Chapter hundred and thirty seven

Chapter 137

Oliver

“Oliver! Calm the fuck down and listen to me.” Xavier yelled as I stepped out of the car and slammed the door hard, almost ripping it off it hinges.

He had followed me when I left our hideout after Alberto's confession. Ethan had stayed back to continue working on his laptop to see if he would discover something.

I didn't slow my pace or deign to give Xavier a response, but I heard his trailing footsteps behind me. I needed to get inside. Needed the confirmation that Dallas was truly taken.

A part of me still couldn't accept it. I kept telling myself there was no way she managed to get into my house.

I clung onto the belief because the alternative was so much worse. And I wasn't going to accept it.

“We can't just rush to the warehouse with guns. We need to gather more of our men and plan this thing. It could be a trap. Why would she take Dallas to the same place she held you captive twenty years ago? Think about it. And we all know nothing survived that massive fire. The place is basically in ruins.” he said.

“Maybe it got rebuilt. I don't know what to to think, Xavier.” I snapped.

I knew he was only being logical. His observations made absolute sense. But the logical part of my brain died the moment Mandy hinted she had Dallas.

I couldn't afford the time to wait and plan, or consider it being a trap. This was the only lead we've gotten and I plan on following it, even if it ends up being a dead end.

The house was eerily quiet when I walked in. Usually, the sound of Dallas and Heather chatting or the TV would have welcomed me by now. Ignoring the silence and what it might imply, I half sprinted up the stairs to our room.

Only an empty room greeted me. I brought out my phone and dialed Dallas's number, pacing to and fro in the room. I heard the phone ringing. A quick scan of the room and I found the phone lying on the bed next to a bag of chips.

Dread settled in me as the realization finally sunk in. She had indeed been taken captive by none other than Mandy. And she had been taken from right under my nose despite my supposedly ironclad security. Everyone on my security team was fucking dead as soon as I solved this.

My lungs constricted making it very difficult to get a breath down. I need to calm down so I could find her before anything bad happens.

My heart thrummed loudly in my ears as I walked out of the room, clutching Dallas's phone tightly in my hand.

“Heather!” I sprinted down the stairs.

Heather was the only worker allowed within the house and the only one who would probably knew what happened. But I had a feeling she would have called if she sensed Dallas in danger. Which left me to two conclusions.

Heather didn't know what happened to Dallas or she'd been abducted too.

“Oliver, you need to see this.” Xavier called, his voice laced with something I didn't care to decipher.

I trailed Xavier's voice to the kitchen. There, Heather was sprawled on the tiled floor, blood trickling out of her temple.

I went stiff at the sight of the blood, my mind already picturing it around someone else. The picture only added to the tension already crowding me.

I blinked the images away and crouched beside Xavier to examine Heather's unconscious body.

“She's still alive.” Xavier announced.

I nodded, a tiny bit of relief washing over me, but it didn't ease the weight in my chest. The question if Dallas was still alive weighed heavily on me. But I ignored it.

I couldn't think about that. She has to be alive. It's the only option I would accept.

“Take her to the hospital. I'll meet up with you soon.” I said.

Xavier looked up to me.
“You're going there alone? No freaking way!”

“There's no other option, Xavier. We are not having this argument when a girl is dying on the floor. She has already lost a lot of blood.” I groaned.

I didn't want Xavier to come with me because I don't want anyone else to get hurt. Heather was lying unconscious in my house. Tabitha got kidnapped because of what I asked her to do. She could be dead by now, although that was highly unlikely. Tabitha was my assistant. They would definitely need her for information if they truly planned on taking over my company.

I had failed everyone in my life. I promised Tabitha protection after the risky assignment I gave her, but I failed.

I had failed Dallas even more. I was supposed to protect her from any harm. But she got kidnapped and was probably tortured, right from under my protection. I shouldn't have left her alone.

“You can't go there alone. Gods, Oliver, would you just listen to me for once in your life? It's Mandy we're talking about here.” he yelled, clearly frustrated.

“No, I'm not listening. And I know exactly who I'm dealing with which is why I don't want you to come. The last time someone came to save me from that warehouse, he took a bullet for me and ended up getting burned alive. So no, you're not coming with me, Xavier. You, of all people, should understand how horrible it feels to see someone get hurt while protecting you.”

Xavier went silent as I said the last sentence. None of us like talking about Xavier's situation, just like we don't talk about my captivity twenty years ago.

But I was frustrated with him acting stubborn. This was something I had to do alone, and I needed him to understand that.

He stared at me for a while before nodding.
“You're taking some men with you. You can't talk your way out of that one.” He said.

I simply nodded. I needed someone to help me get Dallas to safety Incase I don't make it out. I didn't think I would.

Xavier gathered Heather's unconscious body in his arms and casted a sidelong glance at me before he carried her out of the house.

I went into the hidden gallery in my bedroom and to the weapons stashed there. I took a few things that I knew would be necessary before going to my home office.

The memory card I'd asked Tabitha to get from Ron's dash cam, the main reason she was probably captured, was lying in my top drawer.She had brought the physical despite the pictures she sent me.

I'd suspected Ron since the dinner at his house and he gave me that name. Park Seung.

I'd asked Joe to look into the owner of the name and he'd given me all the wrong things. It was since then I had suspected Joe wasn't been entirely truthful.

It made sense now. He had mentioned everything about Atlas and Lucien but conveniently forgot to mention Ron's involvement with the duo.

What solidified my suspicion was Ron's reaction to his daughter's engagement getting called off. Or the lack thereof. He hadn't seem fazed about it at all.

Then all of a sudden, we found out he was Dallas's father and he somehow knew about Lucien being alive. It all seem like a big distraction. I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was off with him.

After the ‘explosion’ that was supposedly for Dallas the other day, I tried looking if I could find any nearby footage so I could know exactly what happened. I couldn't find any obviously. So I did the next thing I could think of a asked Tabitha to get the memory card of Ron's car dash cam by any cost.

I learnt about Ron's involvement with Lucien after I wacthed the footage and saw them arguing. We were wrong then. The explosive was never meant for Dallas. It was simply meant to scare her and make us focus on something else.

Ig would also explain why my office was on such disarray. I grabbed the memory card and walked out of the house hurriedly.
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Seeing the warehouse again, even from a distance, after so many years was not what I imagined. It was way worse.

A part of me didn't want to proceed because I knew what waited for me inside. The screams. The pain. The blood. I didn't want to go through it again, but I didn't exactly have a choice. I have to.

“Sir, what should we do now?” One of my men asked.

I didn't completely throw Xavier's advice out of the window. While I didn't wait for his men to arrive, I took only five of mine with me.

I explained the interior of the warehouse as best as I could and split them to search different areas.

After taking orders from me, the five of the split and sprinted towards the warehouse, while hiding themselves from view.

I allowed myself five seconds to steady myself before sprinting towards the place that started my doom.