The Faceless Billionaire Celebrity Wife-Chapter 252: Fire.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see another firefighter,

"Excuse me, Sir, but you shouldn’t do this here. It’s useless since there’s no living person in there."

Raymond turned slowly, causing the firefighters to back away.

"What did you say?"

"I said there’s no living human in there. We didn’t find any dead person in there—"

"So you guys are sure no one died from the fire?!" Raymond interjected.

"Well...for now, I can say yes but we will conduct a more intensive search when the fire completely dies down. All of the wounded have been accompanied to the hospital some minutes ago so you can check if your wife is there," the firefighter informed.

"Which hospital?"

"Lucian Rays ER has some accident victims in so some of the patients were rejected and sent to Lucas Feliz hospitals. You can give your wife’s information to my colleague over there to help you check which hospital she was sent to."

"Thank you," Raymond muttered, taking large strides towards the firefighter he had been directed to. The woman had her head bent while reading something off a sheet of paper lying in her hands.

"Cyprian Leigh, 26 years old, wearing a yellow colored blazer and black denim shorts," he recited.

"Not on my list," came the reply.

"What?! Cross check it," he ordered.

"Any other hint?" the woman asked calmly. Having experienced countless incidents just like this one in her career, she had grown rather apathetic to men acting like this.

"She has a child with her. A ten year old Esther DeLoach wearing a white dress and red sneakers. Did you find her?"

"Not on my list," the woman replied, her voice showing a hint of emotions this time around. It seems like the man had just lost his wife and daughter on the same day. She added, "Our colleagues are still in there trying to save the remaining trapped citizens."

A flurry of murmurs resounded from Raymond’s back, making him turn away from the woman to check what was happening behind him. A man emerged from the smoky police station with a burnt bag and sneakers in hand. Brands which Raymond found eerily familiar.

It was the same designer brand of bag as that which Cyprian was holding in the morning, and the same brand of sneakers which Esther had been wearing.

"What’s that?" his voice came out weak and exhausted, refusing to believe what he was seeing. Just then, some men walked out after the man holding a bag, carrying a stretcher, then another...and another. One of them had a child and a woman who were lying lifelessly on it.

"The kid told her mother she wanted to experience what it felt like to be behind bars and even though Officer Callum tried to stop them, the woman insisted. It was at that moment the fire was discovered and you know, everyone fights for his own life."

Raymond felt strength slowly leaving his legs, but he struggled to hold himself up.

"Callum Leigh," he murmured, "Where is he?"

The woman with the sheet of paper in hand glanced down, her eyes skimming the list in her hand for a while before looking back up.

"Callum Leigh followed the ambulance heading to Lucas Feliz hospitals," she replied.

Raymond swayed, almost falling to the ground if not for some men in the crowd who had noticed he was weak.

"Hold up, Man! Do not—" the man who was trying to console Raymond suddenly felt tongue tied, seeing the tears streaming down the latter’s eyes. Real tears in the face of a man?! The fact that Raymond was crying out loud without any reservation caused a hush to fall upon the ground.

Cyprian who had just gotten the news that her brother was safe from his colleague, was on a call with Skyler when she felt the atmosphere suddenly go quiet behind her. Hearing the sobs of a man, she turned slightly and caught sight of a familiar pajamas. Pushing through the crowd until she got to the front, she was shocked when she saw that it was really Raymond kneeling on the paved ground.

"Ray?" she called, her low voice resounding in the quiet crowd. "What are you doing here?"

★★★

Contrary to the soft manner with which Ethan’s hand was caressing the sleeping Esther’s head, his eyes were staring daggers at Raymond and Enoch who sat in front of him.

"I heard what happened," he began, restraining himself from saying anything else. He expected the two to report by themselves.

"Today was a mistake on our part and we were lucky. But Rian said they left the police station an hour before the fire and went to have lunch somewhere else," Raymond explained, "Apparently, the woman and child who were unconscious are the commissioner’s family."

Ethan raised his brow. "So Raymond, you let your girlfriend and my daughter leave the house without guards after them? Even with—"

"Big brother, we are very very sorry! We...we know you still have to punish us but hear this out first. We weren’t just sitting around since you left and we found out a lot of things," Enoch interrupted.

"It better be something that can quell the anger in me," Ethan stated. Seeing Raymond and Enoch give collective nods, he asked, "Did you find Shikera?"

Enoch cleared his throat guiltily, averting his eyes from Ethan’s as he rose to his feet.

"Raymond will brief you on it. I will get Cole so he can report with the status of Shikera’s search," he excused himself.

FEW MINUTES LATER...

"If the woman isn’t Natalia Anderson, then who is she?" Ethan asked. When he realized earlier how serious their conversation would be, he had carried Esther upstairs and placed her in bed, before retiring in his study with the men and Ruthlyn. Cole had also arrived by then.

"A Natasha," Ruthlyn replied, "Mrs Ashley Zuresh says Natasha is Natalia Anderson’s twin sister, and the rest is as we have told you."

To the surprise of the others, Ethan chuckled lightly, "Natasha? This is getting interesting."

"Interesting?" the other four chorused.

"I’ll take care of it," Ethan deadpanned, dousing their rising curiosity.

He sat up on his seat and the smile dissapeared from his face, "Is that all you have to tell me?"

"Yes, except for the exclusive news... Raymond and Cyprian haven’t been on good terms for days now and of course, we do know it’s none of our and your business but then..." Ruthlyn trailed off as she tried to catch her breath. For fear of Raymond stopping her while she was talking, her words had come out in a rush.

"Thanks, Ruth. It was really interesting but I did think I would hear about you and Enoch turning parents already," Enoch stated.

"What?!" Ruthlyn yelled. At a loss for what to say, she blurted out whatever came to her mind, "That shouldn’t be said to me! Raymond, did you hear that? Hold on...is that what’s causing the argument between you and Cyprian? Is Cyprian pregnant?" Her voice was extremely low when she asked the last question, even though it was still audible enough for everyone else to hear.

Momentarily paralyzed by Ruthlyn’s almost accurate words, Raymond turned to storm out of the study.

"Not yet, Acting President Ray. I didn’t hear anything concerning my wife’s whereabouts in all you said."

Raymond paused in his track, slowly retracing his steps back to his former position.

"You put Cole in charge of that," he stated.

"I put you all in charge of that," Ethan disagreed, his tone firm and unwavering. "You can’t tell me you didn’t find her even though you had full control over the elite teams in my absence."

"We couldn’t. Even after following Chairman DeLoach’s trail, we couldn’t find anything connected to her. The only explanation to this is that she completely disappeared from this country without going through any medium of transportation, or that she’s..." Cole couldn’t complete his sentence, fearing for his own life.

"Out!" Ethan ordered.

Before he could repeat his words, the room had cleared and the others had left him to himself.

"Damn!" he cursed. Retrieving his phone from his desk’s drawer, he unlocked it and went to a particular group chat.

Shikera had created it when she was temporarily unable to talk and after then, she had not deleted the group. He dialed her number countless times even though he was cock sure she would not pick up, and his heart sank endless times when the call failed to connect.

He dropped the phone in hand and picked up another, dialing one of the numbers in it. It was a call that wouldn’t process if he had used the other phone.

"Noah?" he asked, as soon as the call connected.

"Why was I expecting your call?" A chuckle resounded from the other side of the line.

"I need your help," Ethan went straight to the point.