Chapter 42: Chapter 42

~ RICHIE’S POV

The beeping of my phone wakes me up. I groan sleepy turning around and laying on my stomach with a pillow covering my head. I lift myself up, the pillow tumbled over. My eyes squint as the sun shin through the curtains making me groan and lay my head back on to the bed. I slowly turn over to my back, my arm reaching to rest over my eyes. I didn’t have a good sleep last night, I don’t know why but I keep dreaming about Rachel, and how she wants to end things with me because of Angelina. That's something I hope never happens.

I hear another beep which makes me groan harder. I didn’t want to check my phone but then a voice at the back of my mind reminds me of Rachel. I called her multiple times last night, perhaps she saw my phone calls and is texting me now.

I sit up from bed and reach to grab the phone which I keep on the side table. I pick up the phone and see two messages from an unknown number. That is weird, I hardly receive messages from unknown numbers, I can’t even remember the last time I did. I open the message which turns out to be videos. As I played the first video, my eyes widen in terror and my heart lurches in my chest. Unblinking, I watch the whole thing only to discover that this is the worst thing I’ve watched in my entire life.

Becoming speechless, my body freezes momentarily. I can’t believe this. My heart squeezes in hysteria as I watch how Rachel was assaulted and abused. She is in a pool of her own blood- her blood!

This can not be happening right now. I couldn’t watch the next video because the first one was too terrifying. Watching her beg for mercy is not something I would want to watch the part-two of. My body freeze momentarily as I try to process what I just watched.

This can’t be possible, Brad told me he dropped her off at Rebecca’s. Rachel is not the one in the video, she’s with Rebecca, and she’s fine. I try to tell myself the video is fake, but I know it's not. Suddenly something clicks in my head and I had no choice but to do what I hate to do; watch the video again. If I’m not mistaken, I think I saw Aiden in that video. Rewatching the video, my heart was unable to grasp who I saw. I couldn't comprehend what was triggering my shock. Is the fact that Brad, my most trusted bodyguard pinned Rachel’s legs so that bastard could fuck her or the fact that Aiden Smirnov crossed all lines.

I stumble out of the room calling Brad’s name. I swear to God, when I see him, I will kill him. "Brad!" I call out walking into the living room. I squint my gaze around, he is not there; no one is.

I head into the kitchen and see Alice eating avocado and toast. Her gaze turns to me and she smiles "Good morning Rich-"

"Where is Brad?" I ask cutting her off. I don’t have time for good morning, Rachel is in danger and I have to do something about it.

"Brad?" She questions looking around the room presumably to see if he’s here or not "I don’t know." She responds pushing the chair back to stand up. "You look worried, what’s wrong?"

I release a deep breath but didn’t respond to her. I don’t know how to say it, I can not even comprehend what I just watched. Right now, I feel like my mind and body aren’t getting along. My attention drafts to the bodyguard standing by the door. He is Brad’s colleague, he should know where he is.

"Where is Brad?" I question as I approach him

He looks at me for a second before he turns his gaze away "My apologies sir but I have no idea where he is."

"Richie, what’s wrong?" Alice repeats, sounding extremely concerned.

"But have you seen him today?" I ask the bodyguard ignoring Alice’s question. I didn’t mean to ignore Alice but I am freaking out right here. I don’t think I will be at rest until I find that bastard. He knows where Aiden took Rachel.

"No, sir. I haven’t seen him, I don’t even think he came today." The bodyguard responds to me.

I groan lashing out as I punch the closest wall to me. "Fuck!" Aiden leaves me no choice. The authorities aren’t supposed to know about this but now they will. I walk away from the bodyguard as I pull my phone out of my pocket.

"What are you doing now?" Alice asks following me behind

"I’m calling the cops," I respond flicking through my contacts list.

"Cops!" She remarks, surprised. "What’s going on, Richie? Why do you have to call the cops?"

I don’t respond to her and she snatches the phone out of my hand. "Give me the phone, Alice."

"Tell me what’s going on, first. Why do you have to call the cops?"

"I will explain everything to you later just give me the phone," I say

"No, explain it now. Did something happen to John?" She inquires; her voice sounds like she’s about to tear up.

"No, now give me the damn phone," I demand trying to calm down. I don’t want to lash out at her

"What happened to him?"

"Nothing. Nothing happened to him." I clarify

"Then why are so worked up?"

"Rachel!" I blurt out. God! I’m losing my mind. With a sigh, I say "She’s been kidnapped."

"Oh my god!" Alice gasps covering her mouth with her hand "How? When? Who?" Shock lace through her body. "You think Brad is behind this, right?" She asked

"No, he just helped them."

"Who?"

"Your ex-husband, Aiden," I say his name with hatred. That bastard should start counting his days because what I am about to do to him is not something he’d ever expect. Messing with me is one thing, messing with my business is another but touching Rachel; that’s way out of the ordinary. He will pay for every single harm he’s caused her.

I snatch my phone from Alice’s hand and dialed the chief of police number. I walk to the corner to speak with him, I don’t want anyone to hear my conversation with him. Now that Brad has turned out to be a backstabber, I don’t trust any of my bodyguards. After speaking to the chief of police, I decide to go back into the living room to tell Alice not to freak out or tell anyone. The last thing I want right now is for the paparazzi to find out.

Walking through the door I begin to speak "Alice I need you to" but trail mid-sentence when my gaze lands on Angelina. My brows furrow; how the hell did she get in?

She looks at me and smiled "Hi, Richie."

"What the hell are you doing here?" I snap walking in her direction

"Richie I-"

"Get out of my house!" I command cutting her off. I don’t want to hear a word from her, she is the cause of this. If she didn’t come to my office, Rachel wouldn’t have been mad at me and nothing would have happened to her.

"Just hear me out, please." She begs

"GET OUT!" I make it clear to her.

With a sigh, she says "Rachel has been kidnapped by Aiden Smirnov."

"I know now get out."

Angelina looks like she is about to say something but before she could Alice speaks "Wait a minute, how do you about that?"

Something suddenly snaps in my head as I think it through. I was so angry and panicked that I didn’t even realize that. I didn’t tell anyone about Rachel’s kidnap but Alice. And I know Aiden, he wouldn’t inform people because he wouldn’t want the authorities to be involved.

"I- I heard it from the news," Angelina respond

"News?" Alice questions

I scoff, that is obviously not true. If Rachel’s kidnap was on the news I would have received dozens of calls from several people. I take a step closer to Angelina. I look her in the eyes and ask "Who told you Rachel got kidnapped?" I don’t want to jump to conclusions but I think it’s one of my bodyguards told her. Brad has worked for me for five years, that’s more than any of my workers have, and if he could betray me any of my workers can.

"I told you already, I heard it from the news." She said

With a groan, I grab her arm tightly. I don’t care if I’m hurting her. Rachel is in more pain than her. "The news?" I scoff "Do you really think I’m that stupid? How the fuck did you know about that!" I growl

She wince in pain "Richie you’re hurting me." She tries to get out of my grip but couldn’t.

"How did you know about Rachel’s kidnap!" I grunt

"Let go of my arm, you are hurting me!"

I jerk her closer to me making her look me in the eyes "Rachel is in pain, he hurt her. I can not begin to tell you what he did to her so please, I’m begging, tell me if you know anything about this."

She close her eyes while releasing a breath "Fine, I will tell you just let go of my arm."

I let go of her arm and pin my gaze on her waiting for an answer. Angelina massages her arms as she begins to speak "Aiden and I are old friends, he asked me to come meet him in his farmhouse a few days ago. At first, I found it a little weird since we haven’t spoken for quite some time. But when I got to his house, it was pretty normal, we had lunch-"

"I don’t fucking care about your lunch!" I rant cutting her off. "Just go straight to the damn point."

"Okay," She releases a sigh before she continues "While I was at his house he asked me to help him with a plan. He explained everything and I found it very okay and I went ahead with it, but suddenly he changed the plan."

"What was the plan?" I ask

"The plan was to get to your office, make sure Rachel sees us together and that’s it. All I wanted was to get back at you for dumping me, I wanted Rachel to get mad at you and end things with you but I never wanted anything like this to happen."

"You set this all up," I say, thinking it through. Angelina is such a fool, why would she even think that Aiden would make a petty plan just so Rachel will end things with me?

"I’m sorry, Richie. I swear the plan was just to get Rachel to hate you, I didn’t know Aiden would change the plan and kidnap her."

"Wait, what you said didn’t justify the kidnapping, how do you know she was kidnapped?" I ask

"He sent me a video." She responds

I release a sigh. Of course, he sent it to her and she watched him assault Rachel.

"I’m sorry Richie." She quietly says. I don’t respond to her, my body is freezing momentarily. I

"Richie," She tries to grab my hand, but I pull away immediately.

"Do not fucking touch me! You crossed all lines, Angelina." I say in disgust. I feel devastated right now. All of this has to do with me but Rachel is the one suffering from it. This is wrong, what kind of a man am I if I couldn't protect my woman?