Chapter 45 — Alice

Henry:

“FUCK!”

I had never been this anxious before in my lifetime. Not even when that fucking murderer had taken away my sister. My mind didn’t work and my body filled with rage. I was going to kill that bastard who took away my wife. I just wanted him dead.

I headed toward Ava’s room and banged the door open, and walked in. She was the only person who was with her at the time of Alice’s kidnapping.

Vivian stood beside Ava’s bed with his arms folded over his chest and his eyes fixed on her sister. “Ava!” I approached her bed.

She lifted her gaze at me. Her body was pale and weak, and she had bandages wrapped around her neck. “Henry,” she whispered, and couldn’t speak properly.

“Tell me who took her. Who has kidnapped her?” My voice was harsh even though I was broken from inside. Every single second my mind stayed on Alice, her beautiful face, her eyes, and her divine smile.

Ava didn’t utter a word, just staring at me with her tearful eyes, and it fucking annoyed me.

“Just tell me, dammit, who were they?” I growled.

She jolted at my harsh voice.

Fuck.

“Keep your fucking voice down! Can't you see she is scared?” Vivian snarled.

I lifted my eyes at him. “I’m talking to her.”

“You are talking to my sister!” he snapped, narrowing his eyes.

I closed my eyes to calm my brain down. I didn't have time for fighting. “Ava.” I softened my voice.

“T-those people were in a black suit and black glasses. I didn’t see their faces clearly, and they also had weapons. That’s all I know.” Her voice was shaky, clearly witnessing that she was fucking scared. “I-I tried to help her but someone had attacked me from behind and she was a woman.”

Woman? Damn!

I eyed the bandages around her neck; she had already suffered a lot because of me and now I was giving her more pain. She was my best friend and the best person in my life. She was the girl who had given me courage in my hard times and always supported me. And now I was scaring her. I had never been so harsh to her before, but this time my mind and heart belonged to a single woman. She was my wife, and she needed me. I couldn’t think straight.

I held her hand softly and looked into her gorgeous eyes. “I’m sorry, Ava. I’m damn worried about my wife. I don’t understand what to do. You are my only hope, so I just…” I closed my eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath. I had never shown my weak side to anyone but damn that day I was fucking losing everything. “Just take care of yourself,” I sighed and stood up and walked out of the room.

*****

Dad stepped into my room quietly. “Dad, I’m not in the mood, so please, leave me alone!” I snapped without looking at him. I knew he was worried about Alice, but I was fucking scared for her. I just wanted some time to think about how to find her. I didn’t want to see my father. I didn’t want to see anyone!

“It is important, Henry. I want to talk to you about something very important,” he said guiltily and refused to look into my eyes.

Something was off!

“Something very important?”

“It’s all my fault. I should have told you before.” His voice was barely audible.

I frowned in confusion. “What are you talking about, Dad? Make it clear.”

“I know the man who has kidnapped Alice.”

"What?" I blurted, shocked. What the fuck is he talking about? He knew the man who kidnapped my wife.

I walked over to him, furious. “You better clear up everything!” I gritted out, glaring at him hard. Fuck! I hate to talk to him like that!

“K-Kian Taylor,” he stammered while averting his eyes. “He kidnapped her.”

“Kian Taylor?” The name appeared to be familiar like I had heard it before.

“Kian Taylor. He is the man who killed your mother and sister, who ripped out your sister’s throat, and who shot your mother. He was the man whom you have been searching for twenty years.”

For a few seconds, I watched him blankly. Kian Taylor! The man who destroyed my family. He was the man who murdered my sister and left her dead body in front of my eyes. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! He was the same fucking man I had been hunting for twenty years. How could I not know about him? My father had known him but he did not bother to tell me once. How much effort I had put into finding him, I didn’t sleep; I didn’t eat and spent my entire time trying to find him and here my father knew everything? Damn him! All I craved was my revenge. I had been waiting to see the man who had killed my mother and sister. And I wanted to give him the cruelest death with my hand.

And now I came to know that my father already knew everything about him. He was informing me now when that fucking bastard took away my wife.

If anything would happen to Alice, I would kill myself before seeing her dead body. I would never forgive myself if he would touch her. I damn loved her, and I couldn’t endure the pain if he took away my love.

My fucking love.

For the past twenty years, I have been living like shit. I had become a stone. No pain, no emotion, no feeling, and the only thing that had left was hatred. But when my wife entered my life, my life changed. She lit up my dark world; she showed me the beauty of the world; she made me feel what love is, and she was the only hope in my life.

“I should not have stopped her from telling you the truth.” My father said, “What! What did you say? She knew about Kian Taylor?” Alice! She had already known about my sister’s killer? Fuck! It broke my heart into a million pieces. How could she do this to me? She knew everything about my enemy but still, she kept me in the dark, knowing how important it was to me. I felt like she betrayed me.

“Did she know about Kian Taylor?” I asked him again.

“The man who was stalking her was Kian Taylor. I had told her everything about him. He even threatened me that he would kill Alice and you. I was scared, Henry! I didn’t want to lose you. I knew that if you came to know about your sister’s murderer, you would go for revenge.”

“It doesn’t make any sense, Dad. I will kill him anyway. I’m not eight years old, Henry. And if he dares to touch my woman, I’ll rip out every inch of his body and I don’t care if I die or go to jail later.”

“Henry.”

“No, Dad, if I won’t see my wife again, then you won’t see your son again.”

*****

“What about tracing the call?” I asked one of my men on the phone. I had hired men to search for that fucker, but no one found anything about the bastard’s whereabouts so far.

“S-sorry, sir,” he stammered. “We're trying…” Before he could complete himself, I threw my phone across the wall, making it into two pieces.

As time went on, my hopes went down. I felt an anxiety attack with every passing second. I felt strange, something which I had never experienced before. It was Kelvin all over again, her dead body.

No! I had to protect my wife at any cost.

“Sorry, Henry, by mistake my wine spilled on this file. Your investigator gave me this file and said this is very important to you. What’s in it,” Alice asked me curiously.

“I was investigating the person who tried to kill you. And this is damn important to me. I want to kill the man who tried to kill my wife.”

“Oh my god, when my husband became a killer.” She smiled beautifully. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry about those men because they didn’t come to kill me. They were after Vivian. You know him very well as a Mafia leader. And Vivian already has taken down that shooter. Believe me, he has already killed them. So your investigation was useless.”

Why did you lie to me, Alice? You knew that Kian Taylor’s name was mentioned in the file, so why did you keep me in the dark? I trusted her more than anything, but I felt like I had lost her trust. I was fucking angry with her. She didn’t know how much I loved her.

My eyes paused at my wife's photo which was set on the nightstand next to our bed. She was in a dark blue gown perfectly matching her creamy skin and her long curled light brown hair falling over her shoulders loosely and cascading down her back. The most alluring thing about her was her deep light brown eyes. Alice, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever met.

Shit! But she was not with me, and it made me fucking miserable.

If you aren’t with me, Alice, then there is no meaning in my life. What would I be doing without you?