When Blindfolds Fall

26: A Reason Worth Living

"D-Daniel what are you talking about?" Josiah stuttered in denial. "What--What do you mean she's dead? What do you mean she's been missing for a month?"

"Blimey, dad did you never read the paper?!" Daniel inhaled sharply in an attempt to hold his tears. "It was all over the papers! Mum's mate reported her missing a month ago! According to his testimony, there was a knock on their door one day during a storm, he was busy and the butler was in a different part of the manor. So, she went to answer the door and she never came back inside the house.

He looked for her around the residence but she was nowhere to be found. She was kidnapped!"

Daniel was now fully engulfed in tears as the pain of his loss angered and saddened him.

"They looked for her, they had been looking for her all this time." He sniffled and looked at Josiah. "I didn't know until I read the paper and her mate came to ask me if she was with me. But I knew . . . me and Harvey knew before the investigators, her mate, and everyone else that she was . . . g-gone.

We felt the bond break two nights after she went missing. But we didn't know that's what it was. It felt, horrible, oh so awful, but we had no idea that was the reason why."

"This can't be true." Josiah choked up. "It can't be, it just can't be!"

The meaning of these news was finally settling into Josiah and it was crushing him like the world being dropped on his shoulders.

"This is impossible!" Josiah's broken voice exclaimed.

"Dad, I can't believe you didn't know." Daniel said. "I mean . . . even people had been . . ."

"Had been what Daniel?!"

"They had been blaming you. I never believed it, you would never do such a thing. But people were starting to believe it was an act of vengeance from you on her for leaving you for someone else."

"WHAT?! I WOULD NEVER DO SUCH A THING! I WOULD NEVER STOOP DOWN TO SUCH A PUTRID LEVEL! SHE WAS MY BEST FRIEND, THE MOTHER OF MY CHILDREN! HOW COULD I EVER GO AFTER HER LIKE THAT FOR SOMETHING THAT WASN'T IN HER CONTROL?!!"

"That's exactly what I told everyone!" Daniel shouted back, but slowly shifted his gaze back to the man on the ground behind his father.

He stared, full of wrath and hatred towards him before seething:

"There's only one man I can blame."

"Daniel, NO." Josiah blocked Viktor. "He would never do such a thing either! What is wrong with you?!"

"He's the only other suspect father! If you didn't do it, then it had to be him!" Daniel pointed a finger at Viktor. "You know, people were right! A noblewoman like that doesn't just vanish or get kidnapped for no damn reason! Somebody had a grudge against her, and I can only think of one person who would and it's him!"

"That doesn't even make sense Daniel! How do you know it's not possible her mate had rivals who held grudges at him!? Why does it have to be against her?!"

Daniel tensed and grit his teeth at his father's words. He knew he was grief-stricken, but he was still logical. It just made sense.

"Besides, Viktor never even knew Gwyneth!" Josiah continued. "He never met her, never once talked to her! If someone knocked on her door, then that would mean he would have had to know where she lived! How could he know where she lived if all he knew was that she was my ex-wife?!"

Daniel was surprised at the defensiveness and offense his father had taken to his hypothesis. Yet, perhaps he shouldn't be so surprised. Josiah was a mated and married man after all. He for one, understood that urge to defend his mate at all costs from whomever threatened them.