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She chuckled. “I don’t see the problem. When are you going?”
“Today.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yes, some things came up with our New York regional office and I need to go over there and sort it out. I won’t be gone for long, just a couple of days.”
“It’s fine. Ava will miss you at dinner though,” her tone sounded a little sad.
“Just Ava?” I asked,
“Yeah, who else would miss you?” she responded. I could tell she was smiling.
“I don’t know, maybe you?”
“Hmmm… I’ll think about missing you when I have the time.” We both laughed.
“I’ll call you later. Enjoy the rest of your day.” I said and she responded before the call ended. A wave of sadness hit me. I hadn’t been away from them in a long while, and I didn’t realize it would feel this way. Ramon called me to inform me that it was time for us to head to the airport.
My private jet was already prepped and ready to move by the time I got to the airport. The flight time passed quickly as I was swamped at work. Our New York office was experiencing a downtime of their systems and were suspecting a hack. I had to figure out what was going on and put measures in place in case we were being hacked.
Immediately after we got to the New York office, I continued with my work and couldn’t get to my phone until later that evening. I then called Valentina and spoke with Ava over the phone. I had dinner and went to bed.
The next morning, I was up again and I spoke to Valentina. She told me she was going to be pretty busy at work and that Ava’s babysitter wasn’t going to be available for the day, so Ava was going to work with her. After our call, I went to the office. We were beginning to narrow down the issue and I discovered that we weren’t being hacked. Someone downloaded a corrupted file and a virus spread through our network. I kept working till about 4 p.m. when a young intern working with me brought my phone to me. He told me that Kyle kept calling me. I told him that I’d speak to Kyle later.
After an hour, he returned with the phone, saying Kyle would not stop calling. This time, I answered.
“This better be important, Kyle. I’m in the middle of some very delicate work.”
“Sir, it is serious. I can’t contact Miss Valentina and Ava.”
I dropped the pen in my hands. “What do you mean you can’t contact them? Were you not supposed to be with them at all times?”
“Yes sir, I was supposed to be with them but I…” it was obvious Kyle didn’t know what to say.
“Have you checked my house? They could be at my house. Go there now.”
“I have gone there. No one has seen them.”
“Where were they when you last saw them?”
“We were all at the gallery.”
My forehead broke into a sweat. The tie around my neck started to choke me, so I loosened it. There was a faraway buzzing sound in my head, or was it in my ear? I couldn’t tell. Kyle was still speaking but his voice was clouded by my own thoughts. Fear was something I hadn’t felt in so long but it wrapped itself around my body.
I ended the call and immediately called my Pilot. “Prep the flight. We’re leaving for Chicago now.”
“I’m sorry sir, we can’t do that. There’s a bad weather forecast. We can’t fly until morning.”
“My goodness!! I told you to prep that flight. I don’t want to hear excuses!” I screamed into the speaker of my phone, attracting stares from everyone around me.
“I understand you, sir, but I’m sorry, we cannot fly until morning. First thing in the morning, we will be on our way.”
I ended the call immediately. The fear was turning into anger. I should have Kyle fired and dealt with for his incompetence. Valentina’s number wasn’t going through as I tried multiple times to reach her.
My next call was to Logan. “Hey, man.”
“Logan, something terrible is happening.”
