Chapter 43

Chapter 43
  Stephen's POV
The look on Jason's face is enough to tell me that the news about my Grandfather was certainly not good. 
 " your Grandfather was involved in an accident " The words gut me like a knife to the throat. 
 I'm lost for words and the whole world comes crumbling down like ruins of a mountain 
" What?, how did that even happen? " I ask, my voice barely audible as my mood shifts from shock to denial 
" That's not possible " I whisper to myself shaking my head in denial.
 I spoke to him like thirty minutes ago and he was on his way to have a meeting with Mayor Dimitri after which he'll have a meeting with the Press to answer some questions concerning the on going saga. As I do some breathing exercise to calm myself down, I can feel my wife's eyes boring through my soul and Jason waiting for a word, a reaction or anything. 
 " Where is he? " I finally ask after calming my inner turmoil, my voice void of any emotion 
He comes closer and whispers the answer, loud enough for only me to hear. He was being cleaned and attended to by private nurses at home.
 Any emotion asides rage was considered a weakness in my world, it was better to be shot fifty times than to cry infront of anyone. Moreover At this moment I didn't feel the need to cry or wail, just the need to get to the bottom of this and punish the offender. My Grandfather did not just get into an accident while a serious case is ongoing, it's most definitely not a coincidence. 
 I look back at my wife who's looking at me with concern
 " Are you okay? " She asks concerned 
I nod " I'm fine " 
 My mum enters the room, her eyes red and puffy from crying. She immediately walks into my arms, crying her eyes out again. It breaks me to see her weep like this. Grandpa had been that father figure to both of us, he held the family together for the longest time. Even when my Grandmother died, he had to push his grief to the side just to attend to any other pressing need whether in the family or in Northenham. 
 " I know all of this was planned, you have to get to the bottom of this " She looks up at me with teary eyes
I nod " I will mother, I'll find out who did this and punish the person . . . " 
 Before I'm able to complete my sentence, Jason whispers to me that I have a call from Lucas. I excuse myself after instructing my mum to keep an eye on my wife; I don't trust her to not use this opportunity to rum away although I doubt she'll make it far since she's almost due for delivery. 
 When outside I immediately take the call, Lucas explains that the driver had betrayed us. My hands ball into a fist, itching to break something.
 " I believe he was paid to deliberately drive into the truck and the aim was to kill everyone in the car plus himself. Surprisingly he survived the accident with great difficulties but he requires some major surgeries for this punctured lungs " 
That's quite interesting, what a twist of event 
" A large sum of money was wired to his family account yesterday from an unknown sender " 
 " How much and which bank in Northenham initiated that transfer " i ask rubbing my chin 
" well over a hundred million but the bank is not in Northenham but in Soilhyll. The account belongs to a long deceased man, should've gone dormant by now so I don't understand how it was used to make a transfer of that magnitude " 
" an account of a long deceased person in Soilhyll " The person behind this had the money and power to pull something like this so it's unlikely that the Greens are involved in this considering that they're in a very tight spot right now and definitely short on money
 " Get all the information you can about anything related or closely related to the accident, even the tiniest detail " I say then turn to Jason " Get me the room number of the driver and make sure he survives the operation at any cost. And the location of his family. " 
 After giving out a couple of instructions to him, I leave the hospital, not to go see my Grandfather's corpse but to a place where I could be alone for a while to think. I fear that if I go see my Grandfather lying dead, all of this will be more real than it should be and I'll be taken back to the night that I lost my father. 
 I sigh gulping down the last bit of whiskey in the glass, I'm not drinking as much as I should cause I don't want to go back to my wife and unborn baby drunk . . . . Now talking about that, I look at my watch to see it's already 5am, I've been gone for over twelve hours now, my wife is definitely worried about me.
 I leave the hotel with the image of my wife sleeping so peacefully in her bed, the thought of her beautiful face and addictive presence bringing a smile to my face. Warmth blooms in my chest when I think about her soft skin and her fruity scent but I'm filled with fury as I walk into her ward to find everyone panicking and her bed empty. They claim someone was able to bypass them and kidnap my wife. I want to kill everyone on this floor, especially the men I stationed to guard her.
 " How can someone walk in here and kidnap my wife unnoticed, what am I paying you all for? " I say destroying everything within my reach as the fury increases in my chest. My wife and my child are probably out there somewhere, unprotected and exposed to any possible danger.
 My mum's sobs does nothing to calm the increasing fury inside of me. I'll find her and bring her back, I always do. I immediately whip out my phone to check her location and a frown settles on my face when her location is showing this very room. 
 " I. . .I found this on her. . . her bed " Mum approaches me with something in her hand cautiously 
 It's the anklet I gifted her, she'd figured it out. . . She ran away. Of course she did after everything that happened and how she felt betrayed by my actions, I saw this coming but not in my grieving moment.
My booming laughter morphs into a loud growl, I'll find her, I will hunt her down and for every passing day that she's not next to me, I'll reign destruction not just on her family but on anyone that dared to help her get away from.
" Oh Sallyanne Colbert, you don't know what you've done to yourself " I chuckle darkly as I imagine all the ways I could punish my defiant wife