179 Lily (15)

When Kyro closed the apartment's door behind himself, the smile on his face faded. It was replaced by a coldness that he didn't bother to hide. While still in the elevator, he called Gale.

"We've got a problem. Your uncle saw Lily and Iris, giving them a scare."

"The bastard. I'll— Wait, giving them a scare? He didn't take Lily back?"

Kyro left the elevator and walked in quick strides to his car. "No, Iris managed to surprise him and get them out. But from on, they won't be able to leave the house without risk."

"Shit, we need to wrap this up as soon as possible," Gale said through gritted teeth .

It had been a choice to not instigate him more by telling that his family had guards around all his houses, but Kyro hadn't considered it for long. Gale was better off knowing and making his decisions with all the facts at his hands. Whether those decisions ended well or not.

"Did you hear anything from Jimmy?"

"Not much, he says proof is insubstantial and they're a family of good standing, but we'll still go through with it. He says we've got a slight chance to win," he spit out.

"Slight? That's a whole lot better than how likely we were to take over their company."

There was little in common between the two situations, but Kyro didn't care too much about it. Little hope was better than no hope. Although he had a feeling that Jimmy was saying things just to keep Gale grounded and not rushing off to do things 'his way'.

Their situation wasn't good without any evidence. Although Lily had been starved, it wasn't to the point that she would have developed health problems. She was simply really thin, and she would never confess that her parents didn't give her food when they had indoctrinated her that she could never tell it to anyone. Even her brother.

"Next time, try it without reeking of falseness. And get back here. Once you disappeared, I got swamped by people you left behind."

"I told you to take care of them for an hour. You'll live. Bye."

After ending the call, Kyro sat staring in front of himself for a moment. When had Iris become so important to him that he would leave work in a hurry once he realized that something was wrong? He couldn't remember doing that for anyone else besides his parents.

The moment he had heard that she went to his place, he knew that she wasn't telling the whole truth to him. He tried convincing himself that it could wait, that she was clearly safe now, but the worry nagged at him until he could no longer take it. Without thinking of the consequences, he said there was an emergency and called Gale to watch over the proceedings.

There wasn't much difference which of them listened to the reports of the companies, but it was unprofessional for Kyro to leave in the middle. He was acting like a lovesick fool, mixing his priorities.

'What did I accomplish by coming here? Saw that she was fine as I knew already?'

The memory of Iris wrapping her hands around him rose in his mind, and he shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable. She had held onto him like he was the only steady thing in a world suffering from an earthquake.

And he couldn't say that he didn't like it. There was joy in seeing her so certain that he could solve anything that happened, knowing that his presence was enough to chase all bad memories away. He had no doubt that it wasn't Gale's uncle that she was thinking about now.

"Stop feeling so happy about it," he muttered to himself and started the car. He had work to do.

---

Iris fell back on the bed, her hands spread wide. She lay with eyes closed, reminiscing about what had happened minutes ago. It was so innocent and cute that she couldn't help grinning to herself.

Who could've thought that Kyro was this sweet? He ran out of work just to check on her and even gave her a light kiss on the forehead before leaving.

She rolled on her side while giggling, holding her hands over her heart. "I'm such a mess today," she whispered to herself between her laughs. Moments before, she had been petrified by the realization how weak she was, and now she was all giddy from Kyro's appearance.

The swiftness at which her emotions changed could rival a feather's flight. Going in a single direction was simply not acceptable.

Her phone buzzed then, and she rushed to it, expecting a message from Kyro. However, it was just the notification that her apps had been updated. Somewhat disappointed, Iris decided to go online.

The men had mentioned yesterday that there would be lots of news today, and she wanted to check if they had been right. Upon opening a browser, she typed in Gale's name, and a familiar face smiled back at her. Next to it, a headline shouted: "Well-Known Billionaire Gale Seeks Attention Once More - Kidnaps His Own Sister."

The article mainly spoke about how Gale was addicted to being on the news. The journalist claimed that Gale's bedroom exploits had become boring after so many years and this new scandal was his way to gather the attention on himself once more.

It was to stupid, Iris couldn't read it anymore and checked the other titles. The most popular ones were those that sounded the juiciest, blackening Gale's name the most. Most theories focused on him looking for popularity, but a few trashier places speculated if the little girl was actually his daughter that had been hidden at his parents' place. After all, the girl was more than twenty years younger than him.

Iris went through five pages of search results, but the result was the same. Not one place spoke of any other possibilities. Everyone was calling out Gale for being a scumbag while expressing pity for his parents at having to deal with such a horrible son. It was like all the journalists were out for blood.

There were only a few that tried to be on the neutral side, but even they trod on the side of caution and sided with the parents. Not one place stood up for Gale, and he became the public enemy number one. The comment sections were filled with so much foul-mouthed nonsense that Iris felt like puking.

Those people didn't have a clue what had really happened, but were judging based on first impressions. 'As would have I', Iris had to admit. Gale was an easy person to love, but also to hate. He was always unbridled, saying whatever he wanted and doing the same. Or so he pretended.

'But his sister should only have love.'

Iris rose from the bed and went out into the living room. She wanted to make sure that Lily didn't read and start to believe something that wasn't true. Although Iris couldn't do much in the fight that Kyro and Gale were about to wage against the Mosley parents, she could at least make sure that one sister didn't lose the trust she had in her brother.