Seducing The Ice Queen

"And using the fact that you had forgotten him, he made a place for himself in your heart. One can't help but wonder, Alice Faye, if he was so above board, why did he hide these things from you? Why use knowledge of you from the past to get what he wanted?"

Alice had no idea how and when she had gotten up from the table and left the place. She drove around a bit mindlessly, her mind ready to burst at seams. There was a strange white noise in her head, telling her to simply forget everything. Her heart seemed to be aching, telling her to be as firm as it had been a few hours ago and continue to trust him without question. But her mind kept highlighting the facts. The truths that he had hidden and then used. 

She would've understood had she known in the beginning. She wouldn't have believed him even if he had proved everything. But later, he could have told her. When he knew she trusted him, she would have believed him. He could have told her. When she confided in him James Faye's plan, he could have told her then. But he didn't.. Why? Why did he hide so many things? Past doubts and insecurities seemed  to surround her, threatening to drown her. She wanted to confront him. Question his. But even as her heart and mind urged her to turn the car back ad go to him, she continued to drive in the opposite direction. More than answers, she needed distance. Distance to think and distance to fortify herself.

Driving aimlessly, she finally reached the foot of a small hill when her phone started ringing incessantly. This time she took note of the caller id and simply put her phone on silent. When the calls did not stop, she parked the car on the side and slowly stared at the picture on the screen. Before carefully turning off her phone and putting the car back into drive.

Adam came home to a silent place. Wondering if Alice had fallen asleep, he moved around carefully so as not to disturb her. He had decided to speak to her tonight but if she was asleep then they could talk tomorrow. Opening the door slowly, he peeped inside but then frowned, she wasn't there? This time, he called out, "Alice? Babe? Where are you?"

Slowly panic started to set in when he realized that the house was empty. She had not had any plans.. Kidnapped? No. The security of the building was good enough. Still deciding to check, he walked out of the unit and straight to the security office on the lower floor and asked them to show the video. As he went through the surveillance, he realized that Alice had left soon after him and she had seemed to be in a hurry. 

Where could she have gone? Just as he was about to call, his own phone started to ring. It was Benji again. The guy rarely called but today he had called him twice. And they had been together just now! So why did he have to? Answering his phone, he asked," Benji?"

"Big bro? I think we might have some bad news! Adken is too happy! I came back home and the guy was actually gloating with a happy look! We need to check if he has done something dastardly... again! I am checking his whereabouts from the last few hours while you need to check on sister in law."

Benji was no one other than Adam's younger half brother, Ben Perry. Ben and Adam should have been strangers as they had never met each other until Adam came to the city. They should have been rivals because their so called father had tried to use each of them against each other. But they were actually best of friends. Because a little boy had wanted a connection. Bennett Perry had been 'bought' off by Adken Perry when his mistress had turned up pregnant. Not interested in having a new family but not wanting to give him up, Adken Perry had paid off Bennett's mother and handed the little boy to a bunch of nannies. 

As the little boy had grown older, he had slowly come to the realization that he did not have a normal family. While others had siblings and parents he only had aunties. To pass his time, he had been trained early on in reading and other skills. At the age of five, he had made a shocking discovery! He had a grandmother and a big brother in the village. Excited, he had hidden from his father and bribed a nanny to post a letter to them. 

Adam remembered the first time he had seen the letter. He had been angered that his father had never bothered to even grieve his mother and already had another son. There was resentment that the man had thrown him to the countryside while keeping a son by his side. But then slowly, his grandmother had made his realize how lonely a little kid like Bennett would be. And how lucky Adam was. Because he still had his grandmother by his side to love him while Bennett had to survive the coldness by his father's side all alone. That is how the two brothers had become pen friends slowly. When Adam had first come to the city, he had realized that like him Bennett too had no love for their father. Already in a rebelling stage and not yet a teenager, Bennett had hidden his abilities and slowly become one of the best gamers in the city, also learning coding and hacking. 

To keep under their father's radar, so that the man would never know that Adam and Bennett were close, the two people had used gaming to continue to keep in touch. They would at times meet at the internet cafes but not too much. Slowly, Adam and Bennett had started to help each other. Bennett had actually wanted to become a businessman. And he was one of the smartest men out there but after Adam had been made to face difficulties at every level to conquer his dreams, Bennett had slowly changed his tactics. He deliberately made himself dumb with no interest in anything other than gaming or music. And he knew his plan had succeeded when Adken Perry used him to pitch against Adam. And that is when the two brothers slowly spread their wings and unknown to Adken were now a force to be reckoned with. The dumb gamer, 'only knows how to look good' Bennett Perry was actually a game developer and Chairman of one of the biggest app development and gaming companies in the country with Adam as a co partner. 

To mobilize the IPO for Faye group and try to grab as many shares as possible, Adam had planned to sell his part of their company to Benji and invest in those shares in the name of their company Tenpence Games! It was why Benji had held the meeting refusing to let K give away his shares, thus resulting in a long argument among the brothers.

Going back to the apartment, a little panic in his heart, Adam checked his laptop and opened the application to check Alice's location and the places she had been to this evening. This was an application that he had installed in her phone recently but had never thought that he would need to use it. It was one of their most high tech applications which was yet to be sold in the market because it usually remained undetected and they needed it to get clearance before the product could be sold. Alice had stopped at two places for a little time each.

At this time, he received the notification that Benji sent over. It contained the location of Adken Perry and where he had been in the evening. Checking the locations, Adam felt his world crash down. Alice's second stop over and Adken Perry's last location were at the same place and time and it was a few hours ago. Grabbing his phone, he frantically dialed Alice's number but no one answered. As soon as the phone stopped ringing, he dialed again, and then again. Until finally the phone was switched off. He turned to the laptop and checked the last location of the phone.. It was near the Cardy Hills..

Already being able to guess what stories Adken Perry must have weaved, Adam climbed into his car as he called Benji and said," You need to turn of the emergency tracking for Alice. She last stopped at Cardy Hills before her phone was switched off! Help me find her Benji."

"On it! But it will take some time as the application is not yet updated and we don't have much ways to support it.. Adam? Do you think it is time to now get rid of Adken Perry? He has started attacking wildly now."