Fifty–Seven
Alexander’s POV
When I finally became aware of who exactly it was behind Isabella’s abduction, I thought it would be a lot more easier to find her. In fact I thought in a day or two she’ll be back to the pack and I could focus on fixing every issue between us so we could all put this horrific event behind us and starting all over. I thought everything that was the opposite of what was happening right now. I sent out my men in their numbers to scour the region for someone identical to me.
It was a feature I was beginning to really hate nowadays. When we were little, the fact that Antonio and I are identical used to cause a lot of problems for me. Antonio would cause trouble somewhere and run away leaving clueless innocent me to receive the beating and scolding. I wondered whether that was how he wanted me to keep having his back. He had told me that his issue with me stemmed from me, the person who he expected to have his back, failed him or whatever it was that he said. What did he want? For me to have taken the blame as well as the fall for him? At this point I have never seen anybody more delusional than my brother.
I thought about how our strong resemblance could go wrong in this situation. Isabella must’ve thought he was me in the first place and my stomach churned just at the thought of that. How long had he let her believe that he was me? Did she still think she was with me right now? Oh the wonders that would do for my reputation and the way she sees me, I thought with a heavy sigh because I highly doubted that
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Antonio would be up to any good. But would she really believe that he was me for so long without having any doubt? I didn’t think so. I mean, at least I hope not. She would think I have rejected her. It was something she had been expecting to happen for a while and when she does not feel the bond with Antonio, she would think I have rejected her.
And if she knows that she has been kidnapped and knows that the person she is with is not me, I can imagine her wondering why I haven’t still been able to rescue her. She must have wondered if anyone was even coming for her at all. I thought about the quiet way that she lived. If I had not had that fight with Isabella and she had gone straight home that night, how long would it have taken anyone to find out that she was missing? She lived alone and just reconciled with the only two people she called her friends. Her parents were used to her habit of not returning calls and it wasn’t like the gallery demanded her presence every single day. It would have been like just another day of Isabella ignoring the world and nobody would have noticed…at least that was what her mother thought, the thought that had her breaking down in tears after she had voiced it out loud the last time I paid her family a visit.
My men have been searching for Isabella with this new insight and although I said nothing to my father about it, with everybody running around with this news pertaining to the search, he eventually got wind of the it. ‘It‘ being the identity of Isabella’s abductor. It was hard on my parents. While my father did not break down in tears like my mother, I could see the look in his eyes. The look that translated to hurt, disappointment, heartbreak and guilt. All I got from him was that look and a heavy frown and nothing else. He didn’t say a word but what was the need for that when his eyes already
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spoke volumes?
I spent a long time consoling my mother though. She felt guilty too for not doing better at raising Antonio, for not caring for him well enough, for not doing a better job at reaching out to him when he was banished, for not sending him enough money…and I hated Antonio for making her cry about things like this. It was unfair considering the fact that all the reasons she cried for were false but I bet she believed
them. My mother did her best in raising us. She raised us the same way and so if she was any bad at it, Antonio and I ought to have turned out the same way. And caring for him well enough? Pfft. Antonio even had more attention from me because his whole life was attention seeking. My mom was always trying to pay him more attention so he could feel more loved and thus act more loving. Like she wasn’t showing him enough love before. And as for that money, I believe it was what she sent him that he pretended not to accept that he used to set up himself in all the places he had hidden out. So I hated him for breaking our parents heart when they had done everything for him.
Antonio has had a lot of different hideouts in the past years. I don’t know what he was running from considering the fact that the pack had no issue with him as long as he did not step foot inside of it, all I knew was that he had been hopping from one place to another and my men had been thoroughly searching each and every one. I’m yet to hear any news I from the men I sent to the city where I saw him last though and so I‘ m waiting very impatiently for that. The delay was to be expected considering the fact that that was literally on another end of the earth and if it turned out that he was no longer there, I would be more than devastated.
still wondered why he hadn’t contacted us. If I was correct,
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kidnapping Isabella was a means to luring me to him. If so, why hadn’t he contacted me and stated exactly what he wanted in exchange. The thought that he abducted Isabella for a different purpose had me gripping my door handle until it broke off. What if he did not abduct Isabella because she was my mate but because she was just who she was. Because, she was Isabella, a very beautiful woman and he wanted her. I hated the thought. It had my stomach churning and had bile rising in my throat. The thought literally frightened me and I hoped to the goddess with everything in me that that wasn’t the case.
But I was already disturbed and so I ran down the stairs and took the first turn to my parent’s suite. Before I could get to the door, it opened and my father was coming out. I halted in my steps and glanced questioningly at my father, “I was just coming to meet you.”
“Same.” He said, “I wanted to come and tell you that you
should go find her. I know it’s driving you crazy to not know what’s going on and you must be very worried. Your mate is just as important as the pack because without her the pack will suffer. Go, I will take care of things.”
I stared at my father in disbelief and pure joy. I could not believe what I was hearing but at the same time I was certain I could not have misheard and I felt so utterly grateful that I did not know when tears began to fill up my eyes. I threw myself at a father and chuckled when he stiffened. I spared him the discomfort and stepped back shortly after. I bowed low to him, “Thank you father, thank you so much.”
But I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. I should have known by now that nothing good was by my side because the next morning as I got ready to journey out, I got
Fifty–Seven
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news that had me rushing to my parent’s suite and straight into my father’s bedroom. My father was there and so was my mother, and while my father was laying in bed with the covers pulled up to under his neck while he still shivered with his face paler than I had ever seen, my mother sat beside him, crying over him.
I stood at the door as anger and grief overshadowed me. Not that there would ever be a perfect time to be ill but there was something about this timing that smelled like a perfectly orchestrated plan.
“What did he eat?” I choked out.
“What do you mean Xander? I cook all his meals, you know that.” My mom said with pain filled eyes and I swore before storming out of the room.
I linked Blake, “Send out another search party and…and I want all the maids fired until we find the traitor.”
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