2023-04-06 23:13:03
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Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 169. Shutter
I hear footsteps coming from the stairs and Lemon’s expression stutters.“So now you know, I’ve got nothing to do with this case. If I give my name to the police, there is a possibility that my family would find me, and I don’t want that to happen. I left New York because a friend told me that someone had the bright idea of putting my picture on social media with the name of the bar I worked at. I had no plan at all coming here,” he says quickly, “but you guys took me in, and became my friends. That’s…that’s amazing. I never had anyone trust me so much before, especially when they had all the reasons to distrust someone, they barely knew suddenly barging into their lives with no warning whatsoever! And rest assured I’m not going to break that trust. I’m going to do whatever I can to help you find Coraline, and if that means jeopardizing my location, then so be it.”He turns on his heel and leaves the room as the Grangers return to it, dressed to travel to the police station in demure
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 170. Blame
“Yeah, this is not junk mail,” Detective Hank Reverend mutters, opening the email. There’s no subject in it, but there’s a blue-colored link in the description section. Just that, without any sort of explanation whatsoever.“It looks like the sort of thing someone would do to give you a virus,” says Lemon, looking over the detective’s shoulder. The officers look at him, and he elaborates, “You know, whenever warning posts go all over social media telling us not to click any links we get in emails or messages under no names or numbers we don’t recognize?”One officer, Dale I believe, glances at the detective and asks, “Should we send this to the cyber unit?”“Not yet. I think we should click it first,” the detective decides, “but I’m going to screen record, and someone needs to record this.”“You mean screen record and manual record both?” I question, knowing fully that I’m going to lose that phone after this definitely.“Yeah.” I scramble behind him, taking the phone that Gerald hands
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 171. Find her.
As soon as the razor blade comes down on her cheek, I drop the phone in my hand and run out of the house.I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know where Coraline is being kept, but something within me just snaps, and all I can see is the glint of metal under that light in that dark room, and rage rises like an inferno within me. I throw the door open and dash out, taking a sharp left turn toward the direction of the city. There is nothing running in my mind but Coraline’s name chanting over and over again, with the imagery of the razor and the man running simultaneously, and I can’t even hear the pounding of my feet on the platform through the blood rush in my ears, and the wind rushes in my face as I make my legs move faster and faster, and I need to get to Coraline right now before he harms her even more because god only knew what he was going to her already and oh fuck he cut her, that goddamn bastard cut her I’m going take that fucking razor off his hand and slash it across his
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 172. Video
After everything is done at the police stations, an entry was filed, statements taken, and my phone confiscated in order for the cyber department to trace the email just in case, although the email had already been automatically deleted, I pull Detective Reverend to the side.“The video,’ I begin, “was not a live stream, was it? It was recorded.”“It’s most likely a recording. Livestreaming it would be far riskier because we would’ve been able to trace it to him. But a recording, well, that’s hard.” He looks around the station, and signals me to come closer, “I’m not supposed to be telling any of this to you because it pertains to an ongoing investigation, but the whole thing was heavily encrypted. You saw the redirects yourself. Whoever got Coraline Granger is not an amateur, he’s a pro at this whole computer thing. Do you have any idea who in your life would have that much talent?”“I don’t know,” I reply miserably because I want to give him an answer so badly. But who in my life wo
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 173. Connection
After I tell the detective Aaron’s name, he flies into action to dig up any record they might have of him from the criminal and non-criminal databases the police have. The other members of our party are eventually released from questioning and look alert as they make their way toward one of the waiting rooms.“Jace what did you tell the detective?” asks my father as soon as I enter the room, looking bewildered. “He came in said something, and then everyone started to run around like someone set their heads on fire.”“I just told him about one suspicion I have,” I reveal to the gatherers.“Who?” Mrs. Granger demands before I can even finish with the sentence, “Who is it do you think took my baby?”“What? No, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” I quickly amend, “The detective asked me if I know anyone who might have any negative attitudes towards Coraline, you know, someone who talked all possessive about her, and only one name came into my mind.”Both Mr. and Mrs. Granger understand what
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 174. Pay for it.
“So, I don’t know if this is to be classified as good news, or bad news,” Detective Reverend says after half an hour since I gave him the name of Aiden Collins as a likely suspect in the kidnapping case. “But it’s news, alright. Aiden Collins is most likely dead according to the authorities of the country he had gone missing in. They’re still searching for him because of his father’s influence, which means Aaron Collins must be funding the operation now. Whether that’s legal or illegal, I got no idea, but for clarity’s sake let’s all pretend it’s legal even if it’s not. But the gist of the story is, Aiden had taken a less-than-stellar hiking trail and disappeared into some god-awful rainforest. Local authorities suspect either the predator in the area or the terrain got him.”“Wow,” I comment unthinkingly, letting that sink in, “I kinda feel sorry for the bastard.”The detective raises a brow, “so, no love lost, then?”“I wish I could say he was a decent man before all this, detective
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 175. Save her.
Waiting for something to happen is agonizing, and there is no way I could do that by sitting at home by myself. I want to search the city, I want to go through the subway every which way to see if I could get one single clue of where Coraline had been taken to, and I’m so tired of looking at a map of the city wondering where the hell she was being held, all while trying to decipher the identity of the person who had taken her from us, from me.I try to piece together the mystery within the confines of my home, and that proves a difficult task. I know that it only took exactly six hours and twenty-five minutes for us to get any kind of clue about Coraline’s kidnapping. Six hours and twenty-five minutes had gone from the time Lemon got her last text. And in order to send us such an encrypted video, the kidnapper must’ve needed a good amount of time. Maybe two hours, or something similar, if the guy was as much of a pro as I thought. So that meant rationally, contrary to the detectives’
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 176. Meet her
“How am I not supposed to interfere?” I question Lemon, pacing around the length of the drawing room I’d found myself in after entering my father’s residence. There is nothing different about this house than any other night. The ambient lighting is soothing and bright at the same time, the electric fireplaces start as soon as anyone enters a room with one thanks to fancy schmancy newfangled sensor technology because my father has to be extra that way, and the security team is milling around the estate. The housekeepers had come and left, judging by how squeaky clean everything is. Those people are really stealthy, and I’d only met them once or twice. They come in daily and make sure the house is at its best and then leave without a sound.Nothing is different. It feels as large and impersonal as it was the day before yesterday and the day before. Although it felt more like home since I came to live here, it was still sterile. But I’d grown familiar with it, and for a while, I’d been t
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261. Supernatural?
“Oh, fuck!” I let out as I spring away from where I’d been lying with my head on Estelle’s lap. “Holy shit, I’m normal! I’m normal!”I pat at my body, and sure enough, it’s two-legged, hairless, and my hands are actually my hands! With fingers and pink skin, with only some fine hair on my forearms, and no black fur in sight!I immediately look behind me, and nearly cry in relief when I see that I have a normal, human posterior, not one with a tail.And to my surprise, my clothes are still intact though I had ripped them when I had turned into a dog, but they were still here. Thank God, because I did not fancy getting naked for the second time today.“I did not think that would happen,” Estelle comments, and I turn to her. She doesn’t look too shocked at my reappearance as a human. She stands up from where she had been sitting, brushing off her pants as if on habit before turning to me with a smile, “Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t call that hospital.”I stare at her for a moment, won
260. Scream
I cower near the toilet, scared out of my fricking mind as the door opens, hoping to everything holy that she would not freak out, which is stupid considering who would not freak out when they see an animal in a room where they initially left a human in?But to my utter surprise, when Estelle opens the door, she does not scream or throw anything at me.Instead, she blinks.Once.Twice.And then she opens her mouth to say, “Oh.”I blink at her. What did she mean oh? There’s a fricking dog creature in her bathroom and no sign of a human, the human that came to her house naked in the middle of the rain! Why does she look so calm and curious? Why is she looking at me like this was every other Tuesday in her life? I feel so confused that a whine falls from my throat, and that seems to snap her out of her contemplative stare.“I didn’t realize that you were one of them,” she tells me in a confused tone, brows furrowed, “I mean, it’s not like I’m new to this, I should’ve been able to smell y
259. Coming in
I felt different.It was like everything that made me myself, my personality, my conscience, my thinking, and my control over my body, had been plucked out of the said body and then put into a small box somewhere in my mind. I didn’t have any control of my body, although I could feel my body, but then I could not actually feel like I did every day. No, it felt like it wasn’t my body, but then it felt like my body, but not my body again…I didn’t know what to make out of this. My head hurt, and I felt like my breathing capacity had increased and my legs had shortened, and I couldn’t stand up regardless of my somewhat dubious control I tried to open my mouth to talk but couldn’t do that either.And my visions feel weird, everything feels lower than it did before whatever happened to me happened, and the pictures flitting through my eyes seem far more intense than normal. I can hear so many noises as well, the fill of water in the tank somewhere, the sloshing of liquid in the septic tank
258. Get out.
“Okay, so this is going to sound utterly unbelievable at first,” I say, “but bear with me, okay? This really happening and I am not lying, not one bit.”Estelle raises a brow at me. “Okay, normally, if someone tries to defend themselves that much, I might get a little suspicious, but then again what happened to your girlfriend made it to the news and I would never have thought anything like that taking place outside movies or books so I’m going to let you tell your story and pass judgment afterward.”“Fair. To be honest, I don’t even know if I should tell you all this considering there’s still an active investigation happening,” not that the active investigation was doing anything to help. You would think that after being one of the centerpieces of a murder and kidnapping investigation you would be questioned by authorities daily and at least be sent to jail once, but so far, we were only hearing crickets from the police side. It felt like they were truly living under the impression t
257. Ex
Estele sighs, running her fingers through her hair.“I honestly don’t know at this point,” she says, “I’ve never really given any serious thought about this. I knew from the start that I was going to be very careful when having sex with people and was always prepared up until yesterday. And like I told you, I’m not the one for hookups and one-night stands. I love relationships, and I’d gotten out of one just mere months ago and still am not over it, not really.”“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I wince, wondering how two similar people like us could’ve done the same mistake, “was it a bad breakup? I didn’t bring back any memories or something, did I?”Estelle gives out a snort of laughter at that.“No, dude, I can’t even remember the hookup so nothing like that happened,” she reminds me, “and it wasn’t a messy breakup per se. I just…we fell out of love, you see. I never thought that would happen in a relationship. We had been dating for like two years now, and I honestly thought that the next step
256. Good news
After spending quite some time rifling through her wardrobe, Estelle comes downstairs to where I’m sitting on one of her mauve-colored couches with a fluffy blanket wrapped around my frame, holding some clothes.“Good news,” she grins at me, “there are some clothes one of my friends left here after staying the night, and she is about your size. So, if you don’t have an issue with pink,” she hands me the large pink t-shirt she’s got bundled in her hand with a wry quirk to her lips, “and basketball shorts,” she hands me bright red basketball shorts, “then these are yours.”I squint at the combination and comment, “You know, I don’t mean any offense, but who on earth wears this combo even to bed?” The t-shirt is fuchsia with cute, squiggly sheep jumping over a bright green patch of grass. It is truly an assault on the senses, and the less said about the shorts the better.Estelle snorts, “She’s a bit into the eclectic side of fashion. You want me to try and find something else?”“Oh, no,
255. Brain Injury
“Follow me,” I’m being instructed as soon as I enter the quaint little house through the doors. I take a brief look around, my newly deepened senses getting acquainted with the new surroundings I’ve found myself in, and there's nothing to complain about. The lavender and cream scent that emanated from Estelle permeated every available surface of the house and then some, along with the intermingling scents of the cut flowers artistically arranged in various cute vases on almost every available flat surface, one vase each, and the smell of firewood burning in the fireplace. The wallpapers are mauve themes, the skirtings are white, and the floor is made of polished hardwood, and the house lighting is ambient. There is a window seat near the large window I failed to see from the outside, and the wall next to the window is covered with a bookrack. I squint at the old-looking books, trying to see if there are any names on the spines. Some have names, but a lot of them are nameless.Interest
254. Cover
I try to see if there are any materials lying around in what seems to be the backyard of the house, but there are only flowering plants and herbs, neatly grown in flowerbeds and growing heartily, all over the yard. It’s not fenced or gated, and while to me that looks like a bad move security-wise, I guess the residents of this quaint little house do not think so.It’s actually a cottage, by the looks of it, and extremely old-fashioned at that. Blue in color, freshly painted, with white windows and doors, as well as a black tiled roof that had an opening for a chimney.Smoke is coming out of the chimney, and the glow of evening lights emanates from behind the white curtains that had been put behind the windows. It looks homely, and surely someone living in a home like this would not turn away someone needing help, would they?I desperately wish I had something to cover myself, but sadly there is not, so I try to use my hand. Never have I felt this humiliated by a circumstance, and I h
253. Woods
There's something wet on my face. That is the first thing that registers in my mind when I start to gain consciousness from the sea of darkness that my being had been submerged in. The wetness is cold, cold enough to shock me into the real world from wherever it was I had been before, where darkness was a constant. The second thing I register is pain. It's the kind of pain that you would expect to overtake your body after extensive surgery done by some amateur medical professional after a rather terrifying car accident. I feel like I'm cut up and being sewn off raw, with needles pricking onto my skin from everywhere all at once. The wetness starts to increase, and soon enough through the pain, I realize that this had got to be water. What kind of water, I'm not sure. But judging by the force of the icy drops colliding with my skin, I feel like it's rain. Why am I being drenched by rain? Why do I feel so hurt? What's going on? I do not know, but I have been through enough harrowin
