Chapter 167: Aria’s Worries

Completely Useless.
That’s exactly how Aria currently felt. She blamed herself for letting her friend leave alone that night.

She could’ve offered to accompany her, or even convinced Lillian to stay, but no. She was too absorbed with Gabriel to pay attention to her friend.

And the next thing she knew, Lillian had been kidnapped and worst of all, this information only reached her the next day.

Ethan had promised to find her, but would he?

It had already been two days with no new info from him and that caused her mind to spiral with thoughts that didn’t help her mind’s peace, not in the least bit.

Gabriel had promised to contact a few friends, but even they had come up with nothing.

The best they got was that if Lillian had been kidnapped, she wasn’t in the US anymore.

Aria lay on her bed, her eyes fixed on the ceiling and fingers gripping the fabric of her sheets so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

The late afternoon sun filtered weakly through the blinds, painting long, tired shadows across the room.

Her phone lay face-up beside her, as she waited for a message or anything that’d reassure her that her friend was okay.

A knock was heard on the door, but she did not bother replying, so the person just let themselves in.

Walking in was Doctor Gabriel, not in his usual lab coat, but an outfit that looked comfortable.

He quietly closed the door behind him with his elbow, careful not to spill what was on the tray that was in his hand.

The smell reached her first. It had the scent of something warm and buttery. Pancakes, maybe? And coffee.

Aria didn’t look his way, her eyes still fixed on the ceiling, her mind in a completely different dimension, one in which she was constantly blaming herself.

Gabriel stood by the bed for a moment, taking in the sight of her, the untouched glass of water on the nightstand, the pillow with faint tear stains and the phone that lay beside her.

It hurts him to see her like this, yet, he couldn’t do anything to help.

Aria had previously screamed at him to leave, to stay away, but he refused. She was his girlfriend now and whatever she goes through, he would be there with her.

"You haven’t eaten," he said softly, setting the tray down on the desk beside her bed.

"I’m not hungry," Aria murmured without looking at him.

He sighed. "You said the same thing this morning and last night."

Gabriel hesitated for a moment, then sat down in the chair next to her bed. "You’ll make yourself sick like this," he said quietly.

"Maybe I should," she muttered, her tone flat, tired.

"Aria—" he started but she cut him off.

"What?" Aria snapped, her tone a lot harder than she intended but she couldn’t control it, "I call myself her best friend and yet, I couldn’t even convince her to stay longer or even allow me to accompany her?"

"It’s not your fault," he gently said, "there’s no way you could’ve known what would happen."

"Maybe if I had gone with her—" it was obvious enough that she wasn’t listening but Gabriel cut her off with a small frown on his face.

"You don’t know that," he said, "for all we know, that would’ve just put you too in danger."

"At least then I’ll be next to her, knowing that she’s safe," was Aria’s response.

"Then what about me?" Gabriel said in a quiet tone, "how do you think I’d feel?"

There was silence after his question, Aria finally turned as she locked eyes with him. She could see it, her words just now had genuinely hurt him.

But he still sat there, ready to comfort her. This wasn’t the first time during these two days that she had said something that hurt him, and yet, he stayed.

Before she could open her mouth to say something, her phone let out a ding, causing her to immediately move towards it.

Gabriel also moved a bit closer, as he watched her unlock the screen and open the message.

There was no number with the message and it seemed it just appeared out of thin air. The message was just a photo attachment which caused Aria’s eyes to widen.

The photo was of Lillian, peacefully asleep and covered with white sheets. She had a small smile of satisfaction on her face as she peacefully rested.

Below the image was a short text, "she’s safe, you can stop worrying now."

Even without the number, she knew who had sent this. Ethan had promised to find her, and he did.

She felt a wave of relief wash over her and in one motion, turned to Gabriel and pulled him in a tight hug.

The action caught him off guard as they both fell on the bed, but Aria didn’t care, she just buried her face in his chest, clutching his shirt so tightly that her knuckles turned white again.

"She’s safe..." she let out in a muffled voice as she trembled an indication that she was crying. "He really did find her..."

Who was ’he’?

Gabriel had no idea, he could only guess that it was Lillian’s boss, the man behind OmniTech, but he wasn’t going to ask.

He just let out a sigh of relief, his hands hesitating for a moment before wrapping around her. He gently stroked her back, saying nothing.

Though, he didn’t need to, his hug was all she needed right now.

After a couple of minutes of crying, she slowly pulled back revealing her puffy eyes and his tear stained shirt.

He smiled at the sight before gently wiping off the tears that had rolled down her cheeks as he asked, "are you okay now?"

Aria nodded before saying, "sorry."

"Don’t worry about it, this wasn’t my favorite shirt anyway." Of course he knew why she was saying sorry, but pretending like he didn’t was his way of revenge.

"Not for the shirt," she muttered, "I’m sorry for yelling at you."

"Hmm," he pretended as if he was considering whether or not to accept the apology, "apology not accepted, not until you appease me."

With a smile, she placed a kiss on his forehead and asked, "does this appease you?"

"Not quite, but keep going."

Next was on his nose.

"Now?" She asked again.

"Almost there." He answered and she finally placed a kiss on his lips, "how about now?"

Without a reply, he moved himself a bit upwards and said, "that’s a start."

***

Back in China, Ethan currently sat on a work desk, his PC on.

He had a smile on his face as he looked at the information before. It was info on Jian Long and Madam Xu.

Info that was going to help in dealing with them once and for all, but at the same time, keeping their positions intact, after all, their resources would come in handy.

Before him was every single thing that held the two above the rest in China, their finances, companies and even backers, every single one of them.

And Jian wasn’t lying, he basically had his hands covering the entire China, and Ethan wanted that hand.

So how was he going to get it?

Easy, he just had to cut the hand off from them and fix it somewhere he could control. He’ll simply replace who that hand belonged to and he already had the two perfect candidates.

The door let out a click as it opened, allowing Irina to walk through, but Ethan didn’t need to turn back to know who it was.

The building where they currently stayed belonged to her after all, showing exactly the reach of this underworld queen.

"So, what’s the plan now?" She asked as soon as she was close enough, "do we return to the US?"

Despite Jian’s words, if Ethan was ready to leave, Irina would make sure he did without a single squeak meeting the reaper or any of his rats.

After all, that was the same way they came in, without making the least bit of noise.

"No," Ethan shook his head in response to her question, "now, we deal with the two that took something of mine."

There was silence for a while.

Irina knew exactly who he was talking about and in truth, she was a bit jealous, but now wasn’t the time for that.

Besides, she also didn’t plan on letting the two walk away just like that, so their goals aligned.

She looked at the information on the screen, before she asked, "do you plan to destroy all their resources and connections?"

"At first, yes," He answered, "but after a bit more digging, I found that their reach was a bit more useful."

"So what’s the new plan?" She asked again, after he took a pause.

"Kidnap them," Ethan said, "capture them from right under the noses of their security and then, replace them with people that I control."

Irina tilted her head, a bit confused, "do you think they’ll just accept orders from new people?"

"Not at all," he said, "and that’s why I’ll have them think that it’s still Xu and Jian, which should be easy enough."