The fog of mystery around Carla's disappearance only seemed to thicken.
When Zayn finally arrived at Coldbridge with a palpitating heart, he ended up with the same findings. Having lost his calm, he ran around like a maniac and went to every location he could possibly think of to search for Carla.
In the unrelenting storm, Zayn sprinted down the streets yelling Carla's name.
His clothes were completely drenched, his voice turned raspy, and his eyes were bloodshot.
As he stared at the wrecked ambulance with an unmistakable pool of blood in front of it and the tainted shreds of Carla's bridal gown, he felt his heart being torn into pieces.
He could not forgive himself for putting Carla in harm's way and letting Jombo send her off to a foreign country.
Nor could he accept that he failed to rescue her in time.
Dark thoughts invaded Zayn's mind. What if she was tortured and has already died? What if…
It pained him just thinking those thoughts.
With his brows furrowing deeper, he swept his eyes around him in panic. He had never felt so helpless and afraid in his life.
What if she's really dead?
What am I supposed to do then?
What am I supposed to do?
Zayn was on edge. "Carla! Where are you? Can you please come out? I don't want to play this game of hide-and-seek anymore! Come out! Come out!" His raspy cries were lost in the raging storm.
"Randy, Josh, and Venus are all waiting for you to come home! They've been missing you every single day… I promised them that I'd bring you home! You can't do this to me! Carla, Carla! Come out… I'm begging you…"
Out of sheer terror and fear, his voice grew softer, and he eventually trailed off.
Tears trickled down his cheeks as he looked down at the dirt below in devastation. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" he murmured those words incessantly.
In a dark corner some distance away, Jombo watched on as his grandson cried in the rain.
He had never considered his actions as immoral or wrong. On the contrary, he had even strongly believed that his plans would help reduce the damage to both Carla and his grandson. Never did he imagine that Carla would get attacked, nor did he consider the possibility of his grandson and great- grandchildren being emotionally scarred by her death.
"Mr. Giblo, don't be too hard on yourself, " Thompson tried to comfort him. "Nobody knew that this would happen."
"Who is it? Who did it?" Jombo slammed his hand hard against the handles of his wheelchair. "Have you found out who's behind this? Solara is involved, isn't she?"
"I have done a preliminary check. Ms. Solara is still in E Nation. Our people and Mr. Zayn's subordinates have had their eyes on her for a while now to prevent her from harming Ms. Wigston, but she has not taken any form of action, " Thompson replied.
"If not her, then who is it?" Jombo furrowed his brows. "Who else knows about the antidote?"
"That's the part I can't wrap my head around too…" Thompson sighed. "Let's take our time to figure this out. Our top priority now is to find Ms. Wigston. Otherwise, Mr. Zayn would hold a grudge against you for life."
"That's right." Jombo nodded. "Inform everyone in our search teams and get them to concentrate on finding Carla. We have to bring her back, dead or alive!"
"Understood!"
…
The Giblo family exhausted much of their human and financial resources in the search for Carla.
However, Coldbridge was an underdeveloped town with no surveillance cameras on the streets. Without surveillance footage, it was almost impossible to figure out what happened to Carla that day.
The group of police officers and medical staff who had gone to the scene back then recounted that Mrs. Borah had died from a gunshot, and Carla was suffering from severe mental trauma even though she was not seriously injured.
However, they could not provide any information about the actual assault since they left the scene shortly after.
The only witness they had, Adoma, ultimately survived despite getting shot. Unfortunately, the bullet had caused permanent damage to his brain, resulting in him becoming mentally disabled and losing his memories of the incident.
The locations where Carla last appeared were all cordoned off and preserved. From the evidence found at the house that Carla stayed at with Mrs. Borah, the investigation team deduced that the
assailant was not after money because everything was intact other than the broken bottle of antidote.
That narrowed down the list of suspects to the few who knew about the existence of an antidote for Carla.
Zayn immediately put Solara at the top of the list of suspects and did all he could to force an answer out of her. He even interrogated her personally.
However, Solara denied all offenses and even told him her alibi.
Of course, Zayn would not let her off that easily. He began oppressing her company and businesses openly while continuing his desperate search for Carla.
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