Her Knight in White Shirt and Blue Jeans

9.1. Epiphany

"Miss Alexandra might be related to the Villins."

Xander almost bumped into someone. 

"Xander! I'm Julia, we have the same classes." the girl seemed to be saying, but he was too immersed in his thoughts to pay attention. Sidestepping her as she tried to get close to him, he dialled Tobias. 

The day had been dragging, to say the least. He almost wanted to get up and leave right in the middle of class but he waited because of the test today. After that was done, he casually checked his phone, not at all hoping to see texts from a certain brown-eyed girl. That's when he saw Tobias's message. And that one line froze his world completely.

"What do you mean she's related to them?" he tried not to let any emotions show in his breathless voice, his heart racing against it's cage. It was as if there was everything and nothing going through his brain at the same time. A storm. Chaos. 

"I looked deeper into it, without alerting your father. A man has been going around, asking about miss Alexandra. A Villin man. I tried getting a hold of him but your dad's men showed up and took him away." 

"Are you sure it's not because of me?" he asked with his jaw clenched, his fingers tightening their grip on the phone. He was unaware of the girl behind him waiting for him to finish talking, listening to him speak with keen interest. 

There was a moment of silence before Tobias answered in a strained voice. "...I wish I could say yes but, it's not because of you. He's been enquiring about her since last month."

Was she being stalked? 

Fear and panic he had never felt before surged up like waves, crashing against the walls of the cage. "Does dad know?" In that span of seconds, prayers and wishes rushed forth from his heart, that his dad knew and took the necessary steps to protect her. For the first time since that hospital room a year ago, he hoped that his dad did something for others, that he'd made use of that benevolent heart that Xander hated to protect someone else. 

"I think it's safe to assume that he does because that man still hadn't found anything except her name before he was taken away...Roman was the one who took him. He's probably at the Blue Garden."

Roman was his dad's closest aide, his right hand man and secretary. If he got involved then it's definitely really serious. 

Xander took a breath to calm himself. "Okay. I'll go check it out. Send me everything you know about that man."

After he was done with the call, his thumb hovered over Liam's name. 

Liam picked up at the second ring. "Yo-"

"When are dad and...mom leaving?" he interrupted before Liam could speak.

"In 2 hours, why? You're going?" 

"Are you free?"

There was a short pause. And then, "...I can be. What do you need?"

"A distraction."

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"Master Liam, boss sent you?" Roman asked with a familiar smile as Liam entered the Blue Garden through an entrance solely reserved for the Knight family and Roman. 

"I was actually looking for you." Liam sighed in relief as he took out his laptop from his bag. "Can you check my code? It doesn't work no matter what I do. And I promised Xan I'd finish this by today." There was an apologetic but pleading expression on his face as he asked, one of his hands fiddling with his mobile phone in his pocket. 

Roman nodded. "Sure. What is it for?" His eyes scanned the thousands of characters of the code, his eyebrows going up to his hairline. 

"A hacking software. Don't tell dad though." Liam winked, even though he knew his dad would find out anyway. All that hard work, all that code...now useless. He mentally wipes a few tears of pain as he watched Roman read the code with apt concentration. If it wasn't for the training his uncle had put him through to act like Xander, he would have almost smiled with glee right now.