Three black SUVs parked by the side of the road. Their presence was a stark, ominous contrast to the colorful luxury cars dropping off the elite students of St. Carwen's Academy.
Inside the middle vehicle, the air was suffocating with masculinity and wildness.
De Warden sat in the back seat, his massive frame dwarfing the interior, his obsidian eyes fixed on the school's iron-wrought gates, watching the students walking in.
He had been there since 5:00 AM.
On the seat beside him lay a painting of a Carwen Academy girl with a slim build, a black and white backpack, wearing a white nose mask with pink rose at the edge, gray eyes and arched brows, and a distinctive red string tied around her right wrist. It was an appearance he had never seen, but a presence he already despised.
His gaze trailed along her height, down to the black low boots with peals attached to the zippers. No single detail was missed.
She was truly brave and clever. Too smart to be left alive, he thought.
"Boss," a voice crackled from the front seat. It was Scar-face. "Students are arriving in bulk now. Still no sign of the target."
"Patience," De Warden rumbled, his voice like grinding stones.
Suddenly, a sleek pink exotic car pulled up to the curb. A girl stepped out, tossing her hair back with an air of arrogance. She was wearing the St. Carwen's uniform, of course, and her backpack was white and black.
And most importantly, she was wearing a fashionable white nose mask.
It was Hazel.
After Jenna slapped her, Hazel deliberately ruined her own face with a face razor. She intended to frame Jenna for violence, to get her expelled from school, and then bank on her brother and father's fury to send Jenna and her siblings packing.
Hazel could do such harm to herself because she wasn't happy in her own skin. She'd long wanted to go under the knife to correct her bone structure and every flaw she thought she had.
She and Jenna may look identical from behind, but Jenna was prettier than her, and she hated it.
If only she knew what this scheme of hers would do to her. She was about to find out the hard way.
"There," De Warden whispered, his eyes narrowing at Hazel's back. "The mask. The build. It matches the description. That's her."
He didn't see a red string on her wrist from this distance, but the mask, backpack, build, and black hair were a unique identifier. He signaled with a flick of his hand. "Bring her."
Meanwhile, with earpods blasting music in her ears, Hazel adjusted the strap of her backpack and stepped onto the pavement, oblivious to the way three intimidating men filed out of the black SUVs.
She didn't hear the doors open. Didn't notice the sudden hush that fell around her, nor the hurried steps behind her.
She was too spoiled to sense danger. No, scratch that, she didn't believe that anyone would harm her in front of the school. Also, no one in their right minds would naturally dare to offend the heartless billionaire, Benjamin Churchill.
But unfortunately, a reborn prison breaker, and psychopathic monster like De Warden was clearly not in his right senses.
The only thing Hazel felt before she realized she was in danger was a large hand clamping over her mouth.
Her phone slipped from her fingers, clattering uselessly onto the sidewalk.
Her scream died in her throat, muffled, strangled, then a sharp pain on her neck before she passed out.
The bald head guy wasn't gentle with the chop at the side of her neck. But who cared? She wasn't dead. He wrapped a single arm around her waist and lifted her off cleanly from the ground, letting her dangle on his shoulder as he made his way back to the vehicles.
The students watched, stunned. Some were too terrified to scream. Others who tried to, were intimidated into silence by the other two men, who put a finger against their lips in a silent gesture.
Silently, they watched as the vehicles kicked up dust and zoomed off. It all happened in mere seconds.
...
Across the street, Jenna was just turning the corner, a predatory smile still on her face, as she thought about multiple ways to empty the warehouses, when three SUVs zoomed past her, almost knocking her off her feet.
She tripped and fell, cursing the drivers. Feeling a burning pain on her arm, she glanced at it and realized she'd scrapped her elbow on the cobblestone road.
And the injury occurred on the same arm she injured at the market yesterday.
What kind of shitty luck did she have?
She pushed herself up and dusted her dirt-free uniform before walking towards the school, wishing she could magically heal herself, because her siblings would freak out, thinking she was bullied again in school.
[Reminder: Host possess a fountain of life within the spatial dimensional system.]
Jenna stopped walking.
That was right!
She totally forgot!
"Look at me," she tapped her head, hoping to do it later, since she was already close to the school gate and couldn't flash into her space with people watching.
"Jenna!"
"Jenna!"
The frantic shouts snapped her out of her thoughts. Jenna looked up just as two girls from her grade came running toward her, faces pale, breaths ragged.
"What?" she asked, irritation still clinging to her voice. "Why are you screaming like—"
"Your—your cousin," one of them gasped, clutching Jenna's sleeve as if afraid she'd collapse. "Hazel was taken."
Jenna frowned. "Taken… how? By whom?"
The other girl swallowed hard. "Just now. Black vans. They grabbed her right in front of the school gate."
The words hit Jenna like a brick to the skull. Her mind circled back to the vans that almost knocked her down. She glanced back at the road, of course, the cans had long disappeared. They'd most likely be on the highway by now.
Her frown deepened.
Hazel? Abducted? In broad daylight? At St. Carwen's Academy?
"That's not funny," Jenna said flatly. "Stop joking." Who would kidnap a student of St. Carwen Academy in broad day light, not to mention, Hazel, Benjamin's only daughter.
Who didn't know that man, both in the underworld and public eyes? He was a mad man through and through.
Jenna may not like Hazel but this was kidnapping. What if her uncle had offended people who wanted to take it out on his family? If Hazel could be abducted so openly, who was to say Jenna and her siblings wouldn't be the next target?
If that was the case, she must rob the antique warehouse today and leave the city with her siblings tomorrow as early as possible.