Noticing my unease, Ashton reached out and pulled me into his arms, handing me an anti-anxiety pill. “Your family will not be harmed in any way. I promise you that.”
Ashton was not someone who made promises lightly, let alone make a promise about something he had no confidence in. Knowing that helped ease some of my stress.
“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves,” John glanced at us through the reflection of the car mirror. “Looks like we have a long night ahead of us.”
The sentence had barely left his mouth when lightning struck outside. The trees on both sides of the road were shaking violently due to the strong wind as the deafening sounds of thunder filled the electric air.
This was not going to be a normal night.
After arriving home, I quickly washed up and put the kids to sleep before putting on a warm coat, heading downstairs to the living room.
John and Ashton were both already there. The former was resting his chin in one hand as he sat on the sofa with a gloomy expression, while the latter’s back was turned to me as he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. Every time there was lightning outside, the sudden flash of brightness would cast a striking, lonely shadow of Ashton on the floor.
So they haven’t gotten any updates yet.
Waiting was always the hardest part of doing anything.
If all went well, Ashton’s men would find Nicolas’ secret hideout tonight and ambush it.
If not, a sleepless night like this one would likely be our daily routine for many days to come.
Nothing happened for the entire night. My body was starting to display signs of fatigue, but my brain was still fully alert.
The darkness outside eventually turned into light, and the rain turned from a heavy downpour into a faint drizzle.
John, unable to sit still, abruptly got to his feet and pulled his coat on. “I’m going to pull the Hall residence apart brick by brick if it’s the last thing I do,” he declared, heading for the door.
This was what we’d agreed on when putting together this plan: if an accident happened, we would go all out and not hold anything back anymore.
But that was merely the backup plan. If we really did take matters into our own hands now, Nicolas might team up with the police and we would end up being the ones at a disadvantage. That’s why we wanted to avoid taking last-resort measures as much as possible.
“Let’s wait for a while longer,” I called out, stopping John in his tracks and glancing at the clock. “There’s still half an hour left to the time limit we gave them. Maybe there was a delay because of the heavy rain.”
“I don’t have the patience for that,” John grumbled but stayed where he was. He seemed deep in thought for a second before finally looking at Ashton, letting him make the final decision. “You came up with this idea. You tell me: are we still going to sit around doing nothing?”
He wasn’t explicitly blaming Ashton, but I could hear an undercurrent of frustration.
I doubt he’d meant to direct his anger at Ashton; after all, our relatives were in danger, and we were all growing desperate.
I trusted that this version of Ashton whom I’d reconnected with after six years was no longer the man from before: a cold, nearly robotic person who was willing to sacrifice anyone and anything in order to achieve his ambitions. John’s impression of him, however, was still stuck in the past.
I opened my mouth in an attempt to defend Ashton when I suddenly heard his deep voice speak up from behind me: “I’ll go with you.”
The time limit had been set in place by us to ensure that we’d be able to bring our relatives back home safely by a certain time, even if the plan had failed. Before the time limit was over, any action we took that the Halls might notice would risk hurting the very people we were trying to save, thus setting us back.
But Ashton had just agreed to go out and take that risk with John.
He glanced over at me, picking up a thick blanket and draping it over my shoulders. “Go upstairs and try to sleep,” he whispered, his voice soft and husky. “I promise that I’ll bring back your parents and Uncle Louis home safely.”
Parting with a reassuring smile, he let go of me and walked towards the door.
Even John was surprised by Ashton’s response, frozen in shock for a second before quickly following on his heels.
The two of them passed by me and headed for the staircase. At that exact moment, the ringing of the phone broke the long, tense silence of the past few hours.
