Enemy Basis | COMPLETE

36| fatherly chats

DORRAN

It was the second time that Darcy had disappeared into the night right through my fingers, the second time in my life that I had felt so hopeless, anxious and severely regretful like I could've prevented such a situation, should've prevented such a situation.

I stood outside the bar with the other four guys and Tay as the party guests filtered out through the doors, unaware of the shit we were feeling, how quickly the night had turned sour.

It was Darcy's birthday and her surprise today. Lennox had organised some gathering, adamant that we should attend and despite how childish this party sounded, I couldn't help but go.

The crystal, a family heirloom from my mother, felt strangely fitting as a gift for her. Every word I'd spoken about its significance rang truer than I could have imagined. She had changed my life, irrevocably. She shifted my perspective, tilting the entire axis of the beam I balanced on.

Seeing her tonight, breath-taking in that black dress, the crystal pendant shimmering around her pretty neck, a surge of raw, unexpected emotion washed over me. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, a captivating blend of a foul mouth, stubbornness, and seductiveness. And I couldn't believe my own stubbornness had forced me to wait so long to kiss her.

That kiss... it had unlocked something within me, a torrent of emotions I never knew existed.

And now, she was just gone.

As I stood underneath the bleak skies, I couldn't help but worry. There was a feeling warning me that this was not like the first kidnapping, that this situation was much worse and would have such severely different outcomes, a thought that sent my heart into overdrive.

Darcy was so unbelievably strong but at the end of the day, she was still just a girl, thrown into the deep end with no life vest, no anything.

Tay's voice brought me back to the present as I tried to filter out my thoughts.

"No one knows where her father lives so we can't identify if it was him who took her again but seriously, look at the evidence. Darcy said herself that her father was planning to kidnap her again and bring her home. Surely this is the only plausible answer?"

He had a point but I knew deep inside of me that he was wrong. It wasn't Michael that had taken her; it was someone else and I had a feeling that it was Mathew, the bastard that had plagued my thoughts for so long. If he had so much as laid a finger on her, I'd kill him and I wouldn't feel an ounce of regret.

However, looking around at everyone else and seeing their relieved, tired expressions, I could instantly tell that they wanted to believe that Darcy wasn't in danger unlike myself, that Mathew hadn't taken her and them convincing themselves of this was slowly easing their minds of the worry that they had been feeling.

So, I kept quiet. Who's to say for sure that I was right? And if I was, I wouldn't drag some more people into this. I was relying only on myself this time. I wouldn't be the cause of any more hurt. Apart from Mathew's.

"You're probably right," Lennox announced, albeit it was dejectedly, "I'll call her in the morning and if still nothing, we can call the police."

Things after that moved into motion. Everyone made their way home and Marcelo offered to drive me to his house but I declined. My intuition was always correct and I would not be able to do anything until I knew Darcy was safe.

I drove home with tense hands that clenched on the steering wheel as I thought of what my next steps were. Darcy's phone was yet again left at the scene of the crime, leaving us with no evidence of where she had ended up, I had no clue where her father had lived nor Mathew but I had a connection to someone that would know something and that was a start.