire body shaking with it.

“I swear to God,” she chokes out, pressing a hand over her chest. “For a second, I actually thought you were being serious.”

“You should’ve seen your face,” Shiro wheezes, his cheeks flushed red.

“No, no, you actually had me for real.”

Their laughter fills the room, drowning out the cries of the woman on the television screen. The tension from earlier dissolves, replaced by an easy, familiar comfort. But when the laughter fades, Shiro’s expression sobers.

“Still,” he murmurs. “I need you to be careful.”

Veronica sighs, rubbing at her temple. “He’s a good man,” she says, unlocking her phone. Her fingers move without thought, then she types.

‘Hey, Snow white’

Shiro watches her, unimpressed. “You don’t know him.”

She meets his gaze briefly before looking back at her screen. “I learn a lot about him every day. I know him now more than I did the first time we met.”

“Vee—”

“Just drop it, Shiro.” Her tone slices the air as she groans, shoving a hand into the nearly empty bowl of chicken.

But she knows him. She knows him more than most people do.

A dull chime echoes in the room, the screen of her phone lighting up.

Snow white: Hi, Veronica.

Even if she doesn’t know him much, she knows he is a man who will always respond whenever she mindlessly types hi.