Chapter 101: That includes you.
"What’s the update on your side?"
Venz’s voice crackled through the phone, low and impatient against the suffocating silence of my room.
The only light came from the computer in front of me. Its glow painted my face in shifting shades of blue and green, the reflection of endless data flickering across the screen. Numbers blurred into lines, names into codes, yet none of them were what I needed. The light caught the strands of my red hair, staining them green each time the monitor refreshed.
I tightened my grip around the phone until my knuckles whitened. My other hand hovered over the keyboard, fingers frozen mid-motion as I scanned through another dead end.
Nothing.
Again.
I bit the inside of my lower lip, forcing myself to stay focused despite the growing pressure tightening around my chest.
"Still negative," I muttered at last. Even to my own ears, my voice sounded strained.
A sharp breath escaped me as I leaned back against the chair, staring at the sea of information scattered across the monitors. Normally, this kind of work was effortless. It was second nature to me.
People called me a genius when it came to finding information. There were even idiots who joked that I could uncover a person’s entire life before they finished introducing themselves.
And maybe they weren’t wrong.
I had spent years building connections in places ordinary people would never even hear about—politicians, brokers, underground forums, private databases, black market networks. If information existed somewhere in the world, I could usually reach it. Almost no one escaped my grasp once I decided to look for them.
That certainty had become a part of me.
Results and success came naturally.
So naturally that I had never learned how to deal with failure.
My eyes drifted back toward the screen, settling on the blinking cursor waiting mockingly for another command. For the first time in a long while, doubt crawled beneath my skin like something alive.
I had never felt a responsibility this suffocating before.
"Shit." A low curse echoed from the other end of the line before the call ended with a sharp beep, leaving the room in silence once more.
I let out a long sigh, dragging a hand down my face.
I didn’t know when I started caring this much about someone I barely knew, but all I could do now was hope she was safe. As long as she still existed somewhere out there, nothing else mattered anymore. She could marry someone else, pretend I never existed, erase me from her life completely—none of that mattered.
"Anything... please," I muttered under my breath, eyes fixed on the endless lines of data crawling across the screen.
I couldn’t let anything happen to her.
The thought repeated in my head like a prayer, ironic considering I never believed in God.
Damn. I never realized loving someone could turn me religious.
Right then, a notification suddenly flashed across the screen.
Here’s your request. Better take me on a date after all the trouble I had just to give you this. You’re an absolute trash of a person, but I love the sex ❤️😉
A message from one of my exes.
A second later, several encrypted links followed after it—CCTV access from different parts of the city.
My posture straightened immediately. The exhaustion weighing on my body vanished as my eyes narrowed at the screen. I clicked the files one by one, carefully scanning every frame for even the smallest trace.
"Whoever’s helping her sure knows how to do their job," I muttered after another useless result appeared.
Hours passed with nothing but footage after footage playing across my monitors. My eyes burned from staring too long, and a dull ache settled along my back and shoulders. I leaned back slightly, rolling my stiff neck with a quiet groan just as another video loaded onto the screen.
Then I saw it.
A smirk slowly pulled at my lips.
"Bingo."
I snapped my fingers before leaning forward again, fingers gliding across the keyboard almost instinctively. Muscle memory took over completely, my hands moving on their own as lines of commands rapidly filled the screen.
The next file loaded faster than the rest.
My fingers paused mid-air, hovering just above the keyboard. The screen shifted—grainy footage resolving into something clearer than the others.
I bit my lip, my face only inches away from the screen.
Positive. It’s Eleina.
The cursor stopped blinking as if even the system itself was holding its breath with me. My eyes tracked every frame, every shadow, every movement in the video, making sure I’m not making a mistake.
There.
A flicker of motion at the edge of the feed. My hand moved again, instinctively zooming in, sharpening the angle, pulling every available detail from the footage as it owed me answers.
Just a little more.
Just—
Then all of a sudden, the door behind me exploded open.
"KAIZER—!"
I barely had time to turn my head.
A fist slammed into my face.
The impact snapped my head to the side, chair scraping violently against the floor as my body jolted from the force. Metal and papers clattered somewhere behind me. The taste of iron hit my tongue almost instantly.
My vision blurred for a second, lights fracturing across my screen like broken glass.
"What the hell—" I started, voice sharp despite the sting, but another hit cut the words off.
Venz grabbed my collar, yanking me forward hard enough that the chair tilted dangerously beneath me. His breathing was ragged, eyes wild with something between panic and anger.
"Why didn’t you tell me?!" he shouted. "How dare you lie in front of my face?!"
I blinked through the sting in my eye, slowly turning back toward the screen even as his grip tightened. The footage was still there. Still playing. Still—
Almost.
I didn’t understand what was happening, but I almost found her.
"Let go," I said flatly, trying to push his hand off me without looking away. ’What do you think you’re doing?!" my face contorting into confusion and anger.
That earned me another shove instead. My back hit the edge of the desk.
"You’re still denying it?!" Venz snapped, shaking me slightly. Before throwing a bunch of photos in front of me.
My brow furrowed. My fingers twitched toward the floor as I slowly picked it up.
"It was all over social media," he took a step forward. "Listen. I didn’t care about your relationship with my wife, but she’s mine. Only mine, and I’m willing to take the life of anyone who dares to go between us."
Then, he took his gun and pressed it to my forehead.
"That includes you."
