Chapter 54: New Family
"Fuck!" Alan hissed, kicking the side of the car and running his hands through his hair, disheveled and panicked. No one could know about this. Especially not his mother.
Desperation clawed at him as he stared at the men, his mind racing, knowing he was in way over his head.
He froze, suddenly remembering the trunk was still open. Casting a quick glance around and seeing no one in sight, he swiftly closed it, slipped into the driver’s seat, and pulled the door shut. His hands trembled as he started the car, fingers gripping the steering wheel as he fought to steady his breathing. Finally gaining control, he steered out of the compound.
As the car disappeared into the distance, a petite figure in white cotton pajamas emerged from the shadows, tapping her phone to end a video recording.
A smile tugged at her lips as she twirled the phone in one hand, while the other fingered the ends of her blonde hair tied into a high ponytail.
"First, Leandra was furious with her son, broke off his engagement to Ephyra, and got him engaged to that snake. Now Alan finds three men bound and stuffed in his trunk, gets a message, and falls into fear and rage. Hmm, just what have you gotten yourself into, dear stepbrother?" Ava murmured, tilting her head.
She didn’t know what was going on but...whatever it was, she was more than interested in watching it play out to the end.
|California, San Francisco.|
Elmira slipped into the darkness, her figure blending seamlessly with the shadows that blanketed Antonio Sanchez’s secluded villa. Nestled in the rolling hills of Nicasio, San Francisco, it was an isolated place—a perfect choice for someone obsessed with privacy and order. She had spent almost two weeks trailing him, learning everything about him. He was a man of routine, predictable down to the minute. His obsession with order and cleanliness, the way he timed each part of his day down to the second, and his insistence on his P.A. handling all interactions gave her all the information she needed. A man as meticulous as Antonio was a creature of habit, making it almost too easy to find the right moment to strike.
Through her tactical night vision goggles, Elmira surveyed the villa, patrolled by armed guards. Her left hand moved to the laptop balanced on her knee, fingers gliding over the screen as she cycled through feeds from the cameras she had set up earlier. Every exit, every approach, the whole property—mapped and monitored.
The feed displayed Sanchez alone in his study, reviewing documents as she expected. He was neatly dressed in a dark three-piece suit despite the late hour, hair meticulously combed, not a thread out of place. He moved, checking each file before setting it back on his immaculate desk. The last ten days had shown her every angle of his life, yet nothing about him stirred any emotion within her. He was a job, nothing more.