Chapter 314

Robert’s POV

I was deeply surprised by the action of that small child as he embraced my neck with that rare, spontaneous warmth, and I felt a very strange, new, and completely unprecedented feeling invading the corners of my chest for the first time in my harsh life. The warmth quickly crept into my stiffened limbs, so I surrounded his small, slender body with my strong arms and, with a single affectionate, gentle movement, I lifted him between my hands and stood up to my full stature, leaning my long torso with steadfastness.

At that moment charged with innocence, I caught sight of my brother Harold coming with quiet, balanced steps toward the car. He stopped directly in front of me and looked at his son settled safely between my arms, and a warm, quiet smile sketched on his lips as he said: "I think you have finally met and gotten to know Adam, Robert."

I looked scrutinizingly at the small boy’s innocent, pure features that radiated whiteness, and said in a low tone: "Adam... it is indeed a beautiful name."

Harold sighed deeply, and relaxed his shoulders with features of slight reproach and a sadness that appeared in his eyes, saying: "I personally and intensely invited you to the celebration of his birth back then... but as usual, you alienated us and did not come."

I calmly averted my gaze from his reproaching face for a moment with complete coldness and detachment, and ground out in a low, hissing voice that cut off the cords of family discussion: "You know perfectly well that I am always busy with my businesses, Harold."

In the midst of these gentle moments, the child’s small, soft, and trembling hand extended spontaneously toward my face and grabbed the strands of my pitch-black hair, and he began playing with his fingers through it with natural ease. Harold watched his bold movement and smiled with warmth and affection, saying: "Look at him... it seems he truly loves you and senses safety with you despite your harshness."

I fixed my sharp looks on the little one who had succeeded in melting my ice, relaxed the tensed lines of my face a little, and said with a sincere admission: "He is indeed a gentle boy."

The child suddenly turned his small head and looked at his father, Harold, then extended his small arms toward him with eagerness and childish affection, uttering in his sweet childish letters: "Daddy... Daddy."

Signs of happiness and joy sketched entirely on Harold’s face, and he took a single quick step to approach us, saying with a sweeping fatherly affection: "Yes, my dear and precious son... come to Daddy’s embrace."

I presented and delivered the child’s body with extreme caution and gentleness to Harold, who caught him between his hands and pressed him to his chest with softness and emotion. Then he turned with the little one toward me again and said with an encouraging smile: "Adam... have you gotten to know your uncle Robert? Say ’uncle’... come on, champion."

The small child looked at me with his bright, wide green eyes in absolute innocence, and moved his small lips with effort, saying in broken, soft letters: "Un... cle."

The features of my face stiffened for seconds because of the impact of the word upon my ears, and I felt a strange constriction in my heart. Then I retreated with a quick step backward to restore my cold mask and said briefly and with detachment: "Fine... I must go right now without delay."

I turned my body with supernatural speed and headed with wide steps toward my black car. I opened the door with a tight, nervous movement and rode behind the steering wheel, then started the engine and departed from that place with a blind, crazy rush. I tore through the highways with a crazy, dangerous speed, heading immediately and without thinking to Carlos’s warehouse and headquarters; my cursed mind could no longer tolerate more riddles and secrets, and it was incumbent upon me to know and uncover what exactly happened with Julie in that cursed nightclub belonging to Wilson years ago.

I arrived at the massive, secluded warehouse after a short period, and slammed on the brakes violently, producing a terrifying screeching sound of friction. I got out of the car with roaring, violent, and driving steps, and entered inside the warehouse like a destructive hurricane about to burn everything. I tore my path with a convulsion directly toward Carlos’s private office, and without any prior warning, I pushed the door with brute force so that it opened and slammed against the wall with a loud, terrifying sound.

Carlos jolted in his place with terror from behind his desk, and his gaze stared with total astonishment and sweeping shock toward me, uttering in a faltered, snatched tone: "Robert?! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

I did not grant him a single second to comprehend the chaos or catch his breath; I rushed with the entirety of my massive, beastly body toward him, and grabbed with intense malice, hatred, and irritation with both of my hands onto the collar of his shirt with a convulsion.

I pressed him violently backward to slam him against the desk and ground out from between my teeth with eyes igniting with a lethal, murderous spark: "Answer me immediately, Carlos... why did Julie go to that cursed nightclub? And why did she call you in particular and declare before Wilson’s men that you were her lover?! Come on, answer me and do not lie by a single letter!"

Carlos’s eyes widened with clear confusion and shock at my uncovering of the matter, and he tried with effort and convulsion to distance my pressing palms from the collar of his shirt, and asked with fabricated confusion and stammering: "Wh... what are you talking about, for heaven’s sake? What nightclub and what talk is this?"

I tightened my grip and my muscles more around his neck until he almost suffocated entirely between my hands, and I bent with my upper torso over him while roaring in a sweeping anger that completely shook the corners and furniture of the office: "Four years ago exactly in Wilson’s cursed nightclub, Carlos! Do not act stupid and test my patience!"

At that moment, the features of Carlos relaxed with complete helplessness and surrender despite his strength, so I tossed his collar carelessly between my hands, letting him retreat with a heavy step to rest his tired back against the edge of the desk. He asked me with anxious looks loaded with apprehension: "Answer me honestly first... who is the lowlife who informed you of this matter now after all these years?"

I struck the wooden surface of the desk with my palm with brute force that almost broke it, and shouted in a blind emotion and a straying madness: "This is not what is important to me right now... what matters is the truth! Come on, speak and explain everything to me!"

Carlos sighed with fatigue and sweeping distress, and passed his palm over his neck to calm my terror and fury, saying in a balanced tone and an attempt to alleviate the disaster: "Robert... calm down and listen to me. Julie went to the nightclub I don’t know, perhaps to relax a little and because she faced a problem with Wilson... she was forced to lie and said that I was her lover to protect herself with my name. It is merely a lie and a childish action to save herself, no more."

My jaw convulsed with an indescribable malice and rage, and I advanced toward him with a challenging, threatening step and asked him: "And why didn’t you inform me of the matter back then?! And why didn’t she call me in particular I am her man and her protector! Why did she resort to you in secrecy?!"

Carlos looked directly into the depth of my eyes with real regret and sadness over my condition, and placed his hand gently on my shoulder, saying to clarify my ailment: "Robert... remember the events with your mind. You simply were injured by a bullet and lying unconscious between life and death back then; for that compelling reason, she called me to save her quickly as a close friend of yours."

I snapped his hand off my shoulder sharply and harshly, and narrowed the pupils of my eyes with doubt and suspicion, asking in disbelief: "And you, after I woke up and recovered... why didn’t you ever tell me this matter and concealed it?!"

Carlos waved his hand in the air with trivialization in a desperate, failed attempt to end the matter and close it, saying coldly: "Because simply, it is not an important matter to inform you about... it is just a petty, passing thing that happened and ended in its time, and there is no need to dig up graves and stir up trouble because of it."

I fixed my burning, lethal looks like a hawk into the features of his face, and the lines of my face tightened with total rigidity and harshness, and I said with a hissing from the depths of my burning chest: "Carlos... listen to me well. My intuition tells me that you are concealing from me much and much of filth and secrets regarding Julie."

Carlos raised his palms open toward the top in denunciation and denial, and with features of clear shock, saying in a raised voice: "I am not concealing anything regarding Julie from you, Robert! What the hell is wrong with you?! You have become raging and suspicious of everyone around you because of your obsession with searching for her!"

I darted a final harsh, dry look at him full of threat, and said briefly and with detachment: "Fine... the days are between us, and the past will uncover itself."

I turned my body with a rush, exiting his office, and tore my path with roaring, violent steps outside the entire warehouse.

I rode my car and closed the door with a violence and strength that shook the chassis, and thereupon, suddenly, my mobile phone vibrated with a powerful, continuous vibration declaring an incoming call from Ron. I snatched the phone with supernatural speed, pressed firmly on the answer button, and rested my back tightly against the leather seat, saying with successive, revolutionary breaths: "Yes, Ron... speak quickly, what is there?"

Ron’s voice came to me across the line in a tight tone, panting and trembling from the excess of shock and impact, saying words that shattered my entity: "Sir... Sir Robert, I think... I truly think that we have finally found her... we have reached her place!"

In that fatal, decisive second of my life, my movement and limbs froze entirely inside the cabin of the car as if I were struck by lightning, and I felt my heart thumping and striking with a loud, crazy, and violent force in the cavity of my chest as if it were a raging beast that would exit from between my ribs to tear them. My eyes widened in sweeping astonishment and all my harshness vanished; I gripped the phone with all my strength and muscles to the extent that my fingers turned white and convulsed, and I said in a raspy, weak voice that trembled from the excess of shock and effort: "Ron... answer me honestly, are you, for heaven’s sake, serious in this talk of yours?!"

Ron answered me with a cutting, confident confirmation carrying not an atom of doubt across the phone: "Yes, sir... I am serious. One of the men assigned to search for her called and said that he found her!"

I violently sat forward with my entire upper torso with madness and blind obsession, and my eyes ignited with a killing eagerness and a longing fire, and I uttered in a roaring, hysterical, and loud shout that filled the corners of the car: "Where the hell is she?! Tell me quickly... where exactly did you find her?!"