“She's gone!” Hendrick yelled into the room, banging the door shut behind him in his panic.

The occupants of the room looked up in confusion.

“Who?” Mr. Avalon asked leisurely as he shuffled his cards and studied them critically.

Mr. Ravenswood returned his attention to his cards and restrained a frustrated sigh at his ill luck.

It was already deep into the night after their children had signed the marriage certificate.

They'd discussed business for a long time before deciding to play a bit of poker.

Maverick was also at the table with them, his gaze was fixed on the panicking Hendrick, but he didn't say a word.

“Trisha is gone. I can't find her anywhere in the building.” Hendrick snapped irritatedly as he started pacing around the room.

After Trisha had run away from him some hours back, he'd decided to leave her alone until they were back in Los Angeles.

However he'd had a change of mind and had headed to her room to look for her, but he didn't find her there.

After a quick search of the house, it occurred to him that she'd probably run away.

Hearing the ominous words that could spell trouble for his business, Mr. Avalon instantly lost interest in the game and glared at Maverick.

“I'll go check the grounds.” Maverick said, coolly before heading out.

“What's going on?” The only guest in the house who hadn't spoken since her arrival asked when she walked in on the scene bearing a tray.

“Nothing that's supposed to be your business.” Mr. Ravenswood retorted sharply at his wife and she immediately went dumb and deaf to their business.

“How sure am I that this isn't your doing?” he turned to Mr. Avalon with a nasty glint in his eyes.

The amity between them evaporated at once and they were left glaring at each other.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Mr. Avalon snapped angrily.

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe you've hidden her for future gains or…”

“Will you two just stop arguing for a moment and think?” Hendrick interrupted them, angrily.

Both stopped at once, breathing heavily and red in the face.

“She couldn't have left this place so easily. I've just tightened the security around the house recently.” Mr. Avalon spoke up, pondering on the thought.

Maverick walked back into the room with his features set in the usual poker faced expression.

“She left, but without her things.”

“Ah, silly bitch. She's so desperate to that point.” Mr. Avalon mumbled to himself.

“How did she leave with such tight security in place?” Hendrick's hateful gaze turned on to Maverick. “What if she had help from a certain someone?”

Maverick, who was obviously being openly accused, merely glanced at Hendrick before looking away as if he wasn't worth his time.

“Go collect footage from the control room, I'm coming to analyze it.” Mr. Avalon told Maverick who left at once.

Then, he took in a deep breath and exhaled sharply before giving Hendrick a dark reply.

“Maverick wouldn't defile me for her.”

Hendrick narrowed his eyes at the older man with a sneer in place of his usual amiable smile. “How sure are you about that?”

“Trust me, boy. Both kids grew up hating each other, and both wouldn't pass the chance to see the other suffer.” Mr. Avalon announced.

Distrust marred Hendrick's features as he ground his teeth so hard that his poor mother in the corner feared he might crush them to powder.

He scoffed, “Let’s go review the footage from earlier tonight.”

“Follow me.” Mr. Avalon fisted his hands and turned to Mr. Ravenswood who nodded once and marched behind him out of the room.

They got to the control room in time to see Maverick replaying footage from about two hours earlier.

“There she is.” Hendrick mumbled, his eyes shining with a malicious glint.

They silently watched Trisha creep out of her room down the hallway towards the backdoor, glancing constantly behind her in fear.

Maverick's eyes were sharp as he expertly played the right footages following it.

“So there's a hole in the hedge. That's how she got out.” Mr. Avalon mumbled angrily to himself. “Check the footage from behind the hedge around that area.”

Maverick's eyelids fluttered. He gritted his teeth and frowned. Before the other men got here, he'd gone through the important parts of the footage and…

“That’s the one that the neighbor hit with his vehicle last night. It's dysfunctional.” Maverick stated, calmly.

“Fuck!” Hendrick cursed, and pulled away from the table to think.

Mr. Ravenswood followed suit, glaring at Mr. Avalon.

“I still don't believe that you have no hand in this.” He said, angrily to him.

Exasperated and mad at Trisha, Mr. Avalon ran a hand through his short platinum blonde hair and groaned.

“You do know that without her presence at the wedding and registrar, I can make the contract to merge our businesses null.” Mr. Ravenswood said.

Mr. Avalon stifled the urge to glare at him and instead took a deep breath.

“No, don't do that, Jude. What's to gain there if you do so?”

“Hmph!”

“I am not a dishonest man. Believe me when I say this; I will bring back Trisha, and make sure to teach her a good lesson she wouldn't forget in a hurry.” He spat out in disgust.

“No!” Hendrick's tone held a twinge of desperation in it when he spoke up again. “She's my wife, and I will decide the best way to properly punish her. Just help me locate her.”

Mr. Avalon glared at him for a while before sighing in resignation.

“Fine. Maverick and I will work on helping to locate her. But before that, Jude, I don't want you calling the contract null.”

Mr. Ravenswood scoffed and snorted. “I'm not promising anything.”

With the other men distracted, Maverick took the opportunity to delete a peculiar footage that the men didn't get the opportunity to see.

It showed Trisha emerging from behind the hedge straight into the arms of dark clothed men who forcefully dragged her into a black tinted vehicle and drove away into the dark.