Chapter 92: When the Paddle is Lost (ii)
In the thick of the panic that had gripped the Silver Mansion, everything felt like it was happening at once. Voices clashed, names were shouted, and footsteps echoed off the marble floors in every direction-each one chasing a ghost of hope that Baby Jeda might turn up from behind a curtain or under a table. But every second without her felt heavier than the last, and the air had shifted-like the house itself knew something was terribly wrong.
Flora's phone buzzed in her pocket-an abrupt vibration that startled her more than it should have. Her hands, already unsteady, fumbled with it. She glanced at the screen.
Tesly.
The name alone made her heart stumble. She stepped aside, retreating from the frantic voices in the hallway to a quieter corner near the grand staircase. With a shaky breath, she answered.
"Hello?"
Tesly didn't waste a second. Her voice came through tight, almost clipped with tension.
"Flora, you need to come to the office. Now. Some of the core files for the Crea de' la Technologies project are missing-completely gone from the server."
Flora froze.
Of all the times for this to happen-now?
Her mind raced. That project was their biggest launch in months. Files didn't just vanish. Not unless someone made them vanish.
"I-I'll be there," she managed, her throat suddenly dry. She ended the call, unable to ask questions. There was no time.
A sharp pulse throbbed in her temple. Between Jeda's disappearance and this sudden crisis at work, it felt like she was being pulled apart in two opposite directions. She braced her hand against the banister for a moment, grounding herself. Then she turned and headed down the hallway, weaving through the chaos to find Scott.
He was with Joan and Grandfather Silver Sky, trying to calm things down, trying to organize a proper search. Flora called his name quietly but urgently.
He turned to her instantly. "Flora? Did you see something? Anything?"
She shook her head. "No. It's not about Jeda." Her voice lowered, though urgency trembled in every word. "Tesly just called. Something's wrong at the office-some critical files are missing from the project. She sounded... serious."
Scott's brow creased in concern. "Then let's go. I'll drive you."
"No." She placed a hand gently on his chest, her voice softer now, but still firm. "I'll go alone. You need to stay here, Love. Your brother is barely holding it together, and they're looking to you right now. I'll be quick. I just need to get in, see what's going on, and come back."
He hesitated, clearly torn. "Are you sure? Baby, this isn't the time to be-"
"I know," she interrupted gently. "But I can't ignore this either. It might be something-or someone. I just need to handle it."
He searched her face for a beat longer, then finally nodded. She gave him a small quick hug, tense smile, turned, and headed to the side entrance without waiting for another word.
She slipped through the doorway and into the garage with no one noticing. No one was paying attention-not with the entire house turned upside down over Baby Jeda.
Moments later, her car purred to life. She reversed slowly, eyes flickering toward the mansion's windows, half-expecting someone to call her back. But nothing came. Just silence. And that gnawing, unrelenting sense that everything was starting to unravel at once.
As the gates slid open and she pulled onto the road, a single thought looped in her mind:
Please, God... let this just be a coincidence.
~~~~
James' Family Mansion
The sun had started its slow descent, casting golden streaks through the tall windows of Gad's luxurious home. Fiona sat curled up on the edge of a velvet chaise in the guest room, one hand wrapped around a warm cup of tea, the other scrolling through her phone with distracted fingers. The stillness in the room was almost therapeutic.
She hadn't heard anything about the chaos unfolding at the office. Not a word about the missing files or the silent storm waiting to erupt. For the moment, she was still wrapped in the calm of being in Gad's world-a soft, quiet space far removed from her usual noise.
Then her thumb paused. A name flashed across her screen-Beauty-and a weight settled in her chest.
She sat up straighter, exhaled quietly, and tapped on Beauty's contact. The line barely rang once before it connected.
"Hello?" Beauty's voice came flat, guarded.
Fiona hesitated, then spoke gently. "Hey... It's me. Just thought you should know-Roy's in the hospital."
There was a beat of silence. It wasn't long. But it wasn't nothing.
"Okay," Beauty replied. Just that. Dry. Empty.
Fiona almost sighed. "They took him to his family's private clinic this morning. It seemed serious."
Another pause.
"Oh," Beauty said again, her voice steady, but Fiona could hear the tightness now. The way someone tries too hard not to sound shaken.
"Just thought you'd want to know," Fiona added softly.
This time, Beauty's tone shifted. "Thanks, love. But... that doesn't concern me anymore."
Fiona swallowed. "Beauty, come on. You don't have to act like this."
"I'm not acting. I've just... moved on." But her voice cracked, barely. Just once.
Fiona closed her eyes for a moment, choosing her words carefully. "I know what happened between you two left a scar. But don't shut the door so hard you can't open it when it matters."
A silence settled between them. Not hostile-just heavy.
Then Fiona added, more quietly, "Don't take this the wrong way... but I still want you to have the kind of happiness you dream about. You deserve that, you really do."
Beauty didn't reply. Just the faint sound of breathing, like she didn't trust her voice anymore.
"I mean it," Fiona said gently. "Take care of yourself, okay? I love you."
Still nothing. Just a long exhale from the other end of the line.
Fiona gave her a moment, then whispered, "Bye, dear," and hung up.
---
On the other end, Beauty stared at the screen. It had gone dark, but she kept holding the phone, gripping it tighter than she meant to.
Her heart was pounding. Not because of what Fiona said-but because of what she felt and didn't want to feel.
Roy. Sick. In that hospital.
She hadn't seen him in days-not since their last cold conversation, when they both said things they didn't mean and meant things they didn't say.
Now, he was unwell. And she wasn't ready for that.
She set the phone down quietly, walked to her closet, and began pulling out something to wear-something neat, nothing dramatic.
She didn't know why she was going.
She just knew she couldn't not go.
~~~~
Scott's Men on the Move
Tension hung thick in the air around the Silver Mansion like smoke from a fire no one could locate-but everyone felt burning in their lungs. The sun was barely up, yet the estate had erupted into full-blown emergency mode. Not just emotional panic-strategic panic.
Baby Jeda was gone.
Not lost in the way a child slips away during a game of hide and seek, no. This had the markings of something planned, something personal. And for a family like this-where blood ties ran as deep as rivalries-nothing about it felt accidental.
Underground, beneath the east wing of City B, in a private tech compound only a few knew existed, Scott's most trusted team had already begun their work.
Dragon sat hunched over a multi-screen setup, fingers flying across the keys, his eyes reflecting flashing code. His specialty was AI pattern recognition-he was feeding the mansion's last twelve hours of security footage through three different visual processors, training each to pick out anything odd. Anything human. Anything missing.
Spider-quiet, skeletal, and eerily focused-was sifting through audio surveillance, amplifying echoes and filtering background noise from nearby devices and cameras. The kind of things people never notice, but Spider made sing like opera.
Hack, the youngest of the crew but already a legend in the black-hat world, was tapping into satellite grids and dark web chatter, searching for clues no one else could even access. His monitor pulsed with feeds, heatmaps, and blinking red spots. "If someone moved her, we'll find the trail-even if it's digital ash," he muttered, half to himself, half to the code.
Venom-broad-shouldered and brooding-stood by as backup, scanning for any attempted breaches into their own system. "No one's getting into this feed," he said without looking up. "But if they try, I'll know. And I'll trace it straight to their gut."
Above ground, the field men had already moved.
Willy, Kong, Rome, and Roar-Scott's muscle-were combing the outskirts. They weren't subtle. These were men built for blunt force, trained in brute tactics. They worked in silence, each with a weapon tucked somewhere inconspicuous.
Underground, Dragon shot upright. "Track her location now-if she was dropped there, someone might be watching!"
Back at the Silver Mansion, Scott's phone rang the second Venom's voice came through on the private line.
"Boss, we found her."
Joel's hands trembled as he swiped the screen, already dialing Gad and Michael. "Young Masters, the Boss said you should be on standby. Full lockdown protocol. Baby Jeda went missing and had just been found".
Upstairs, Maxson was pacing like a madman, phone glued to his ear, making rapid calls to every known gang affiliate in the underworld. His voice cracked with emotion, no longer the cool, calculated man of power everyone feared. This was a father in freefall.
"Any word?" he shouted into the line. "Anything? I need to know who moved her. I need names-faces-now!"
Then the heavy gates creaked.
Two black SUVs pulled into the compound. From the first stepped Prum, and from the second, Raphael-both dressed in their usual leather-collared silence. They didn't need to speak much; their presence meant only one thing: Scott and Maxson wants to join the warline.
Prum gestured. "Boss, we are here". He and Raphael bowed to Scott as he walked out.
Scott looked down at the message on his screen: a blurry image, just uploaded by Dragon. A car-license plate half-visible-leaving the estate minutes before Jeda was found.
"I'm not leaving until I know who touched my daughter," Maxson growled, stepping forward, jaw clenched.
Scott placed a firm hand on his shoulder. "And we will know. Just calm down, trust me Maxson". His big bro calmed him.
Maxson stared back at him, breathing hard. Then he nodded, once.
The convoy was already being prepped.
This wasn't the end. It was only the beginning.
~~~~
Flora on the Road to the Office (Still Evening)
The roads were quiet, the city not yet asleep but no longer buzzing. Streetlights flickered overhead, stretching long shadows across the asphalt, as Flora tightened her grip on the steering wheel-her mind racing faster than the car itself.
She'd barely grabbed her keys after the call from Tesly.
Important files missing? From the Crea de' la Technologies project?
That wasn't just a glitch. That was a crisis.
And crises didn't wait for perfect timing.
Scott had offered to drive her, sensing her unease, but she brushed it off with a weak smile and a kiss on the cheek.
"It's nothing serious," she had said-the lie sticking to the roof of her mouth like bitter gum.
Truth was, she didn't want him distracted-not now, not with Jeda still missing. She had to handle this herself.
Now here she was-alone on the road, the city yawning around her-until it wasn't.
At first, it seemed like an ordinary swerve.
A black sedan drifted too close to her side as she turned onto a bend. Then it jerked back-suddenly-missing her bumper by inches.
Her heart jumped.
"Ahhh..." she exhaled, gripping the steering wheel tighter, fighting for calm.
That wasn't just bad driving.
It felt... deliberate.
She glanced into her side mirror.
The black car didn't pass. It hovered. Too close.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe she was just shaken-by Tesly's call, the chaos at home, everything. But something about it felt wrong. Then she noticed the details.
Tinted windows.
Pitch black. No visibility.
No movement. No faces.
A car made to be anonymous-invisible. And yet, everything about it screamed watchful.
She switched lanes, hoping to shake them. Took a turn onto a quieter road. Her pulse began to climb.
She checked the mirror.
Still there.
She let out a breath-the kind that shudders when instinct kicks in before logic can catch up.
This car wasn't just behind her.
It was tailing her.
Another turn. A little speed.
The black sedan matched her.
The thought clawed its way in-cold, sharp, and unwelcome:
They were following her.
Flora pressed harder on the gas-not reckless, but precise.
If they wanted to run her off the road, they'd have to earn it.
She wasn't just some panicked woman behind the wheel.
She knew how to survive.
But her thoughts were spiraling.
Was this about Jeda?
The files?
Was someone trying to stop her from getting to the office?
Her phone buzzed in the passenger seat.
She didn't reach for it. Couldn't.
Her focus was locked on the road-and the silent black predator crawling behind her like a shadow she couldn't outrun.
Up ahead, the road split-one exit toward a public square, the other toward the industrial zone.
She veered toward the public side.
If they wanted to make a move, they'd have to do it with people watching.
The black car hesitated at the fork.
Flora didn't slow to see which path they chose.
She surged forward, merging into denser traffic.
Her chest was tight. Her knuckles white on the wheel.
This wasn't just a bad day.
Someone was after her.
And the game had just changed.