Secret Santa

Chapter 1 - You Looks Good When Kidnapped

It was a hectic day at the Bellings Cooperation. Chairman Kent Bellings was pulling on his hair as he paced in his office. His assistant, Derrik Cowell was answering his phone, looking like he was aging ten years by every word he was hearing. When he was done, chairman didn’t waste a second before bombarding him with questions.

“So?” Kent Bellings asked. “Did they find her?”

“Not yet, sir.” Derrik responded with a sigh. “But the good news is that they have found a trial. They say- “

“That’s what they said an hour ago!” Chairman exploded. “Screw it, I’m going. These days, cops are useless.”

Derrik had no choice but to follow his boss, who was already running down the stairs, without even waiting for the elevator. He did not blame his chairman’s impatience, though. After all, his only daughter had been kidnapped two hours ago. Chaiman had almost vomited blood when he had gotten the call from her bodyguard, informing them of the situation. They had already contacted the police, but there was no progress still. If that had happened to his daughter, he was not sure if he could be patient for two hours without rushing to rescue her.

Since he had to think and act clear headed now, Derrik managed to stop his boss on the midway on the last stair case. “Boss, wait!”

“Do you want your salary reduced by ninety percent?” Kent grabbed him by the collar, trying to push his hand away.

Derrick closed his eyes, willing himself to be patient. “You can’t just go out there and randomly search the roads! What if you take the wrong turn and you are late and something bad would happen to miss- “?

“Then what should I do? Sit here and manage business while my daughter is being tortured by some lunatics? Are you crazy? Wait…” His eyes narrowed towards Derrik. “Are you the one behind this kidnapping? I thought you were my friend! I treated you so well! I promoted you to be my assistant! How can you do this to me? Tell me, where is she?” he was shaking him word by word as he went on, making it harder for Derrik to focus. Running out of options, he clenched his hand to a fist and punched him on the stomach.

Kent let go as he doubled over, his expression twisted. “Why, you bastard…”

“I did not kidnap your daughter.” Derrik said, his tone calm and slow, trying to get his boss to pause and take a breath. “Listen, aside from the police, I also contacted some underworld organizations to search for the miss. We would be getting news anytime now. As soon as we confirm a lead, we would dispose all out guards and police to that place, and we would personally go to that location. Everything is already prepared, so I want you to calm down and think straightly for your daughter’s sake.”

He watched as Ken’s eyes calmed down. Just as Kent was about to say something, his phone rang. He looked at the caller id to see it was from an underworld organization he had contacted a while ago, which was named as ‘The Lupus’.

“Is it about her?” Kent asked. Derrik nodded before answering and turning the speaker on.

“Is this Bellings Cooperation?” A deep young male voice spoke before any of them could respond.

“Yeah.” Kent said. “Do you have any- “

“I am Dash Heavenworth. We have found your daughter and, on our way, to rescue her. We would deliver her to you in a short while so withdraw the police. They are getting in our way.”

“Okay.” Kent replied in a flash. “Mr. Heavenworth, is she okay?”

“No idea.” The reply came from the other side. “I’ve sent you the location. It will be god if you can follow us.”

The line went dead before any of them could respond.

“Boss.” Derrik spoke. “I know I called them and all, but can we trust them this easily? After all, they are all- “

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Kent said. “We can always trust Heavenworths.”

This time, calmer than before, he ran downstairs. Derrik followed him, his thoughts complicated.

_

Ava opened her eyes to the darkness.

She did not remember where she was, but the damp smell which was surrounding her told her that it was not somewhere she was familiar with. She was lying down on some hard surface. She tried to stand up or sit down, but soon found that it was difficult for her to even move.

She soon figured out why. Her hands were tied to the surface she was in. There was a rope around her chest, not allowing her to move her upper body at all. Trying not to panic, she tested her feet. She was not surprised to find that they were also tightly bound.

She could feel her heart beating wildly inside her chest. There was a throbbing pain at the side of her head. She tried to remember what had happened. Last she knew, she had been going out with Missy and Cinthy. They had been in her car with Prisy, her bodyguard, who was driving it. Then a van had come from their side, and everything had gone black.

If she was not tied up and the place having a moldy smell, she would have thought that she was in a hospital.

Not knowing whether to speak or not, she hesitated for a long while. Before she could muster the courage to call out for someone, she heard the sound of a door opening and someone coming in. The room flooded with light and Ava hurriedly closed her eyes, pretending to be still unconscious.

“Is she still out?” A deep male voice asked. There was somewhat familiarity to it, but she could not place where she heard that before. That voice gave her chills, her whole system alert. She tried to take small even breaths, just to keep her pretense.

“I think so, boss.” Someone answered from her right side. After a moment, she felt someone’s breath on her face, as if that person was sniffing it. Disgust crawled through her. She still took even breaths, afraid to even move her eyeballs.

“What a troublesome woman.” The first person spoke again.

“But this is good.” The person near her said. There was a wet sensation on her face, and she could feel a muscle dancing on her cheek. Did he just lick her face?

Disgust crawled through her spine like she had never experienced before. She wanted to curl her toes and endure it, but she was not sure what would happen to her if they found out that she was pretending.

“Boss, can I have her?” The man beside her asked. “Thinking that she belongs to him makes it even more excited.”

Him? Him who? Her dad? Ava could not pinpoint it, but she was certain that she was missing something here. Does being the daughter of Kent Bellings aroused s****l desire for someone? She did not think so.

Figuring that there was no point in pretending, she opened her eyes. A bright white light hit her hard, and she gasped as she closed her eyes again.

She could feel a shadow covering the light above her face. She opened her eyes to see a man’s face peaking over at her. He had a beard covering half of his face and his dark brown eyes were looking directly at her. And those eyes…

They were filled with raw lust. Ava felt a huge urge to cover herself up and run under that gaze.

“Where am I?” she spoke, hiding her emotions. Her voice sounded dry and raw, unfamiliar to even her. She ignored it and lifted her head, taking in her surroundings.

Her face became dangerously closer to him as she lifted her head. She fought her inner voice which told her to lie back down, and looked around. Right now, her main goal was to escape this place and she needed every one of intel she could gather.

The man smelled like a wet animal for some reason. She scrunched her nose. There was another man who was sitting by the door, typing on his phone, completely ignoring the fact that she was awake. Aside from the chair he was sitting, there was only a long and three chairs around it as furniture. Just as she had expected from the smell, the white walls were damp and there were signs of mold everywhere she could see.

She tugged at the ropes, knowing full well that they won’t budge. She looked directly at to the man who was still observing her with an amused expression. “What do you want from me?” She asked with all the confidence she could muster in this situation.

“That’s none of your business.” The man near the door responded instead of him.

Ava stared at him, so angry that she could taste blood in her mouth. None of her business? She was the one they captured! How the f**k is that not her business?

The man chucked near her face, finally putting some distance between them. Ava let out a silent sigh.

“Don’t be angry, little Kitty-cat.” He said. “After we take care of some useless people, you and I can have some fun.”

“Take care of who?” Ava asked, ignoring his remark about fun and letting her head fall back to the hard concrete slab she was tied to.

Before he could speak, the one typing on his phone interrupted him. “Quasal, shut the f**k up and come here. Don’t bother with the hostages. I have intel that he would be arriving soon. Call the others and be prepared.”

Quasal went away, taking a phone out of his pocket. “Later Kitty-cat.”

Ava swallowed her disgust and continued to observe them. Quasal went out after calling two guys and telling them to get ready and wait at the end of the tunnels. That gave her two things. One; they were in a tunnel. The only tunnels she knew located in between the borders of each city. Tunnels of her city, Jesaq, was just a little further away from Bellings company main branch. Which meant if she could somehow escape, maybe she could make a run for it.

The person by the door did not pay her any attention at all. He kept looking at the door from time to time. Ava wanted more information, so she decided to put her pride aside and talk to him.

“Hey, what’s your name?” she asked.

He looked at her for a brief moment before going back to his phone. Ava thought he would not speak at all, but soon after she could hear him muttering something like “Not going to talk to someone else’s woman.”.

She was puzzled. They had previously mentioned her belonging to someone and she had thought that they were talking about her dad. But now…

Perhaps all this was a misunderstanding. She hadn’t dated anyone in more than two years.

“You do know that I am single, right?” she asked. If she was getting kidnapped and tied up because of a misunderstanding, she wanted to clear it up.

“Yeah.” He directly responded to her this time.

Ava, who was expecting to clear up the misunderstanding, swallowed her words back. Seriously, what the hell was going on here?

A commotion sounded outside the room. The man pocketed his phone in a flash and stood up, his stance defensive. Soon, the closed door was kicked open.

Everything happened so fast her eyes were unable to keep up with the moments. Then when the blur of bodies finally calmed down, there was only one man standing in the room. He was facing the door, but he was not the same man who was here before.

Was he here to rescue her? Ava could feel her heart filling with hope.

The man turned around slowly and looked at her. Ava thought her eyes were deceiving her, for that was the most handsome male being she had ever seen in her life. It was like she was molded out of her dreams.

Then he spoke, his eyes showing a hint of malice. “I must say miss Bellings, you look kind of cute being all tied up like that.”

…What?