38. "Cut off his hands and feet. Then throw him somewhere."
It had been more than twenty four hours since Aysel had completely disappeared. I had my men scouring the whole city, and even drove around non-stop in hopes of a miracle, of finding her somewhere. I checked the hospital, asked people she was close with at work, but nobody knew anything about her.
Each passing second of not seeing her beautiful face and smelling her sweet scent made me despise myself even more.
I even checked all the hotels, motels, guest houses or any other place in the city where she could have spent the night. But it was like she had vanished into thin air.
Parking my car in front of my house, I sat in the driver's seat trying to regulate my breathing, before all my tough exterior came crumbling down, and I just sat there with my face buried in my hands, sobbing out the weight that compressed my heart and soul.
She had come into my dark and gloomy life like a ray of sunshine. The more I tried hating her in the start, the more I started to fall for her. Both knowingly and unknowingly. Until she became an integral part of my life.
Life had started to seem less like a burden with her around. And now I had ruined everything.
Not being able to find her anywhere seemed to confirm the fear that I had been denying ever since she left the house. That Liam had her.
I knew I needed to find him as well, my men were working on it even, but I did not know how to proceed. And it made me feel just as feeble and powerless as I had felt when I saw my family bleed out in front of my eyes.
Stepping out of my car, I entered my house and went upstairs to the room where I did my office work. My tired eyes fell on the globe on my desk. The one she had gotten me. My feet walked towards it and I touched it, as my other hand called her number for the thousandth time, but to no avail.
"Mr. Knight!" A voice called from the corridor. I turned my head to the door before urgently pacing outside.
Samuel stood there with an alarmed look on his face and an iPad in his hand.
"What?" I asked, my heart constricting for fear of receiving bad news.
He turned the iPad towards me, and I walked closer to him to see. "I found this CCTV footage of Lincoln Street..."
My heart stood still in my chest as he played the recording. A girl stepped out of an Uber with a bag in her hand. The darkness didn't allow us to see her face clearly, but I knew at one glance that it was Aysel.
The cab drove down the road as she started walking with the bag in her hand, her back now towards the camera.
Goosebumps erupted on my skin as two men appeared in the footage, walking behind her.
Before she could realise anything, one of them had grabbed her while the other put a cloth over her mouth.
Rage coursed through my veins as she struggled and flailed in their hold, before her body went limp in their arms. My fists balled up as one of them carried her. The next second, a car became visible in the footage.
"Wait a minute...." I uttered.
"It's the same Uber that dropped her." Samuel confirmed my suspicion. My eyes flicked to him. "We have the Uber driver, sir. Downstairs."
My eyes darkened as I stormed downstairs where two of my men stood behind that pathetic driver who was made to kneel on the ground.
I held his face roughly, making him look up at me. "Where is she?"
He whimpered pathetically. "I don't know. I was just given money to give them a ride."
"You're a part of their gang, aren't you?" I said through gritted teeth.
He shook his head, pressing his hands together in a pathetic attempt to beg for mercy. "Th-they just told me to pick the girl in place of her actual ride. I don't know them. I only did it for the money."
"You did it for the money, huh?" I uttered disdainfully before punching him in the face and grabbing his face again. "Where did you drop them?"
"Near Dahlia road." He whimpered.
"Where did they go from there?" I demanded.
"I don't know. They made me stop the car at a deserted spot. There was no building around. Please... please don't kill me. I didn't do anything."
I looked towards my men standing behind him. "Don't kill him."
A wave of relief washed over his face. "Thank you, thank you!"
"Cut off his hands and feet. Then throw him somewhere." I instructed, earning a nod from my men, and series of pleas from the driver that I paid no heed to.
Without wasting any time, I hurried to my car with Samuel running up behind me. "Samuel, go separately." I ordered.
"Sir!" The urgency in his tone made me stop just as I was about to step foot into my car.
"What?" I looked at him expectantly.
He took a deep breath. "Dahlia road is near..."
I was confused for a few seconds, until my eyes widened in realisation of what he meant. "No way... that can't be."
"What if? It makes sense... he would want to do that... to hurt you."
I sucked in a breath, my phone buzzing in my pocket before I could reply. I pulled it out, noticing a message from an unknown number.
Opening it, I stiffened on the ground, my breath getting caught in my lungs.
It was a picture of Aysel tied to a chair.
Before I could recover from the shock of the image, another picture came through, stilling my heart, along with a text.
Remember this place, Aiden? That's where I'm holding your lovely doctor. If you want to see her safe and sound, come save her. Alone. Hurry up though, it's hard to keep my hands off her.
My fists balled up, my lips thinning as I looked up from my phone, meeting Samuel's gaze.
"You were right. He's holding her hostage at my family home."