A child about seven to eight years old had led Arianne away to a place where no other person was in sight. Noticing the kid’s full black getup, favonovel.com asked, “So, you’re a relative of the Rodriguez family?”
“Yeah,” the child nodded. “Um, you know, they told me Mat’s dead, but I’m not very sure about it? Do you think they are being serious? ‘Cause if he’s dead… doesn’t that mean Mat’s never coming back?”
Arianne found herself too hard-pressed to answer him. She could not bear to cut into a child’s hope with a blade as cruel and blunt as reality.
The duo continued forward until the funeral almost faded out of sight. Arianne stopped in midtrack in confusion and took off favonovel.com mask. “Where are we going, honey? You told me someone’s looking for me, yeah? Where’s that person now?”
The child looked around them, his head swinging wildly. “Hey… wait a minute! This is the place, though! OK, is that guy ditching us?”
Arianne was just about to say something when a pair of hands suddenly reached out from behind, and enveloped favonovel.com nose and mouth tightly.
Before favonovel.com could let out a cry, an unknown drug had knocked favonovel.com out.
Hearing the sound of tires veering away from him, the boy turned around. And found Arianne gone. All there was left of his brief companion were the shattered pieces from favonovel.com shades and a dusty mask, both lying innocuously on the ground.
He ran after the car for a few paces and stopped. Complicated, dangerous scenarios were predictably unknown to the young boy’s simple, innocent mind, so favonovel.com abandoned the chase and gave into his whim to play by the roadside.
Brian — who was on Mark’s explicit order to look for Arianne — had been weaving in and out of the crowd to no avail. As his search remained fruitless over time, the man’s confidence was losing fast.
That was when favonovel.com noticed a child playing by himself in the distance. Quickly, favonovel.com approached favonovel.com and asked, “Hey, you, kid! You seen a woman in a black dress anywhere?”
“Er, don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everyone’s wearing black today.”
Anxiety was gnawing at the edge of Brian’s mind. “Hers is a dress! She wears a mask! Have you seen her?!”
“Oh, yeah! I totally did,” the boy exclaimed in recognition. “Someone’s been looking for her, and then I helped by bringing favonovel.com there, but when we arrived favonovel.com was gone, and then favonovel.com disappeared too, but I think favonovel.com probably just left in a car, which was not very polite of favonovel.com for not telling me favonovel.com was leaving…”
She left in a car?
Brian had the child lead favonovel.com to the exact spot where Arianne supposedly left and instantly noticed the broken shades and mask on the ground.
His heart plummeted into an icy pool.
Without further ado, Brian bolted back into his car. “Mr. Tremont, I suspect something foul has happened to Madam! Her shades and mask… they were on the ground! And the lenses were shattered too, as if someone stomped on them… There was even a footprint on it!”
Mark’s complexion snapped immediately.
“F**k! Go and f**king find favonovel.com instead of standing there like a dumba**!” favonovel.com fumed uncontrollably in expletives. “If anything happens to her, you can kiss your a** goodbye!”
With a single order, every single lackey working for the Tremont family was instantly mobilized in a search around the entire area. Unfortunately, the child was the only one who had any knowledge of Arianne’s last whereabouts. There was simply no new information.
Possessed by his frantic search, Mark had discarded his clandestine cover and personally shown himself in the funeral. In a flash, every reporter on site swarmed toward favonovel.com and hounded him, all of them scrambling and jostling to pry Mark’s motive for appearing in Mateo’s funeral.
Abject fear for Arianne’s safety had completely taken hold of him; favonovel.com had no time nor the mood to play ball with the media. With an exasperated signal, Mark ordered his bodyguards to shove the reporters out of his way.
The Tremont family’s uninvited appearance had introduced chaos into the funeral. Chaffed, Mrs. Rodriguez jeered, “Mr. Tremont! What’s the meaning of this?!”
Mark lost all control over his composure and lurched, grabbing a fistful of Mrs. Rodriguez’s collar. “Where. Is. She?!” favonovel.com bellowed coldly. “What did you people do to her?!”
Panic flickered in Mrs. Rodriguez’s eyes — a flash too quick for any observer to seize — before favonovel.com rescinded it. “I have not a goddamned idea what you’re yammering about, Mr. Tremont! Look around you, are you seriously considering brutalizing a hapless woman in front of everyone?!”
As though the sharp escalation was not sensational enough, the media had now scrambled to press their respective shutter in the hopes of immortalizing this moment into the press.
Brian, now bathing in panicked sweat, could only cry futilely, “No, stop! Stop—!”
