Around the same time as when Selena was hung up upon, in the most noble and central part of the Nova City, Mrs. Preston lowered her hand in which she held her phone with obvious joy and relief on her face. Her husband, Mr. Preston sitting right next to her had been able to grab bits of her conversation with the other person while she was on phone, and already had an idea on the reason for her happiness. But even so he still asked just to be sure.
"She is fine?"
Mrs. Preston snapped out of her happiness and turned to face her dear husband to share the news with him excitedly, "Yes! Our daughter is fine. She is safe!"
On hearing her his wife's affirmation, Mr. Preston's hanging heart finally fell back into place. But even though he was feeling relieved and light-hearted inside, nothing changed on the surface as he still had the same bland expression on his face as he nodded and said, "It's good that she is fine."
Already used to her husband's inability to himself go and express how he truly felt deep inside, Mrs. Preston was neither disturbed nor angered at the lukewarm reaction and instead took the time to send a quick message to her sons telling them to share the hotel's location with Selena.
"Your daughter has been found?", Mrs. Preston suddenly heard a voice asking and almost instantly, all the joy and happiness on her face were retracted and regained the bearing of a dignified noblewoman before turning to face the speaker.
Sitting directly opposite her and husband was the president of Country Z. He was a man in his sixties and gave off an exceptionally gentle and concerned air as he looked at them. But both Mr. and Mrs. Preston knew it clearly in their hearts that the man wasn't as kind, gentle or concerned as he seemed, because a few seconds before she received Selena's call, he had just been about to force them to agree to an unconscionable and unreasonable deal in exchange for him to send people to rescue their daughter.
This matter had to go back to when they had decided to travel to Country Z with their two sons in order to personally look for Selena. To save the trouble of having to book additional tickets for Tyler and Ethan, though that would barely pose a problem, they had decided to travel in the family's personal jet.
A few hours later, the private jet had landed on Nova with no obstruction and at the same time, Tyler and Mr. Preston had both received calls from the people whose help they had recruited to help find Selena that they weren't able to find any information about her disappearance. This was because the feedback from their investigations showed that she wasn't even in the country as of that moment!
When the same information was received again by both Mr. Preston and Tyler who had developed their own powers in Country Z as well, this made them to quickly understand that news about Selena has been blocked intentionally.
That being said, they also couldn't help but be shocked at the extent of that person's power and his ability to render and make all the people whose help they had recruited who were also influential and powerful people in their own right seem powerless.
What made them even more cautious was that they had no idea about the person or people who had done it and whether the person did it for a malicious or protective reason..
Taking all that into consideration, the family of four quickly realized that an average joe wouldn't be able to help in rescuing Selena and after some discussions, decides to enlist the help of the most influential and powerful man in Country Z, the president.
With a decision having been made, the family of four separated with the old couple heading to the presidential villa and the two brothers heading to the hotel they had pre-booked.
And all that led to this moment..
The president was indeed powerful enough, as no sooner had he heard their request before be obtained the location where Selena had been kidnapped to. Owing to that, Mrs. Preston had the illusion that he was really willing to help on seeing that he was so easy to talk to, but never dreamed that he planned on using the carrot-and-stick approach.
Firstly, he gave them news of their daughter's location and lured them into a false sense of security and just when they were being happy about it, he opened his mouth and demanded for a lion share.
What? More than half price discount on Country Z's next purchase of crude oil and the shares of their family's oil company?
Why can't he just steal it? The b*stard of a man!
Initially, it wasn't like they planned to have him help them for nothing but those requests of his, what the hell was he thinking!
At least the half price discount could still be tolerated and agreed with but the shares of their family's company? Hell! That was definitely out of question!
Would the friendship between them and the Royale family still exist if they do really agree to his unreasonable demand after they found out?!
This was because as a gesture of loyalty to F Nation and a signature of the longtime friendship between the F Nation's Royal family and the Preston's, shares of considerable amount had always belonged to the latter throughout generations and whenever the Preston's company were in trouble, the Royale's would never sit around and watch, whether it was because of their interests or friendship.
However, apart from the Royale family and a few trusted minority shareholders, foreigners had never been allowed to interfere in the Preston's family business due to various reasons.
Yet, Country Z's president was demanding for exactly that?
Mrs. Preston just wanted to say one word to him.
IMPOSSIBLE!
Their decision wasn't because they couldn't afford to give up the shares for Selena but that the moment they agreed to the preaident's proposition, trouble will come knocking.
Their family sold crude oil to countries who needed it around the world without bias or preferential treatment and has been able to keep a balance together with the Royale's protection, but the moment Country Z president becomes a shareholder, that balance tips since the man would definitely demand that the needs of his country comes first after F Nation's.
And how would other nations react after seeing that? That doesn't need to be said, right? After all, after a first time comes a second one.
So matter what, Mrs. Preston was determined not to make her husband agree to this ridiculous and dangerous proposition. She didn't believe that they wouldn't be able to find their daughter themselves and if their own connections doesn't work, they would call upon the Royale family's.
But what if their investigation was deliberately impeded by the president, after all he had the power to do that especially when this was his territory!
To this question, Mrs. Preston only said she didn't want to think about as of that moment.
Thankfully, before anything could happen, her daughter finally called to say she was safe!
So, Mrs. Preston instantly regained her confidence on hearing the president's question.
"Yes. Our daughter just told me over the phone that she was fine."
Darkness flitted past the president's eyes on hearing Mrs. Preston's words.
He was thinking inwardly about how close he was to getting them to agree to that proposal and regretted the fact that he had given preferential treatment to the Preston couples and allowed them to bring in their phones. This was because according to normal procedures, electronic devices would usually be detained outside the presidential room for receiving guests.
But he had taken into consideration their status and allowed them to bring their phones in, not knowing he would end up regretting that same decision after all, if he had followed the normal official procedures, the Preston couple would have been unable to receive their daughter's call in time and would have been forced to agree to his proposal in the end..
One might be curious on how he could be so sure that the Preston couple would have agreed to his proposal if they hadn't received Selena's call in time. Mr. President would have told you that his confidence was based on the fact that although Mr. Preston might not necessarily agree from his lukewarm or rather indifferent reactions all along, he observed that he was one to give in to he wife so even if Mr. Preston doesn't want to agree, his wife's anxiousness would propel him to!
Mrs. Preston had no idea of the activity going on within the head of the influential man sitting opposite her and proceeded to stand up gracefully while saying at the same time, "Thank you for having us, Mr. President and we are also sorry for taking up your time all for it to turn out to be for naught."
Mr. Preston also took the cue and stood up at the same time. He stretched out his hands towards the president who had also stood up and shook hands with him politely.
"Thank you. You have been a very good host."
"Haha", The President laughed genially looking nothing like the scheming man he was and said, "You are welcome to stay for an extended period of time. Country Z will always you with outstretched arms!"
Ha ha ha.
'He wished!', Mrs. Preston thought to herself mockingly even as she laughed along politely.
Who didn't know how to pretend.
All those functions, banquets and the likes throughout the years hadn't been for naught, okay?
…
On the other hand, Selena's scaled down group which consisted of just herself, Ryan, Dan and Justin who followed the latter two out of pure curiosity and also with intentions of backing up their brother (Ryan) arrived at location shared with her by her brothers, the only six-star hotel in Nova City and entered grandiosely.
Moments later, they arrived in front of the presidential suite and stood without movement at the door. Dan and Justin looked at each other with no intentions of being the first one to knock and instead watched the other two who was standing right in front of them with crossed arms.
Ryan glanced at Selena who looked so nervous that she was almost unable to stand straight and felt helpless at her current state. Not that he meant to blame her, as he clearly understood that she felt this way only because this would be her first time meeting the people inside even though they were biological siblings.
Knowing that he couldn't do much to ease her nervousness, he could only interlock his hands with hers, silently telling her that he was right by her side and would always be. After that, he paid no attention to Selena's reaction and raised his hands to ring the bell.
However, before he could do so, the door was suddenly half-opened and he came face-to-face with a somewhat familiar face. Familiar because the person's features had some similarities with those of Selena's who was standing right next to him and with that, Ryan instantly guessed the identity of the person.
The man didn't speak immediately upon seeing them but instead looked at the faces of each of them before finally coming to a stop on Selena's face. Just when Ryan thought he would say something, the man suddenly turned his face around and raised his voice slightly in the direction of the room as he said.
"Told you I heard some noises. Turned out I was right."
After saying that, the man turned back around to face Selena directly and smiled.
"You should be Selena, right?" Though it sounded like a question the expression on his face showed that he was very sure of the answer after all, Selena was almost an exact copy of his mother.
Facing that particularly warm smile, a name instantly came to Selena's mind and she called out tentatively after nodding in affirmation to his question, "Ethan?"
Selena saw a look of surprise appear on the man's face upon hearing her call out the name and had a gauge in her heart on whether she got the name right or not.
Sure enough, the man asked with some anticipation in his voice the next minute, "Wow. How did you know it was me and not Tyler? Did mom tell you?"
Ethan was really surprised that his long-lost sister was able to tell him apart from Tyler this soon even though this was their first time meeting. Thus, he couldn't help but be curious about how she was able to do so when most people he and Tyler had interacted with from childhood till date were unable to tell him and Tyler more often than they could.
To his question, Selena nodded slowly before speaking, "Mhm.. Mom was the one who told me the differences between you two through the pictures at home and.. I also watched your performances and concert.."
Most importantly, her mother had once said that Ethan took after her the most while Tyler took after their father. So, on seeing Ethan, she had immediately not iced that he exuded an artistic and genial aura. And when all those points came together, it would be massive disappointment if she wasn't able to still tell her two brothers apart.
Ethan smiled even more sincerely at her on hearing her words but just as he was about to speak, a cold voice sounded abruptly from behind him.
"Do you really want to have this conversation right outside the door? Where has all those years of etiquette class gone to?"
On hearing the voice, Ethan turned around to see his twin brother, Tyler right behind him and said with some dissatisfaction, "What are you doing by walking so silently around like a ghost?"
Tyler didn't even bother replying to him as he felt that his brother was asking a stupid question, considering that what would have been a huge problem was precisely if there was still noise when walking on the million dollar floor covering that should have absorbed noise perfectly.
Seeing the man who had appeared behind Ethan, Selena blurted out subconsciously, "Tyler!"
But after doing so, Selena instantly regretted it especially when those expressionless eyes that looked so much like her fathers's turned to gaze at her. She could only increase the strength with which she held Ryan hoping to reduce her nervousness.
Ryan who felt her nervousness followed her gaze and noticed the source and silently stepped forward to block Tyler's sight. His movement seemed to finally attract Tyler's attention as he looked up from Selena's petite figure, then to his and Selena's interlocked hands and finally collided into Ryan's dark and unwavering eyes.
Tyler recognized who the man was on seeing his and his sister's intimate behaviour.
Ryan Walters.
Due to his inability to find out information about their sister and the fact that he and Ethan were idle while their parents went to the president for help, he had poured all his energy into finding out Selena's life experience all these years and that was when he had came across this name.
Her college boyfriend who she had recently broke up with, which was also the reason why she had gone on vacation to F Nation in the first place.
For some reason, when he came across the name with no pictures together with the fact that he was Walters' heir best friend, Tyler couldn't help but begin feeling suspicious which was why he had continued digging even deeper and to his surprise, he did found something..
Turned out that his sister's ex-boyfriend.. though that title might be wrong judging from their current actions, was the leader of the Blood Gang and the culprit behind why their sister was kidnapped in the first place!
He might not have wanted the kidnapping to happen and had even tried to avoid it, but it still couldn't be denied nor forgived that he had failed in his duty to protect her! any mistake could have led to an irreparable result!
The two alpha male stared into each other's eyes for a few minutes with invisible swords clashing and sparks flying everywhere before the both of them tacitly withdrew their gazes at the same time in the next second.
Of course, Ryan understood why Tyler was looking at him so, after all, he had been the one to order his subordinates to make things easier foe any of the Preston family members if they should decide to look into him or Selena. If it wasn't for that, how could the information that he was determined to keep secret get revealed that easily.
He could have decided to make that identity of his a secret forever taking into consideration that he was now already a legal business owner but he still decided against it, for he wasn't willing to deceive Selena's parents no matter the reason. He wanted to convince them with his own strength and make them believe that he was capable of providing her with a worry free life after today, since would make sure that that man and his son never get to see the light of the day after today..
Not privy to Ryan's thoughts, Tyler threw a Ethan a glance which he instantly understood without deeper explanation.
"Gentlemen, forgive me for my appalling welcome. Now, if you don't mind, can we continue this conversation inside?", Ethan gestured for them to enter politely.
Ryan and Selena didn't even hesitate for a second before taking steps to enter the presidential suite. While Dan and Justin who had been playing the role of silent onlookers all along also exchanged a glance before they walking in after which the suite's door was slammed shut, successfully shielding away prying eyes..