The Heiress's Comeback-Chapter 263: [ Volume 1] Chaper - No idea
Esme’s voice was rough with sleep as she answered the phone, barely lifting it to her ear. "Hello?" she muttered, still in the fog of exhaustion.
The response was immediate and frantic. "Esme! Cain’s gone—he’s missing!" Aron’s voice was laced with panic, loud enough to startle her fully awake.
"What?" Esme bolted upright, the heaviness of sleep dissolving into sharp anxiety. She gripped the phone tighter, her heart pounding against her ribs.
"I’ve looked everywhere, Esme!" Aron’s voice cracked. "Cain... he didn’t come home, and no one’s seen him. His dad is losing it. He doesn’t know where he could be either—he’s been crying for hours."
Esme’s breath caught in her throat. Her mind was already racing, flashing through fragments of memories, trying to piece together any signs, any clue she might have missed about Cain’s whereabouts. Without another thought, she jumped to her feet, grabbing her jacket and pushing through the door of her hostel room, all while holding the phone close.
"Aron," she demanded, her voice tense, "did anyone see him before he disappeared?"
Aron’s reply came through in hurried, desperate words. "Last anyone saw, he was delivering flowers after school. But the person he was supposed to deliver to said he never arrived. And... Esme, we found the flowers. They were crushed on the road, just a few meters from the shop. Like he just... vanished."
Her stomach twisted with fear, her pulse racing. Crushed flowers on the road? It felt like a scene out of a nightmare, surreal yet painfully real. Esme ran, her steps heavy but driven, her heart aching with a sickening urgency. Her legs moved faster than her exhausted body could handle, her mind a haze of worry and dread.
As she descended the hostel stairs, her foot suddenly slipped, and gravity betrayed her. She tumbled down, the world spinning around her as she fell. Each impact jolted her, pain shooting through her body with each bang and thud until, finally, she landed hard at the bottom.
The world blurred, and a sharp pain throbbed at the side of her head where she’d hit it. She could feel a warm trickle of blood running down her temple, but she barely registered it. There was no time to stop. Cain was missing—she needed to find him.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself up, her hands shaking as she fumbled for the phone, trying to steady herself. "Hello?" she rasped, her voice weak but determined.
"Esme, are you okay?" Aron’s voice was nearly hysterical, worry evident even through the phone.
"No... it’s okay," she replied, swallowing down the pain. "Just keep going. Tell me everything."
She staggered forward, pressing her hand to her head to stem the bleeding. Her vision swayed, but her resolve hardened. She didn’t care how many bruises she had to endure or how much pain she had to push through—she would find Cain, no matter the cost.
That day, Esme scoured the city, her heart a relentless drumbeat of worry as she tore through every familiar alley, every hidden corner. She’d called in every favor she had, exhausted every connection she could think of, speaking to everyone who might have a whisper of information on Cain’s whereabouts. She didn’t rest, didn’t eat—her focus narrowed solely on finding him. But by nightfall, despite her desperate efforts, Cain remained missing.
As darkness fell, dread seeped into her thoughts, settling like a lead weight in her chest. Esme had dealt with tough situations before, but this felt different, darker, as if something personal and vicious was weaving itself into her life. A haunting thought crossed her mind, one she’d pushed away until she could no longer ignore it.
Whoever took Cain... it was because of me.
There had been no calls, no demands, no hints of ransom. It wasn’t the typical, cold business of a kidnapping meant to squeeze money or information out of someone. This silence, this calculated invisibility, carried an unmistakable message. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was meant for her, aimed directly at her heart.
The Florence family came to mind, their disdain for her well known and bitterly unyielding. But despite their cold resentment, even they wouldn’t go to these lengths—not for Cain, someone they barely considered a threat. No, this wasn’t about him at all. He was just... the pawn, the collateral damage in someone’s twisted vendetta.
As she stood beneath the glow of the streetlight, her shadow stretched thin on the pavement, Esme clenched her fists, feeling the anger bubble up beneath her fear. They took him to hurt me. They wanted me to suffer.
At last, Esme found herself standing in front of the grand, bustling hotel where Cain was hidden. The irony wasn’t lost on her—of all places, he’d been tucked away in a high-end establishment on one of the city’s liveliest streets, hiding in plain sight rather than in some desolate, abandoned warehouse. She clenched her fists, her nerves crackling. She was here, so close, but without knowing exactly which room he was in, the building felt as vast and impenetrable as a maze.
Beside her, Aron was out of breath, catching up from their sprint through the hotel lobby. "Esme! How... how are we going to find him?" His gaze darted over the three floors above them, each floor lined with dozens of doors, each door a possible hiding place. There was no way to search room by room without risking being noticed or alerting the wrong people. Esme bit her lip, her mind racing, desperate for a solution that could save Cain in time.
Then, her eyes landed on the small, red fire alarm box on the wall nearby. She looked at Aron, a glint of determination lighting her face. "Aron," she said, barely needing to say more. The realization hit him immediately.
Without hesitation, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and struck it, holding up a crisp hundred-dollar bill and setting it alight beneath the alarm’s smoke detector. The smell of burning money filled the air as he tried to get enough smoke to trigger the system.
