“Call again,”
Nick said, and the person behind him took out his phone to make a call, then shook his head, “Turn it off.”
Everyone looked at each other.
Nick frowned, looked at the time again, and suddenly, an unfamiliar phone call came in. He picked up the phone and put it to his ear.
“Hello, is this Mr. Nick? This is Beau, the butler at The Gustin family’s villa. Could I please speak to the young lady? Our young master is still waiting for her,” the other person said in a gentle tone.
“…”
Nick stood by the sea, at a loss for words.
The wind by the sea was particularly cold.
…
This morning, the morning Paige disappeared, was no different.
She was decisive as always. She had already told the Temple in Heaven staff in the morning that she would be going with Enrico. She had also got up at 4am and kissed Enrico on the cheek.
“I need to go and get ready early, and I’ll be back late for breakfast.”
This was a tactful way to leave, and also to prevent him from following her around.
He scooped her up in his arms, pressed her against the bed and clung to her for a while, asking her, “What do you want to eat?”
“I like whatever Chef Enrico makes.”
His sleepy state was cheered by her straightforward flattery. He kissed her neck and smelled her, and only when he had had enough did he let her go.
Enrico realized something was wrong when the breakfast on the table had cooled.
And the two sets of chopsticks were still neatly arranged, showing no sign of having been used.
Minutes passed.
The person who had said they would be back for breakfast never returned.
And the phone, it was switched off.
Enrico sat at the dining table wearing a black V-neck sweater with the sleeves brushing against his elbows, revealing a pair of toned forearms.
He sat like this, his long fingers crossed in front of him, the tattoo on his wrist domineering, his handsome face the darkest shade of grey, his thin lips pursed without a hint of a smile.
In front of him, on the floor, stood several servants and bodyguards, all of them bowing their heads and hunched over, looking frightened and uneasy.
They were the ones who had seen Paige leave in the morning, but at the time, there had really been nothing unusual about her.
“Young master,”
butler Beau practically pounced in, his face white, looking nervously at the man sitting in the dining room, “we’ve been in contact with Temple in Heaven, and they said that young mistress hasn’t been there today, and that young mistress told them that she had agreed to go with you, so they didn’t notice anything unusual at first.”
So, she lied to both sides.
She disappeared on her own.
Fortunately, it’s better than being assassinated, isn’t it?
Enrico found that he actually had such a side to comfort himself, and couldn’t help but let out a low laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.
At this laugh, Butler Beau and the people below him all went limp.
“Go check Paige’s whereabouts these past few days, and bring me back everyone she has come into contact with,” Enrico coldly ordered.
“All of them?” Butler Beau was shocked.
“Is there a problem?” Enrico slowly raised his eyes and said in a deep voice.
Butler Beau heard it and his bones went cold. He quickly said, “Yes, I’ll get right on it.”
After that, he immediately led the men away.
Enrico was the only one left in the large dining room. He let go of his hands, sat upright at the table, picked up the chopsticks in front of him to pick up food, but he had no idea where to put them.
He had been preparing this breakfast for an hour.
Enrico stared at the cold breakfast on the table. After a while, he put down the chopsticks and took a sip of the milk in front of him.
It was also cold.
It was cold to the bone.
He looked up calmly at the empty seat across from him, his thin lips curling up, “When I was in charge of you, you kept saying that you wouldn’t run away. Now that I’m not in charge of you anymore, you’ve run away without saying a word.”
“…”
“Paige, have I indulged you too much?”
“…”
“You’ve become so unruly,”
Enrico whispered, looking across the table, his eyes as deep as an abyss. He slowly set down the milk glass in his hand and then stood up from the table.
The next second, he tightened the corners of his lips and, standing in the small dining room, overturned the entire table.
“Bang!”
The noise was loud.
The cutlery smashed to the ground, creating a mess and scattering broken pieces everywhere.
The two servants standing guard at the door were startled by the noise from inside and their necks craned in fear. They looked at each other, then turned back, pretending they hadn’t heard anything.
After overturning the table, Enrico let out a sigh of relief, reached up and tugged at his collar, turned calmly and left, stepping out of the dining room.
…
Before noon, the lobby was filled with people who had been forcibly brought there.
They included the servants and bodyguards within the manor, the vegetable seller, the toll station staff, passers-by, etc., the six Peak Club members, a few people from Temple in Heaven, Jaden, and Dr. Clinton.
A group of people stood in the resplendent lobby, looking at each other. Except for the people from Temple in Heaven, none of them knew what had happened.
Suddenly they were brought to this place that looked like a temple, and were asked to do a survey.
Nick stood at the head of the group, his brow furrowed.
Paige still hadn’t come out yet, and the cruise ship to Wind Island was just sitting at the shore, unable to move forward.
Without her, the trip to Wind Island simply couldn’t go ahead.
The sound of shoes stepping on the ground resounded.
Everyone looked up, and saw Enrico walking down the extremely wide staircase, with one hand in his pocket, his long legs exuding an air of superiority with every step on the stairs. The dark-colored sweater was soft, but when worn by him, it gave off an indescribable sense of solemnity, so that no one dared to look directly at it.
“Young master.”
Seeing Enrico come down the stairs, Butler Beau hurriedly stepped forward and handed over a stack of investigation reports in his hands, “I had everyone fill out a report on what they saw of the young mistress in the past few days. Please take a look.”
Enrico stopped at the last step of the stairs, silently took the report, and looked through the pages.
“Mr. Gustin, I have already sent someone to find Miss. The surveillance camera last captured Miss’s car at the place where it appeared, but then it didn’t capture the car or anyone else. It is possible that she was disguised,” Jaden said.
From the images captured by the surveillance camera, he analyzed that Miss should have left on her own, and she did not encounter any bad people.
“…”
Enrico didn’t say anything, just looked down at the pages of the report in his hands, reading what everyone had said.
It turned out that when she went to buy cherries, she also told her boss that she was buying them for her husband.
It turned out that when she was chatting with the maid, she would also say that he had given her a lot of things.
Nick stood there, watching Enrico who hadn’t said anything, and couldn’t help but go up to him and say in a low voice, “Brother-in-law, we have also found out that Sister Paige went to delete her call history, so we can’t start from that.”
“…”
Enrico was still looking at the report in his hands, as if he hadn’t heard him.
“The trip to Wind Island is imminent, and Sister Paige would not have disappeared for no reason. Therefore, even if all signs prove that Sister Paige left on her own, it does not mean that she did not encounter difficulties.”
Nick spoke clearly and logically, “So if we are not needed here, we will take our leave first to search for her.”