by Clare Morgan
I told him about James and his absence and I let him know that I wanted one of Daniel’s guys to find James. If we could find James, we might get Rosie and this would be enough to defeat Victoria. But, it won’t be that easy to seek James and even if we did, I knew that there would be a lot of security.
Daniel gave me a number and asked me to get in touch with the guy. His name was Ed and he was one of Daniel’s best guys when it came to scooping details and information. I agreed to do as directed and decided to call him.
After calling Ed, I was a lot more confident. He surely knew how to get the ball rolling. I gave him all the details of what I already knew about Victoria and even Natasha and in between the time we were talking, he had quickly scanned some details and used his tools for making some search. He told me that Natasha was out and she was working on one of the small libraries in the same town.
“How did you even get access to such details so quickly?” I asked as I was clearly confused.
“Dude, I have been in this business for so long that I know the specifics a bit too well. I have my network set everywhere and not just America; if you are looking for someone in Africa, I can scoop the details for you too.”
This gave me hope as I knew that he might even be able to find James. However, Daniel had asked me not to talk to him further about any more details. He had planned the whole thing and had allotted specific men for some well-segmented tasks. I trusted Daniel and I knew that once I was out of the whole mess, I would happily treat him and thank him for all he did for me. However, right at that moment, my core concern was to make sure that I could find out how to deal with Natasha and to get details of who were against Victoria.
Simply knowing who Victoria’s enemy was not enough because I couldn’t trust everyone here. I would need to find out what was their cause of enmity and why was there so much abhorrence. Once I had the list, I could scan through it and find out the ones that were best for me to approach them.
It was a long and laborious job, but I knew that I needed to do it quickly. When I disconnected the call, I was extremely optimistic about the whole thing. I knew that this was the right sign and I was willing to let myself believe that I would come out of the mess and have my family back.
I wanted to believe that unlike my past, my future won’t be dark and skewed. I called Daniel back and told him about my conversation. He then told me the outline of his plan and I knew it was a great one. We both decided to go through the list that Ed was supposed to turn shortly and decide which would be the ideal ones to seek help.
The people who were really against Victoria and wanted to see her downfall at all cost were most likely to help us. I knew I could have gone back to Elaine and be with her. She needed me and I needed her too. But, if I would be with Elaine, I would spend a lot of time talking and wondering. If love made you strong, it also had the power to make you vulnerable and I knew that I had to avoid this situation at all costs.
I knew it well that I would have to make sure that I could keep everything hidden. If Victoria could sniff even the slightest chance that I was the one behind all the fiasco, she would leave no stone unturned to make my life a living hell.
I wasn’t afraid of what she would do to make my life, but I was scared of what she could do to my family. I wanted to keep them safe at all costs. I had worked as a private investigator for so long that even now I knew exactly how to keep my details hidden. However, the fact that Victoria had her guys spying on me all the time meant that it would be a little hard.
I got a message from Daniel that read, “Inside sources say that Victoria has gathered all her staff to work on her business temporarily. She may face complete financial breakdown and so she has all her attention focused on reviving her business. It won’t take too long for her to come out of it as half the allegations are false. But, we need to act this time and make the most out of it.”
I knew I had to calculate the risk. There was a high probability that there was no one spying on me. Even if she would have someone looking at me, I could easily give them a pass as it won’t be more than one guy and that were enough for me.
I had to work hard to find the details and I knew that not being with Elaine at this point was the right thing to do. I was going to make it work and I would do all I can to get as many details as I could.
I got the list from Ed and I started scanning it from top to bottom. I knew I would have to get the details and act on it as soon as I can. I needed to talk to Daniel and it was getting harder to have everything done on the phone.
“Do you think it is safe for me to meet you? Can this be a huge risk and can Victoria find out that we both are in it together?” I asked him as I really wanted to meet him and decide what was to be done.
“Yes, dude. This is a risk we cannot afford to take. If she gets the slightest idea that you are the man behind all of this, I think she won’t give one fuck to her business and would start her revenge plan and this could land us in some serious shit.”
I agreed and we decided that we would have to get things down on the phone. I kept calling him from different numbers as I knew that she might even keep tabs on my call details. I couldn’t trust the woman with a single thing and so I often messaged him and emailed and did a whole lot of other things to minimize the calls I put to Daniel.
In order to ensure more privacy and safety, I also made it a point to be sure that Daniel didn’t do anything himself. He had appointed men for almost everything so that just in case, they were exposed, Daniel would still nowhere be in the scene and this would make it impossible for Victoria to guess that I was the one behind it.
I shortlisted three names from the list as these were the people who seem to have faced too many troubles because of Victoria. While one of them was a gangster, the other two seemed to be good people. I did not care who had committed what crime as all I needed to do was make sure that Victoria got into deep shit and I could get my family back.
We decided to appoint people again so that we could have a discussion with them. Everything had to be done privately because the mere mention of my name could get very risky. Daniel being the senior detective that he was never had a trouble with resources. I knew that he was putting a lot on the line for me and I had to repay him.
I promised that once my life was sorted and everything was back to normal, I would let Daniel know how much I was thankful what he did for me. I knew that had it not been for Daniel, I would never have been able to grasp what to do and perhaps the mess would have never sorted.
Yes, I didn’t have a lot of room to be complacent either. We had to act really fast. Mr. Shaun Elvis was one of the fiercest competitors that Victoria ever had. As per reports, she had damaged his warehouse overnight and he had faced major losses. This happened just before one of the fashion shows that was to take place in Paris. The fashion show would have decided the fate of two brands and as Elvis faced last minute problems, he had to pull out and his confidence was broken.
Now was the time for him to resurrect again. We would have to inform him about the troubles with Victoria’s fashion line and it was time for him to pay Victoria back the way she did. If he could do a major launch, he would be able to capitalize the market and this would be an even major setback to Victoria’s business. There was no reason for Mr. Shaun to say no, but I knew that he would be prying for more information. He would like to know why we were giving him such inside details and I decided to create a fake identity. I knew that I was perhaps not doing the right thing but ever since Natasha’s arrest, everyone knew that she was the one who hated Victoria. So, I gave him the lead that I was Natasha’s agent.
Ever since Natasha had been arrested, she had kept a low profile but I could use her name to make this case. I knew that this was something which Victoria wouldn’t suspect. Also, Natasha had some big plans of being successful too. She would be confused when her name would pop up in the discussion, but by the time, she would clear the confusion, we decided to let her know about
the benefits she could have from it too.
The plan was perfect. We would use Natasha’s identity to create confusion and to inflict major setback to Victoria’s business. Then, we would go to Natasha and let her know that this way. She would get the publicity needed to actually become an iconic brand that brought down Victoria’s line. This would also serve as her revenge and give her dreams the right shape. Further, the next thing to do would be to get some officers to attack her and finally, we had to get hold of James as well.
We had been successful so far. But the games had begun and the first round looked a little promising if not much. I had seen how disturbed Victoria was and it had given me immense pleasure. Daniel kept on reminding me not to make too many appearances at places where Victoria may have her men as even one little mistake could turn out to be very dangerous for us.
Victoria still had an upper hand as she had access to the footage and most of all to my daughter. She was a lunatic and it wouldn’t take her long to misuse her power. The last thing I wanted was Rosie to be in trouble. I couldn’t trust James either, but I wanted to know why did James betray me? Was it just for money? James had a family he loved and it was hard to know why he would rob me of my daughter. Sure, he could embezzle money and maybe, he could even be involved in drugs, but this came as a little shock and I didn’t know who to blame for it.
I wanted to know more of James’ story too and Daniel had promised to get back to me with the right details that would help me out. I knew it was not going to be easy, but it was something I had to eventually find out.
Daniel had a team of investigators looking at James’ and his details for the last year. With the right details, we would be able to find out what had exactly happened and for how long had he been with Victoria.
I could remember how he was excited about my wedding and I don’t assume that back so long too, he was working for Victoria. There was a possibility that he may have been Victoria’s stalker, but there was a part of me that was not convinced about this.
I wanted to believe that James wasn’t a bad guy through and through and there had to be a reason he was behaving this way. Daniel promised that he would get back to me with the details as soon as he could. His whole team was working hard and they should be able to get some kind of information at least.
I was on the verge of being too excited but I didn’t want to pin my hopes too high. I knew that losing this game was something I couldn’t afford as this wasn’t just a game to me, this was so much more. It was everything for me and losing it would mean I would lose my life.
But, I have to be sure that at that moment, I was careful. I wanted to call Elaine and I needed to let her know that there was a hope that things would be alright, but knowing Elaine, she would get extremely optimistic. I didn’t want to rush things a bit too much and I would only let Elaine know about it when I was sure that I could save Rosie.
I still ended up calling Elaine as I needed to check on her from time to time. When I called her, she immediately picked it up.
“Any good news, Andrew? Did you get some leads?” she asked and the hope in her voice was too strong. I didn’t want her to give any clues or leads and I simply asked her to be patient and to trust me. I assured her that I would do my damn best and I won’t give up until I knew that I tried every possible thing.
“But, what if it doesn’t work out? This possibility of what it is killing me badly and I want you to tell me that you will fix this. You are my hero, Andrew. You always did the right things. Why now? I want my daughter back. I am not asking for too much, am I?” She wept on the phone and my heart broke into a million pieces.
I was sad beyond words and if I could, I would hug Elaine, kiss her and let her know that I was going to fix every damn thing. I wanted to be her pillar of support but I was myself breaking apart. I needed to leave Elaine like that so Victoria couldn’t sense the change. If she found Elaine to be in such a sad and broken state, she would know that I was still clueless. It was all a part of one big plan which I miserably hoped would end up working out.
Chapter 26:
After making sure that Elaine was holding up good, I decided to kick start into action. I wanted to ensure that things were rolling smoothly and I knew that I had to make the most of my calls to Daniel. I couldn’t call him all the time as this would put both of us at risk. Also, I couldn’t call all the middlemen directly too as I wanted to have the least communication with them.
With so many restrictions, it was a little hard to work out my plan, yet I knew that it was important to deal with us. I was frustrated but I couldn’t let my frustration get the better hold on me. I had to stay strong and I would have to implement my ideas.
I got a text from an unknown number that said that Shaun had agreed to have an impromptu launch of his new line and he also had some ideas on how to make Victoria squirm in her seat. He had some key ideas on how to make her panicky and the ideas sounded great.
The message was signed by DK and I knew that this was Daniel. He was as much involved as me in the whole plan and that was the time when I realized that simply changing my identity was not good. We all need friends who would stay with us through thick and thin and I wanted this to happen.
I knew that this time round if Daniel hadn’t stuck by me, I would have no frigging clue what to do. So, I decided that I would honor the relations I had. For a moment in time, I wondered if it would be better for Elaine to be back with her parents too. Her mother would care for her, but then it was too late to try this.
I couldn’t possibly take this risk as Elaine had fled back then because Anthony’s case was largely unsolved. Damn, I regretted how indecisive I was with the whole thing. I texted back Daniel and let him know about how we should approach Shaun’s case.
I gave him all the key details and even the background story which we could use to convince Shaun and then plan Victoria’s complete downfall. Shaun was a shrewd businessman and as Victoria had once led him to suffer so badly, he too wanted vengeance. When he came to know that there was someone who was willing to help him out, he immediately agreed to the idea.
The two other people in the list which Ed had given the names for had to be analyzed too. I wanted to make sure that I was putting everything in the right basket. I scanned the details and I found out that there was a certain Mr. Adam S who had been on terrible terms with Victoria. No one knew what their cause of dispute was and I wanted to know more than ever what the reason was.
I decided to be sure that I acted on the right plans. I called Ed and I told him to scoop more background on Adam S. I was looking for more facts which could assist me and Ed promised to be back with a lot more information.
I turned on the news to check out on Victoria and I found that she surely was in the news for all the wrong reasons. The troubles had worsened at her end and Shaun had already announced his big launch. An interview with Victoria showered her tensed and I knew that the focus was on me. She was surrounded by media paparazzi and she was under police surveillance too.
There have been reports of money laundering and I had a smug smile on my face because I realized that Victoria was finally going to pay for all her sins. I knew that Daniel was surely the master of his game and he knew how to handle all of it.
My next job was to try and extract Rosie out of the whole mess. This was going to be hard, but if I could succeed in it, the tables would turn. I was still waiting for more news about James and I decided to use that time to try and be in touch with Natasha.
Natasha was one person I couldn’t afford to meet. She must be really angry with me as I was the one who brought her downfall. I asked one of Daniel’s men to meet Natasha as we had traced her coordinates.
I waited patiently to be filled on what happened with her. After a long discussion with her, I got a call from Michael, Daniels’ guy that she was excited to finally see Victoria’s downfall. The time has come for the real shit to begin.
I turned on the news again. One powerful thing
about Daniel was the fact that he had immense hold on the media. He had some of the most powerful sources and he knew how to circulate news like wildfire. All of a sudden, Nathan was all over the news and there were rumors that Shaun had signed a deal with Natasha and this might signal the start of Victoria’s end.
Everything was going just the way we wanted, but somehow James’ details were hard to get. I got impatient and I wanted to know where my daughter was. As Victoria had been attending too many calls, and she was in so many places all at once I knew she didn’t have Rosie with her. I prayed for Rosie’s safety because the last thing I wanted was my daughter to be hurt.
After nearly a couple of hours, I got a call from Daniel and he told me that James was flying cross country. There had been tickets for two people which meant that Rosie might be on the flight with him. But, things were not very clear.
“What do you mean Daniel things are not clear?” I asked clearly frustrated. We had come so close to clinching it, but the fact that I still didn’t know if I could get Rosie made it hard for me to tackle everything else.
“James hasn’t left a very clear lead. It is a little confusing at our end and so I can’t be for sure as this can be a trap too. I am not very sure. I wanted to know before I could confirm the details but as we do not know how much time we have, I thought I would let you know about it.”
I knew that whatever he was telling was right and so I was a little indecisive too. I wondered what should we do and eventually decided that we had to try. If James was actually traveling with Rosie, there was no way we could let this chance slip away.
“We need to stop James right now. This can’t happen. If he has Rosie with her, we can’t let this chance slip away. We should divide our team because I don’t want any of us to be trapped looking for the wrong clues.”