หน้าหลัก / Romance / The Devil's Game / Chapter 16 - The Runaway Bride 

แชร์

Chapter 16 - The Runaway Bride 

ผู้เขียน: Tabitha
last update ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2024-12-03 20:13:34

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“You’ve always been too intense when it comes to Ayra,” Ferdinand said, his tone almost fatherly. 

“I needed to ensure this was handled with precision, not the brute force you would have preferred.”

Lisbeth could not argue with that. 

"So, what now?" She asked. 

Ferdinand chuckled. 

"Now, we hunt down Ayra."

As if on cue, Lisbeth’s phone rang in her pocket. She retrieved it with and her brows knitted together when she saw Sarah’s name flash across the screen. She answered, putting the phone on speaker.

“Sarah, what do you have?” Lisbeth asked. 

On the other end of the line, Sarah hesitated, her voice uncertain. 

“Lisbeth, Ayra called me just a minute ago. She asked after the tickets I told you she'd asked me to help her book.”

“What did you say?” Lisbeth interrupted. "She called you? Now?"

"Yeah, I just got off the phone with her. Said she would call me again and I should get the train ticket ready for her."

“The train ticket. Did you book it?” Lisbeth repeated, her voice rising. 

"No, I didn't, just like you asked."

Lisbeth's mind raced. Marcy had called her earlier that day so it was easy to figure out that Ayra was setting up decoys. 

"Book them now and send the details to her. Send them to me too," Lisbeth said. There was no need to scare Ayra just yet. 

Ayra's three escape routes were firmly in their hands and if one suddenly disappeared, she would try to replace it, potentially slipping from their grasp. 

"Alright." Sarah ended the call. 

Lisbeth looked at her father. 

"Ayra's left the venue it seems," she said. 

Ferdinand leaned back in his chair, his expression thoughtful.

“What about Marcy?” he prompted. “Ayra had spoken to her as well this morning, hadn't she?”

Lisbeth nodded, her fingers flying over her phone and pulling up Marcy’s number. When the call connected, she didn’t bother with any greetings. “Marcy, where are you?”

Marcy’s voice came through the line, clear and chipper. “I’m at that little cafe Ayra told me about. You know, the one out near the old mill road.”

Lisbeth exchanged a concerned look with Ferdinand. “Has she shown up yet?”

“No,” Marcy replied, her tone turning curious. “I’ve been waiting for a while, but she hasn’t called or texted to say she’s on her way. Is everything alright?”

Lisbeth forced a smile into her voice. “Everything’s fine. Just stay there and keep an eye out, will you, sweety? Let me know the moment you see her.”

She ended the call and turned back to Ferdinand.

Her father didn’t say a word. Instead, he picked up his phone and dialed a number. He held the phone to his ear, his face calm and unreadable. 

“It’s me,” he said after a moment. “Has there been any sign of Ayra?”

The person on the other end answered immediately. “No, sir. The driver has been at the rendezvous point for over an hour. Ayra hasn’t shown up.”

Ferdinand pressed his lips into a thin line. “Stay on him. If she makes contact, let me know immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

He ended the call and looked at Lisbeth. “She’s avoiding Eleanor entirely. That much is clear.”

Lisbeth exhaled sharply, her frustration mounting. “If she’s not there, then she’s already in the city and moving. Question is - where? If Eleanor's a dud, that leaves Sarah and Marcy.”

Lisbeth ran a hand through her hair. “She’s playing games with us. Anyway, there are three routes she can take - train tickets, Marcy, and Eleanor’s car—it’s impossible to tell which is real."

"The train tickets are a dud too. She knows that Sarah was the one who leaked her location the first time she ran away. It is obvious she would expect for her to leak it again."

Lisbeth shook her head. 

"Ayra knows that. She would expect you to dismiss it so she can safely get on. On the other hand, she may want us to look for her there instead of at Marcy's, banking on the fact that you know she expects us to dismiss it and so we won't. So there's no saying if it is a dud or not."

"Then we simply close down that route," Ferdinand said. "We can't mobilize much people on such short notice so we better block her at the station and drive her toward Marcy. At the very least Marcy is on our side."

Lisbeth nodded reluctantly, her mind already racing with possibilities. Things were coming together neatly but she still could not shake the feeling that they were missing something. 

....

Eleanor pinched the bridge of her nose, a headache threatening to form as she leaned back in her chair, frustration bubbling within her. 

The tiny screen before her displayed the real-time location of the burner phone she had oh so carefully provided Ayra. 

Its signal hadn’t moved for over twenty minutes, hovering stubbornly just a few meters from her hired driver.

She pressed her phone harder against her ear, her tone clipped. “You’re telling me there’s no one there, and yet the signal shows that she's right in front of you. What are you? Blind?”

The driver’s voice crackled through the line, defensive and uncertain. 

“Ma’am, I swear, I’ve checked more than thrice already. There’s nobody here, just the same stretch of road and a bit of overgrown brush. No girls, no Ayra, no nothing.”

Eleanor’s jaw tightened, her free hand drumming a rhythm on the table. “Look again. If she dropped the phone, it could be nearby, but I highly doubt she vanished without a trace.”

The driver sighed audibly, muttering curses under his breath before the faint sound of his boots crunching on gravel filtered through the phone. 

Eleanor waited in tense silence, her sharp eyes glued to the blinking dot on her laptop screen.

“Found it,” the driver said after a moment, his voice tinged with surprise. “The phone’s here on the ground, face down. But there’s no sign of the girl.”

Eleanor’s frustration boiled over. “You mean to tell me she dropped the only means I had to track her? How does that even happen? Did you see anyone nearby? Hear anything unusual?”

“No, ma’am,” the driver replied, sounding a bit nervous now. “It’s quiet out here. Too quiet, to be honest. She must’ve ditched the phone on purpose.”

Eleanor clenched her teeth, her mind racing as she tried to piece together what had gone wrong. From Ayra she had expected hesitation, panic even, but not... This.

“Bring me the phone,” Eleanor said finally, her tone clipped. “And stay where you are for now. Keep your eyes open.”

The driver murmured his acknowledgment before the line went dead, leaving Eleanor in silence save for the faint hum of her laptop. 

She stared at the blinking dot on the screen, now utterly useless. Ayra had outmaneuvered her, and that realization gnawed at her. 

Her brother and Lisbeth were bad enough and now even AYRA was out to thwart her? Ridiculous. 

“She’s playing a dangerous game,” Eleanor said to herself, her voice low and bitter. “But two can play.”

Ayra was still on the run, slipping through everyone’s grasp like smoke.

Picking up her phone again, Eleanor dialed another number, her patience fraying. 

“Any news?” she asked.

"None."

Eleanor tapped her fingers against the desk, her frustration mounting. “Keep an eye on all major routes out of the city and don't forget the airport too. She might be trying to blend in with the crowd.”

The voice on the other end hesitated. “Do you think she’s going off-grid completely? If so, it’s going to be harder to track her.”

Eleanor’s lips pressed into a thin line. “She doesn’t have the resources for that. She’ll need help eventually, and when she does, I’ll be there.”

Quite a few people were interested in Ayra. She could not run. 

อ่านหนังสือเล่มนี้ต่อได้ฟรี
สแกนรหัสเพื่อดาวน์โหลดแอป

บทล่าสุด

  • The Devil's Game   Chapter 127: A Dinner

    The dinner had sunk into a lull—the sharp clinking of glasses giving way to the low murmur of calculated conversation. Candlelight flickered from iron sconces fixed to the ancient stone walls, casting long shadows that danced like spirits summoned from the cathedral’s forgotten days. High above, ribbed vaults arched like the spine of some slumbering beast, and stained-glass windows filtered moonlight into strange, holy colors—crimson, gold, violet. The place still smelled faintly of incense and old dust, as though it remembered the prayers of a century ago and resented their silence now.Ayra stood near one of the darkened alcoves, her fingers resting on the stem of a half-finished glass of wine she had no intention of drinking. Her heels ached. Her dress, sleek and black, clung like a second skin. Her throat felt raw from smiling too much at people she didn’t trust.And then—“Darling, would you spare a moment for an old woman?”Ayra turned to find herself looking into the face of L

  • The Devil's Game   Chapter 126 - A Casual Dinner

    Lucian didn’t tell her about Lisbeth.He sat across from Ayra in the softly lit lounge, the garden’s scent still clinging faintly to her as she sipped a steaming cup of tea. Her hair was loosely braided, her shoulders relaxed from the morning’s quiet. And yet, as he looked at her, all he could think about was how Lisbeth had vanished—abruptly, cleanly, just like Pedro.Tension coiled beneath his skin, but he masked it with a sip of wine.“We need to talk,” he said abruptly.Ayra tensed immediately. That phrase never meant anything good in this house.He didn’t sit. He stayed standing, watching her like she was something caged—and dangerous. Or maybe fragile. She wasn’t sure which he saw.“There’s a dinner tomorrow night,” he said smoothly. “High-ranking members of the Consortium - mostly the extended Cyrus family - will be attending. You’ll be there.”Ayra blinked. For a moment, she thought she misheard. “I’ll be where?”“At a dinner. Tomorrow night.”Her fingers tightened slightly on

  • The Devil's Game   Chapter 125 - Confusing Thoughts

    It was a dusty afternoon, and a gentle breeze stirred through the greenhouse vents as she knelt beside the far bed, digging her fingers into warm earth. Something about the repetitive motion calmed her.Far across the estate, Lucian stood before the tall windows of his study, the same sunlight casting long slashes of gold across the room. Papers lay untouched on his desk. A whiskey glass sat half-full, forgotten beside a folder stamped with confidential seals.But Lucian wasn’t looking at any of it.He was staring at the garden path.His expression was unreadable. Not the cold sharp mask he wore in meetings. Not the subtle smirk he used to disarm rivals. This was something heavier.Ayra.He watched her through the glass, watching how her hair glinted in the sun, how she bent low to inspect a flower’s stem, how she brushed dirt from her fingers and pushed her sleeves back. She was free there in a way he didn’t quite understand. And he hated that he noticed. Hated that he found himself r

  • The Devil's Game   Chapter 124 - Whisper of Something More

    The garden had quickly become a place where silence turned soft, where tension dissolved into something gentler—something nearly peaceful.It started with breakfast.Lucian had never joined her before. For weeks, Ayra had eaten in the eastern wing’s solarium, a place soaked in morning light and perfumed with citrus trees. The table was always set. A guard always stationed at the door. She would sit with her tea, her fruit, her silence.Then one morning, he was there.Seated already, sipping dark coffee, poring over an old dossier. He looked up when she entered, his gaze unreadable."You’re late," he said. Not coldly. Not mockingly. Just… speaking.Ayra raised an eyebrow but took her seat across from him. She said nothing.They ate in silence.But the next day, he was there again. And the next.Eventually, they spoke—little things. The weather. A passing comment about the guards. A rare joke from Lucian that left her blinking, then chuckling softly. And he would smirk, looking away like

  • The Devil's Game   Chapter 123 - Little Changes

    A hairpin might work, she thought, fingers going to her braid. She untangled a clip, twisted it into shape, and began fiddling with the lock. Her movements were precise—muscle memory from when she'd once been desperate enough to learn how to escape.The lock clicked halfway—"I could’ve just given you the key."Her head snapped up.Lucian stood in the shadow of a pillar, arms crossed. The late sun painted him in gold and crimson, casting harsh lines across his jaw. His voice was calm, but she could sense the tension lurking beneath it.Ayra rose slowly, brushing her skirt smooth. "I didn’t know you were back."He stepped closer, eyeing the half-jammed lock, then her makeshift pick. "Apparently, you didn’t know I locked that for a reason."Her brows furrowed. "Is it dangerous?"He glanced toward the greenhouse. "Not in the way you’re thinking."She followed his gaze. The gardenias had begun to shift gently in the breeze, catching the light. Their whiteness seemed almost ethereal. Ayra s

  • The Devil's Game   Chapter 122 - The Garden

    Ayra woke to the scent of citrus and sunlight.It took her a moment to register the difference. The sheets were softer. The bed was wider. The room—too still, too quiet—was not the one she’d fallen asleep in.Her eyes darted across unfamiliar surroundings: pale cream walls trimmed in gold, long velvet curtains fluttering in the morning breeze, and an open balcony that revealed an expansive sea view. A single vase of white orchids sat on a marble-topped table nearby. No machines. No flickering monitors. No hum of a generator or distant yelling of soldiers.This was not the medical tent.She sat up too quickly, her head pounding in response. A nurse—young, silent, efficient—appeared almost instantly from the side door and offered her water."You are safe," the girl said softly, as if trying not to spook her. "Mr. Lucian brought you here last night. This is his private coastal villa. You’re under his protection now."His villa?Ayra drank, the cool water soothing her throat but not her tu

บทอื่นๆ
สำรวจและอ่านนวนิยายดีๆ ได้ฟรี
เข้าถึงนวนิยายดีๆ จำนวนมากได้ฟรีบนแอป GoodNovel ดาวน์โหลดหนังสือที่คุณชอบและอ่านได้ทุกที่ทุกเวลา
อ่านหนังสือฟรีบนแอป
สแกนรหัสเพื่ออ่านบนแอป
DMCA.com Protection Status