"Oh, what a coincidence. I happen to feel nothing for you too. Brother Brian, why don't we shake hands?"

That was what Joanne had told Brian right to his face the night of their reunion after fourteen years.

Back then, she had thrown out those words callously and without a single hint of misgiving. As she blinked at him with her sharp and astute eyes, Brian had felt a pause in his heart, as though his heart had gone into a momentary hibernation. But relief came shortly after.

It was a good thing that Joanne felt nothing for him. That way, she would be able to turn and walk away from him when it was time for them to part. He would not have any reason at all to keep her either.

But it all turned out to be one big, fat lie.

She had always complained about him being a big liar who lied to her all the time. But look at her? Was she not a liar too?

Brian called Gavin's phone. "Ask Clark to prepare for a flight to Z City tomorrow."

"You're going to look for Joanne, aren't you?" Gavin let out a chuckle. "Why, not going to go through with the divorce after all, eh?"

Divorce?

Brian hung up the phone. The corners of his lips lifted slightly.

Joanne would never be able to divorce him for the rest of her life.

If she really did have feelings for Shawn, then Brian would at least have an excuse to let her go.

But the person for whom Joanne had feelings was Brian.

Knowing that, how could he let her go? How could he bear the thought of returning to that spacious but empty house? How could he bring himself to sleep on that huge yet empty bed?

Joanne's egress had returned the house to the way it had been in the past. But that did not change the fact that he now felt as if something in his life was missing, as if an important aspect of his life had been ripped away. Every corner of the house felt exceptionally empty. It was all he could do to numb himself with his work.

Otherwise, his yearning for Joanne would swallow his heart whole.

Since he now knew that Joanne had feelings for him, why should he subject himself to this kind of torture?

When he agreed to marry Joanne, he had thought that he could keep a lid on his own feelings as long as he treated her coldly throughout their marriage. That way, he would be able to let her go as if none of it mattered to him when it was time for their divorce.

But after they got married, he got to see the real Joanne, not the Joanne he used to see from surveillance photos. He got to see Joanne smiling, jumping and hopping around in front of him; he got to hear the word "honey" from her lips and in her soft, feminine voice; he got to experience what it felt like when she dove straight into his arms...

All those experiences had chipped away the tough shell which layered his heart. He had started to feel an uncontrollable desire to embrace her, to pull her into his arms, to kiss her, and even to do other things that went far beyond those.

In the end, he had decided to bring Joanne into his world. He had introduced her to his most important friends and had brought her to all the places that he knew she should be aware of.

The only thing he had yet to do was tell her those three words. He had planned to wait until she finally had feelings for him before he told her.

Everything had been going according his plan. Slowly, they were becoming more and more like a real married couple. But Rowdy's return had ruined everything.

For the first time in his life, Brian felt fear; he feared that it would no longer be safe for her to remain by his side, he feared that keeping her around would only bring her more harm than good.

That was why he had deliberately treated Joanne coldly and had snapped at her for no reason at all. He tried to get her to hate him so that she would leave him on her own accord. He would not allow them to still act like a loving couple when Rowdy noticed her existence. If that were the case, he had no doubt in his mind that Rowdy would try to harm her.

Even his suspicion about her possible feelings for Shawn had been by design.

If she confirmed his suspicion, then he would no longer have any reason to bind her to his side.

In the end, she did confirm it and had done so while crying. Then, she calmly demanded a divorce from him. Deep down, she must have been so disappointed in him.

"Joanne," Brian said, tracing his fingers on the surface of Joanne's photo. "I'm sorry."

Sorry for being so clueless. Sorry for not knowing that she had feelings for him all along.

Perhaps he did notice it at certain times, just that he did not dare to believe it, so he had subconsciously ignored it.

Ever since the relapse of his gastric problems and his hospitalization, Joanne's attitude towards him had changed. She would no longer try pull away when he held her hand. Whenever he kissed her, she would stare back at him with a blush on her face. At times, she would even bury her blushing face against his chest, seeking his support freely.

In truth, these little details spoke volumes about Joanne's feelings for him, and yet he had chosen to ignore them.

Had Chris not told him the truth, he never would have imagined that Joanne had harbored feelings for him for so many years.

All these years, she had been silently watching him from afar, uttering his name in a place he could not see.

Brian pulled out his phone and glanced at Joanne's name in his contact list. In the end, he did not make the call.

He would look for her tomorrow. After that, he would tell her every single thing that he had been keeping secret from her.

That night, Brian had the best sleep since Joanne left.

The next day.

Brian had risen very early and had given out work instructions to Gavin during breakfast. After that, he prapared to leave for the airport.

Just when he was about to leave the house, Clark Brown's call came through. "We can't go to Z City."

Brian's brows furrowed. "Why not?"

"A typhoon has hit Z City. Level 8 beufort scale. All flights are affected. The earliest we can manage is tonight when everything goes back to normal," Clark said.

"No," Brian said. "I must be at Z City before afternoon." He could no longer bring himself to wait any longer.

Clark decided right then that their only remaining option was to take a roundabout route. "How about this then," Clark said. "Why don't you take a commercial flight to C City, and then from there, travel to Z City by car. After that, you can go to Sanquill Town. But the typhoon in Z City is really strong right now. The trip will come with certain risks. I must ask you to reconsider."

There would be no reconsideration needed at all. Brian hung up the phone straight away and asked his secretary to book him a flight that would depart to C City in an hour. After that, he ordered Winston to drive him to the airport.

On the way to the airport, he suddenly thought about telecommunication issues; the entire telecommunication network of Z City might be affected due to the typhoon. He tried calling Joanne's phone, and indeed, none of his calls got through.

A crease formed in Brian's brows. For some reason, he had a bad feeling in his gut.

"Young Master, you don't have to worry that much," Winston said. "It's normal for communications to be down during a typhoon. You can look for Young Madam straightaway when you get to Sanquill Town."

Brian put his phone away. When he arrived at the airport, he realized that Clark would be traveling together with him.

"I've made the arrangements. There'll be a car waiting for us in C City," Clark said. "I'll go with you and be your driver."

All this felt miraculous to Clark.

He was Brian's personal pilot. Usually, when Brian had business trips or when he intended to travel somewhere, he would always inform Clark beforehand so that Clark could pick out a flight route and make other necessary arrangements. So far, there had only been two times when Clark had been ordered to fly at moment's notice.

The first time happened when Brian was on a business trip in the United States; Joanne had run into some trouble back in their home country, so Brian had abandoned a million-dollar contract just so he could return to save her. This time, it was also because of Joanne. But Clark was unable to fulfill his role as Brian's pilot due to poor weather conditions, so he decided to be his driver instead.

The flight from Arlington to Cressington took three and a half hours in total.

It was raining in Cressington by the time they left the airport. After checking the weather reports, Clark told Brian, "The typhoon hasn't subsided in Z City."

"Where's the car you've arranged?" Brian asked.

Clark pulled open the door of a Land Rover. After Brian climbed in, Clark got into the driver's seat. The car sped along the airport freeway towards Z City.

The land rover left the borders of C City and was soon approaching Z City. The rain had gotten heavier during the journey, and Clark had no choice but to crank up the wiper speed. For safety reasons, Clark had decreased the car's speed as well.

In the backseat, Brian kept glancing out the window.

Due to the heavy rain, nothing was actually visible through the window. It was foggy outside. Everything outside was shrouded by a mass of white and murky smog. The only sounds he could hear were the patter of raindrops against the car's window.

The sounds of the rain had blocked out all other sounds outside the car. It was as if the rain was trying to isolate the people in the car from the rest of the world.

For some strange reason, Brian felt a surge of frustration. "Clark, step on it."

"We've already hit the speed limit. We can't go any faster," Clark said, carefully manning the steering wheel. "It'll be too dangerous if we go too fast."

Brian's frown deepened. All of a sudden, he felt a tightness in his chest; his hand went to his chest unconsciously. Then, his phone rang suddenly and without warning.

Perhaps it was too quiet and spacious in the car, but the ringing of his phone sounded strangely desperate, almost like it was a distress signal.

Brian picked up the phone and heard Gavin's trembling voice. "Brian, something's happened."

That feeling of tightness in his chest suddenly rammed into Brian's heart. It was as if his eardrums had selectively tuned out every other sound in the outside world as Gavin's voice resonated in his ears, growing louder and louder.

"Joanne ran into trouble in Sanquill Town."

It turned out that Sanquill Town was in fact where the center of the typhoon was.

Moments before the typhoon hit, someone had lodged a police report claiming the discovery of a female dead body in the mountains. The body belonged to a teenager about seventeen or eighteen years of age. The teenager had been raped first and then murdered. The circumstances of her death were gruesome and horrendous.

After getting a description from the person who made the report, the police confirmed that this was indeed the work of the murderer whom they had been hunting for the past few days. Captain Turner and the squad leader were both away at that time, leading their respective teams to carry out other tasks outside the police station. Other than a few people's policemen, the only other person in the station was Joanne, the medical examiner who had come all the way from A City.

It was absolutely essential for a medical examiner to be at a crime scene as quickly as possible after the occurence of a crime. With that in mind, Joanne had packed her things and demanded the people's police to bring her into the mountains.

The policeman glanced at the weather. "There's a typhoon coming. Why don't... why don't we go after the typhoon subsides?"

"No," Joanne said. "It will rain later. And the rain will wash everything away and compromise the crime scene. We'll lose important evidence if we wait. In the previous cases, I wasn't there at the crime scene quick enough. If I go this time, I will be able to uncover even more evidence."

The policeman had no choice but to take Joanne into the mountains. Once he saw the body of the female victim on the ground, the policeman got the hell out of there. The excuse he gave was that this was not in his job description. Besides, the typhoon was approaching soon, and it would be too dangerous to linger in the mountains.

That was how Joanne was left alone in the moutains together with a dead body.

An hour later, the typhoon gradually took form, and the rain became heavier and heavier. The squad leader and Captain Turner brought their teams back to the station. That was when they found out that Joanne was still in the mountains.

"Shit!" said the squad leader who was a local and who knew the mountains better than anyone else. "That isn't some run-in-the-mill tourist mountain! It's a friggin barren mountain! The path downhill is full of twists and turns with tons of smaller paths that lead deeper into the mountains. If Miss Scott takes the wrong turn..."

"That's not even the worst case," said another squad member. "The roads will be slippery due to the rain. Miss Scott might have an accident."

Captain Turner was desperately calling Joanne's phone, though none of his calls got through. That was the point he started to panic. "Squad leader, can you lend us two of your policemen who are familiar with the geographical features of the moutains. We're going up there to look for her."

"We'll go with you," said the squad leader. "We know that moutain very well. I'll bring one team with me while you bring another. Then we'll split up and take different entry paths. Oh, and stay on the comms."

The typhoon hit the town in full force just as the team was about to leave the station to start the search. Every house in the entire town had their shutters sealed shut, and the streets were completely barren. Trees with narrower girths were bent out of shape under the strong wind's assault.

Captain Turner and the team could barely leave the station let alone search for Joanne in the mountains.

"Captain Turner, what should we do?" Hannah was anxious to the point of tears. "I don't think Joanne made it down the mountains in time."

Captain Turner gazed at the chalky smog and the tempest brewing outside. He forced himself to calm down. "Call Shawn. Ask him to notify Joanne's brother and Brian. We're going to ask our superiors for help."

The only problem was that the storm would render whatever help that their superiors might send over completely useless. Captain Turner and the rest were trapped inside the police station.