In Darknet, there was a very interesting post that attracted many people's attention. There was a photo of a teenage girl passed out on the floor and an old man in his 60's who was tied to a chair beside her. The teenage girl was clearly Vega. Then ... who was the old man who was held captive with her?
The text in the photo was short:
[If you don't want Vega to experience what happened to Alexei, stop searching.]
Elios turned to his father. "Do you know him? Is he really Alexei?"
Alexei Meier was his cousin from his mother's side. The whole family was part of the purist group who believed they, the immortals, were better than regular humans and wanted to rule the world. This didn't sit well with the Schneider family's philosophy who was leading the Alchemist clan and in charge of the immortality potion.
The long-standing feud resulted in a really bad conflict when 35 years ago Alexei decided to kidnap Caspar's daughter, Aleksis, to force him to take Death. Basically Alexei forced him to take the potion that would make him a regular human, grow old, and die, leaving Alexei in charge of the clan.
Fortunately, Lauriel was around to help and he punished Alexei severely by taking away the only thing Alexei deemed precious: his immortality. The evil man was made to take Death and memory potion so he would forget about the Alchemist people. He was sent to live in Switzerland and grow old alone, not knowing who he was.
Lauriel studied the old man in the photo and took a deep breath. He still remembered Alexei, His wife's nephew. After more than three decades, Alexei had turned old and grey, but Lauriel could still recognize him.
He nodded slowly. "That's right, that's Alexei. Caspar still sent people to check on him in Switzerland every now and then. Every year we saw his face grow older. This is indeed him."
"That means that whoever kidnapped Vega must know what happened to Alexei! Do you think they have a grudge against him? Do they have a relationship with the Meier family?" Elios asked again.
He had told his right-hand, Pavel to track Sophia's whereabouts. Sophia was Alexei's sister, who was almost as evil as her brother but she got away with a lesser punishment.
Elios was worried that his cousin had something to do with Vega's kidnapping because she wanted to take revenge on him. He was still waiting to hear from Pavel.
Eleven years ago, Elios punished Sophia by kicking her out of the family castle in Yorkshire. He didn't return the Meier family's business to her for her evil deeds and merged the Meier Group with his Rhionen Industries into the RMI (Rhionen-Meier Industries) it was now. That caused Sophia to fall into poverty and went off the grid.
Elios was very suspicious that Sophia must hold such a grudge against him and his father, Lauriel. Sophia might have decided to kidnap Vega to hurt them.
Sophia also had long held a grudge against the Schneiders, his inlaws. The girl always assumed Caspar and Lauriel were responsible for making her lose her only brother, Alexei.
"Hmm... I don't think Sophia did this," Lauriel said. "She doesn't have the resources and money to mobilize this many people ..."
"And it is clear from this photo that they also took Alexei," Nicolae added. "Do you think Sophia would sacrifice her own brother?"
"I don't care whether Sophia has money or not, whether Alexei is a victim or not ... I will look for Sophia," Elios snorted.
"One moment ..." Suddenly Nicolae held his brother's hand and tapped the screen of his tablet. He just saw a new notification. "Marie sent me this news ..."
He showed them the contents on his screen. His brother and father immediately held their breath. They saw the news on an internet portal. The body of a man in his 60's was found on a roadside in Switzerland. His corpse was thrown out of a fast-moving car. The perpetrator didn't leave any trace.
"This is Alexei!" Lauriel said as he managed to observe the photos of the victims that were spread in Darknet. "They really killed him."
"This incident happened only one hour ago. That means they are now in Switzerland ..." Nicolae said. "That is very fast. I think they drove all night, and they are very well organized."
"I will send my people to Switzerland," Elios said quickly. He turned to his father and nodded. "Father, you are right. I don't think this is Sophia's doing. She couldn't have killed her own brother. Nevertheless, I will still look for her and interrogate her."
"I will check Darknet and look for new information," Nicolae said.
"I will go to Switzerland," Lauriel decided. "You should stay here with Aleksis and coordinate with Caspar and the others."
Elios nodded. For some reason, he felt the instructions left by the kidnappers were too excessive. Why did they dump Alexei's dead body in Switzerland? They might do it just to distract his attention. Therefore, he was glad his father wanted to investigate there while he continued to coordinate with everyone.
It's been 12 hours after Vega was gone. They were racing with time. Everyone felt tired and stressed. Lauriel immediately left for the airport to fly to Switzerland. Overland would take too long, he thought. He preferred to use small aircraft that would take him directly to Basel.
***
There was a commotion at the Amarylis Hotel that morning. George Washington High School students surrounded Tatiana, who came to the breakfast room with a haggard face. They all wanted to hear directly from her about what had happened.
"Is Vega really missing? Weren't you still texting with her yesterday?" Sharon asked in confusion. "What happened?"
"Are all the announcements on Splitz true? Vega is the daughter of the RMI owner?" Stu asked in an urgent tone.
Everyone was very surprised when they woke up in the morning and found social media and almost all parts of the internet were filled with news about the reward offered for finding find Vega Linden.
They immediately recognized the girl in the photo as their school friend. No one thought that the modest and beautiful girl was the daughter of the world's wealthiest family. It felt like it was all a dream.
They had heard that Tatiana had been asked to meet Vega's parents, and now all of them were swarming around the girl like flies swirling rotten fruit to find out what really happened.
Tatiana was actually exhausted and stressed, but she liked being the center of attention. So, she asked Sharon to hold her new cellphone and record while she made a statement. She would immediately post it on social media to her followers.
She was only doing what Elios asked her to. He told her to ask all her followers to open their eyes and ears if they saw any clues about Vega's whereabout, anywhere in the world.
"I want to make a statement about the shocking incident that happened last night. So, please listen to me ..." Tatiana began her recording in a hoarse and sad voice.