"What were you thinking bringing such a thing along?!" Thanks to Gabriel's mistake, their position as employer and employee was reversed and Jackson was the one scolding him instead.
"I couldn't keep it back home!" Gabriel shouted back at him, "There was always a probability that my fill-in might stumble upon it and I couldn't take such a risk. Even a fake like him might begin to get ideas with such powerful information like that. What if he sells me out to the mafioso?"
"So why take the pictures in the first place?" Jackson groaned out of frustration. It was barely a day after they arrived and he hadn't even gotten a chance to settle down after the long flight only to be confronted with such a situation. Had he known helping Gabriel escape his life back home would be full of troubles, he wouldn't have agreed in the first place.
"What do you mean by why I took the pictures?" Gabriel fired at him, aggravated by that statement.
Thanks to his fierce look, Jackson was careful in the way he spoke to him again, he was still his boss in the end. So he softened his tone and asked gently,
"I mean, what's the point of taking pictures no one is supposed to see anyway and risk your identity? That's like asking for trouble."
"Because I was bored…." Gabriel said with emotion, "You don't what it feels like to have many people at your side yet no one is by your side. To be forced to live a life of seclusion and having no one to trust entirely. I was tired. I had no friends, nothing. I couldn't enjoy the privileges ordinary people have and yet are unaware of it. So I made it a habit to talk to myself instead. I would capture myself, role play, and imagine I lived a life far from the one I was engaged in. It was the only way to keep my sanity intact. "
Jackson opened his mouth to say something but words seemed to fail him. Gabriel was right, he knew nothing about his life so he had no right to judge him. So he decided to come up with a solution instead of blaming him for the problem.
"What are we going to do then? There should be a way to track down the phone even without a sim,"
Gabriel's eyes lit up when he saw Jackson's efforts to help him. He said to him, "If the phone is connected to Wi-Fi, then it can be easily located. The only problem is that the phone needs cellular data,"
"In one word, we can activate the lost mode into your iCloud and wait until that thief connects an internet service to your lost Phone?"
Gabriel winced inwardly, "I wouldn't exactly call her a thief. I told you our phones must have gotten misplaced in the process when she bumped into me and must have picked hers thinking it was hers since they're the same product, although hers is inferior."
He stared down at the phone in his grip with disdain. His own phone was personalized for his use and cost a ton. Gabriel hoped she handled his phone with care.
"And you're still defending her?" Jackson found the act despising. As far as was concerned, his boss' safety came first above some chick that he was crushing on.
He continued, "What if she's some airport thief that intentionally ran into you just to steal your phone?"
"If that's the case, then she's in for a loss because my phone can't be unlocked easily. Its security is tight and encrypted strongly. I told you it was customized for my use. "
"Unless she meets a hacker." Jackson drops the bomb on him, "There are a bunch of talented lowlives around who would be excited to take on such a challenge of unlocking your phone. So do not underestimate them."
When Jackson spoke about low lives, he considered himself among them too. In the past, he was a nobody but through perseverance and determination, he got to this point in his life. So he knew how stubborn the people who live in the slums could be. Hence Gabriel can't let his defenses down. Anything can happen.
"Fine, we would go back to the airport as early as possible and track her down before it's too late."
"Or we can contact your second in command, Luke, and ask for help. With his ability, he should be able to -"
"No!" Gabriel cut him off before he was done speaking. He told Jackson firmly, "You are not going to do such a thing! It's barely twenty-four hours since we arrived and you want to do what? Inform him that we are experiencing a crisis. What if he makes a move and unintentionally alerts the mafioso of our movements and then my life would be over?"
At once, Jackson bowed his head in shame, "I'm sorry, boss, in my haste to make things right, I didn't think things through thoroughly. Please forgive me."
Gabriel sighed deeply, pinching the space between his brows. He then said to him, "You should go and sleep and get enough rest for tomorrow. We must catch that woman at all costs."
"Yes boss," Jackson bowed his head once more and left while Gabriel stood there staring out the window, lost in his thoughts.
Gabriel lifted the girl's phone in the air and stared at it with narrowed brows as if he was going to find something shocking about it that he hadn't seen in the first place.
He murmured to himself, "Why haven't you called yet?"
Unlike his phone which had no sim, her own had network coverage and she should have called already after finding out that her phone was misplaced. His heart missed a beat when he remembered Jackson's words and Gabriel hoped to God that she had not intentionally bumped into him in the airport. He prayed deep down that she was not a thief.
If only Gabriel knew what she was going through right now…..