Belle grabbed Amelia's hand and began to pull her, following the man whom she knew was the guy they were looking for.
Amelia tried slowing Belle down "Hey, take it easy, will you?" But Belle paid no heed to her. She only had her eyes on her target as she continued to drag Amelia with her.
Amelia tried stopping again, but Belle just held her firmly and continued walking "I found our guy. Bernardo Aiello" Belle said and Amelia immediately began to follow willingly.
Amelia also tried searching for the man in front of them, but she could not see him. There were a lot of people in front of them. "Where is he, Belle?"
"Don't worry, I have my eyes on him. I won't miss him at all" Belle smirked as she continued to pull Amelia with her.
Both women were hiding behind an apello pine tree as they watched Bernardo go into a house surrounded by trees.
Amelia squinted her eyes "Doesn't it look too small to be running an operation in it?" She asked herself and Belle nodded "It is. Even I have a whole mansion for myself". Amelia rolled her eyes at her statement "You are just extravagant, Belle. Nothing else" she said in a dry voice and Belle giggled, pulling Amelia from behind the tree.
They went up the porch and knocked on the door "Delivery!!" Belle shouted and Amelia glared at her before looking away in embarrassment.
The door opened slightly and the face of another man was revealed. Belle stood frozen, while Amelia just stared at the man.
His olive skin, chiseled jawline, beautiful sea green eyes and wavy hair were more than captivating that even Amelia felt the impact of it. He was giving the feeling of boy-next-door.
His deep husky voice came through "And you guys are?" He looked from one woman to another, and then Amelia spoke up "Bernardo Aiello. Where is he?"
The guy looked at her and tilted his head in a thinking face "Masked lady, why are you looking for this man here?" He asked her directly and Belle responded this time "We saw him walk into this house. We need to have a talk with him."
"That means you two are the stalkers we have been searching for" He glared at Amelia and Belle and they both got confused "What? No, that must be someone else. We just followed him today" Belle tried to clarify, but the man only seemed to be getting the wrong ideas.
"So you are his new stalkers. The police will have a lot to deal with" He smirked and Belle's eyes widened "Police?"
"That's enough, Leo" Bernardo came up from behind and pushed the man out of the way and Leo's laugh could be heard almost immediately.
Belle scoffed "Was that guy messing with us just now?" She pointed at herself and Amelia and Bernardo shook his head "Please, do not mind the likes of him. Come inside" He opened the door a little more so that the two women could come into the house.
As they both headed in, they looked at each other and passed messages through their eyes.
'Did he know we were coming?' Belle asked
'How am I supposed to know that?' Amelia replied
After they were fully inside the house, it looked more spacious than the outside. They were computers everywhere and each of them had a man concentrating on it.
Belle looked around the house and nodded in approval at the high tech equipment they had which she recognized because she had most of them at her own house. She also noticed that the men who were in the room were unnecessarily handsome.
Bernardo came to them after closing and locking the door. "We were expecting your arrival, President Amelia" He said to her going for a handshake. Amelia looked at his hands and went back to his face "President? Do you know me?" She asked instead.
Bernardo brought his hand back to his side and nodded, remembering what Milo had told him about Amelia.
"She doesn't like people generally, especially when you try to touch her, so don't offer her a handshake"
"You are Amelia Aguilar. More than half of the citizens in Italy should know you. We also guessed that you were the one who was able to break through our walls" He gave a slight smile. Belle who saw this smiled like a fool for a second,and the she got herself back.
"That means your security must be very poor for me to break in easily" Amelia's voice came out sassy, but Bernardo objected "Actually, we make use of H-Tech for our security server and they are one of the best that there is. It is not so easy to breach the security of H-Tech. It just shows that your source is really good" His voice came out a little strained, but it was not noticable. Belle just kept grinning from ear to ear.
Amelia nodded "Thank you for that" She turned to Belle and then back to him "This is Belle, my source" She gave Belle her well needed introduction.
Bernardo's eyes immediately moved to her and Belle kept grinning as she brought her hand for a handshake "My name might be petite, but I am not" She said to him. Bernardo as well slowly brought his hand and accepted Belle's handshake.
After they were done, Amelia dived straight to the point "So why are you guys, who have nothing to do with me or my family, searching for my parents? And how did you know they were missing in the first place? And what sort of info were you able to get on me?" She asked Bernardo.
Bernardo sighed "Mr. Eduardo and Mrs Lucille Aguilar have not just being your parents, President Amelia. They have been parents to many others like us here. We all knew about you, but never got to see you because you were very sheltered back then. We all here_" He motioned to the other men in the room and continued "_were part of the family created by Eduardo. We know that he is not dead" He chuckled a little "That man cannot be killed so easily. That is why we still have hope of him being alive and we are searching for him" He gave his very detailed explanation.
FLASHBACK
Milo closed his eyes for a while, and then he opened them back "There is a chance that it is Amelia who found out your location. She probably came across you while making her own search" This theory seemed more possible than the others he had come up with.
Bernardo replied while still on the call "That means she would be the one making her way to us then" He stated out the obvious and Milo nodded.
"The only problem is.. What exactly will be the perfect reason for searching for her parents. Searching for them could make you an ally or an enemy, and an enemy is the one she would lean more into no matter what you say. She does not trust easily at all" His experience will Amelia came to his mind and he chuckled a little.
"What was that, sir?" Bernardo asked referring to his small laugh and Milo coughed slightly "It's nothing. Keep thinking"
They were both quiet for a while, and then Bernardo spoke up "What if we told her we were old acquaintances of her father?". Milo stared at the phone weirdly like he was really looking at Bernardo "You do know you were probably 11 years when her parents went missing. How would you..." He stopped talking when a new idea from Bernardo's idea came to him.
He snapped his fingers "That's it. You'll tell her you were part of the family Eduardo raised while the group was still together. She never went out, so she would not know anything about you. That is the only believable thing we can give her" He said as he smiled at his genius idea.
Bernardo was also rethinking this plan "What if she finds out that it was all a lie?" He asked Milo. Milo became silent for a while, and then he spoke up "I'll take responsibility for that"
FLASHBACK ENDS
Amelia stared deeply into Bernardo's eyes searching for even a little bit of movement to signify a lie, but there was nothing detected, so she nodded and said "Okay. I believe you."
Bernardo's racing heart slowly began to calm down and he smiled at her. His eyes went to Belle and he caught her staring at him suspiciously, but he ignored it.
"So, tell me. Is there any progress in finding my parents?" She asked as she made her way to the big flat screen on the wall that showed the globe rotating.
Bernardo made his way to her "Unfortunately, we have searched different countries in all the continents, but we have not seen progress at all". Amelia turned to him "Even Africa?" She asked and Bernardo shook his head "We've searched Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire and many more. There is nothing at all"
"I'm also pretty sure I've looked through every data base. I've searched for the possibility of new identities, but there is nothing like that" Belle also made a comment as she folded her hands.
Leo's face came into view "I keep telling you guys to try the possibility of them getting plastic surgery. They may not have done it willingly, but the possibility is there" He said as he took a bite of the cucumber in his hand.
Belle rolled her eyes at what he said "Please don't jinx us. Them getting a plastic surgery eliminates all our chances of finding them."
The whole place remained quiet for a while. The globe kept rotating on the screen and Amelia's eyes caught sight of Italy. The gears began running in her head and her eyes widened slightly" What if we've been too focused on the outside of the box that we forgot to look inside?" She said to them and then turned to look at them. The other guys who were seated also looked at her.
"What do you mean, Amelia?" Belle asked, even though she was getting a little hint at what Amelia was trying to say. Amelia tilted her head "The automatic approach everyone has when it comes to solving things is to think outside the box. But in our case, we've been way too focused outside to search inside. How did I not think about that all this years?" Amelia blinked a few times before turning to look at them again.
"We have not searched Italy" She said to all of them.