Chapter 21: In Which All Goes Black

The main doors open to reveal Richard Takahashi who walks in casually and stops directly in front of Vincent who had been waiting in the hall for the past half an hour.
Vincent gulped knowing how powerful the man in front of him is, this is the man he had dreamed on working for as a right hand, he admired this man's cruelty, the business tactics, the empire he created, some might even call Vincent obsessed.
"It's a pleasure to meet you sir" Vincent greeted with a slight bow of his head.
"Yes, yes moving on, I hear you have intel on my stolen consignment, spill it or leave, I don't have time for non-sense right now"
"I'll get straight to the point then, it was Ashton Hayes who gave the details out to the serpents, he is the rat in your team" Richard Takahashi stupid still for a moment and looked at the man standing in front of him with a scrutinizing gaze.
"How do you know Ashton? who are you and how did you know about to my consignment in the first place?" He asked, arms crossed on his chest now as he stared Vincent down.
"My name is Vincent Costello, I work for you as part of the clean up team, I have worked with Ashton and I have had my suspicion on his loyalty to the mafia family for a
while now" Vincent said.
"Why the fuck would I believe you telling me that my appointed right hand man who I pay more than enough to keep him satisfied
would betray me? for all I know, you are the rat cause as far as I know, I didn't leak this information to my fucking cleaning crew" Takaheshi seethed and Vincent quiped.
Vincent realized he was too hasty for the prize and that he hadn't completely thought this through because he definitely hadn't considered the mob boss lashing out at him, he had considered praise that he would get after he ratted Ashton out.
"It wasn't me, it was Ashton, it's pretty simple, Ashton was recently promoted by you so he probably gained access to all the inside activities of the mafia, this was most likely his goal all along, to get in your good graces and then sell information to the serpents, I mean it's logical, you've hardly had any rat problems before since people are already scared of the Takaheshi name, they wouldn't dare betray and face consequences but then as soon as you promote Ashton, inside info gets leaked and your consignment gets stolen" Vincent states.
There was indeed truth to his words. Richard remembered Ashton asking him access to the database, he could've somehow gotten in and gotten the information.
They had no other leads right now so it was wise to at least bring him in for firm questioning specially if everything pointed at him as the suspect.
"You are not going anywhere till this is cleared out, I am gonna get Ashton in for questioning" Takaheshi said and Bincent smirked at his reply.
"If you call him in he would of course deny, you have to catch him red handed or with some sort of incriminating evidence against him" Vincent suggested.
"What do you suggest I do since you seem to know so much?"
"I say you raid his house, get his computer or USB or whatever and check for the file that might show your consignment details, everything will clear out then, also, you should bring his girlfriend is as motivation, he is whipped"
"I'll personally lead the raid to his house, I don't know about the girlfriend, I'll get her to punish him if he really is responsible for this whole ordeal" Takaheshi replied.
Vincent was a little disappointed that they weren't bringing Sora in considering, with her held hostage, Ashton would hold nothing back. However, he took what was given.
"Okay, sounds like a plan sir"
Sora got out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her which was way too big on her considering all the extra towels that Ashton had were all the same size and fit for his built. She smiled at the thought of him as she looked at herself in the mirror of his walk in.
She had woken up late due to their little ministrations the night before when sora had gotten bold and returned the favor of the pleasure that she had received, now thinking about it she couldn't believe she was the same girl because just the thought made her flush deep red.
However, to her disappointment, she had woken up to an empty bed with only a post it on the bedpost informing that he had work to take care of and that he'll be home late. Sora couldn't be too disappointed considering that he was with her most of the last week and whenever he was with her, he gave her his undivided attention.
She had been spending more and more time at Ashton's place, he had wen emptied half of his walk-in closet for her and she had several outfits hang there, most of which were bought by Ashton and were basically brand new.
She missed him already.
She decided on wearing a comfortable pink full sleeves t-shirt that read "carpe diem" in white bold letters on the front. She paired it with some comfy pineapple Pj's since she was basically going to have a lazy day as she didn't have to go to work.
The cafe had been bringing in great profits and Ashton suggested that she can hire a part time employee to take rerponsibility on the days she didn't feel like going to work,well he had initially offered to hire an worker for her on his own expense but she was quick to shoot that idea down.
He had been spoiling her rotten with all the designer clothings, fragrances and the new convertible laptop he had bought her when he got to know she was into digital art. she loved the gifts but they also made her feel guilty considering that she couldn't afford to buy him stuff like that, not to mention, he had everything he wanted or needed already, so she compensated him by Learning to make all sorts of delicious meals for him and with lots and lots of love and cuddling, the last one she mostly did for selfish purposes.
After she was dressed, she sat on the bed, scrolling through her phone where all of a sudden she heard a loud bang that had her jumping three feet in the air and then there was commotion outside.
Sora gulped in fear as she set her phone aside on the bed and slowly got up.
She took slow steps towards the door, she could heal several footsteps and voices from outside.
"It seems he isn't home" she heard one of-them saying.
She quietly pinched the door lock close. By now her hands were shaking.
"I don't see the laptop or anything in the living room boss" she heard another voice say.
"Go search the bedroom the"
Sora quickly backed away from the door and rushed towards her phone which was on the bed'she could hear the footsteps approaching the bedroom.
Grabbing her phone, she quickly crawled under the bed and dialed Ashton.
By now the door knob was furiously rattling as someone was trying to get inside. Sora choked in a sob she was deathly scared.
Ashton wasn't picking up his phone and it had sora even more nervous. Just as she was about to dial 911 another gunshot was heard which had her securing her ears with her hands.
They had shot the lock open and two men made their way inside. Sora covered her month as to ol make a sound.
"Someone's definetely in here, the door was locked from inside, search the closet, I'll search the room" one of the men said.
Sora quickly got a hold of her phone without making as lee noise as she could in order to dial the police but she was too late as she felt someone grab her legs and yank her out from under the bed with brute force as she scratched the floor for any sort of friction.
"Gotcha" the man who held her against him said with a measly smile as she squirmed to get of his grip.
He held her hands at her back in a bruising grip as he dragged her out of the room, kicking and screaming into the living room.
"sir, I found this girl in the bedroom, hiding" he told the man who stood in the middle of the living room as if he owned the place, he exuded power and authority, There was no doubt in that indeed it just made Sora struggle even more as tears cascaded down her face.
"And who do we have here? my my, you're beautiful my darling" the man standing in the middle asked.
"I don't know who you are, please let me go please" she pleaded.
"Are you by any chance Ashton's little girlfriend?" the question was more rhetoric.
Sora didn't reply, just squirmed against her captors hold.
"I'll take that as a yes, You weren't suppose to be here, I didn't plan to find you here, bit this is an added bonus I guess"
"Boss we found the laptop and his hard drive, they are all password protected though"one of the men came out holding Ashton's laptop and hard drives.
"Fine, we'll take them with us, get a computer geek to open it. Put the girl to sleep we are taking her as insurance and I don't want to hear her kicking and screaming all the way back" Their leader said as he walked out.
The next thing sora felt was a painful pinch at the side of her neck before she slowly lost consciousness.