The search begins...

Taylor Dray arrived at Riley Airport at around 2:am in the afternoon. He immediately took the airport taxi to the formal address of Sam Wilby's family home hoping to start his search for Kristine from there.

Taylor knew the only link he had to track down Kristine was through Sam, since she had been tailing behind him before she went missing.

Her phone was switched off and untraceable.

What shocked Taylor the most and he hastily triggered this immediate urgency to book his flight here was that, Sam's phone had also been switched off since last night, which also seemed kind of strange and increased his tension.

Upon arrival at Sam's formal family home, Taylor felt goosebumps under his skin at the strangeness of that neighborhood. It was too quiet.

He slowly traced his footsteps and rang the doorbell to the house repeatedly before a man appeared.

"Good afternoon, Sir...Please I am looking for Sam Wilby. His phone had been off for days and I can't seem to reach him. It's important!" Taylor went for the acquaintance act to convince the man he was Sam's close friend.

"And you are...." The man returned but was quite doubtful.

"Taylor Dray...Please to meet you, sir. But Is Sam home now?" Taylor's feet were beginning to shake with impatience since he was so terrible when it came to lying.

He often ended up messing everything up in the long run.

However, Taylor fought to regain his composure immediately, since Kristine's life was currently at risk and he can't afford to mess anything up right now.

"And you are Sam's friend?... Amongst Sam's friends, this is the first time I am hearing of your name." Taylor suddenly looked tensed.

"Should I have changed my name? Oh shit! why didn't I think of that first." Taylor rebuked himself internally.

"Actually, I am from Textile state! we were neighbors when he stayed with his grandmother. Maybe, he forgot to mention me since I had to leave Textile state for school... I am guessing he is pretty mad at me right now." Taylor chuckled awkwardly hoping the man believed his lies.

"Oh sorry...I guess so. Come in!" Finally!, Taylor hurriedly entered as if hoping for the man to suddenly change his mind.

"Sam is not here at the moment but since you said you are from a far place, I suggest you wait for him... Anyways, my name is Edmond and I have been Sam's parent's driver for a long time. When I also heard Sam returned, I came immediately to check up on him." Edmond finally introduced himself and offered a handshake which Taylor took immediately.

Even though Taylor realized he couldn't afford the luxury of wasting more time, he couldn't help his excitement after the man's introduction.

This was the perfect opportunity he had been waiting for, and he had just met the right person to answer all his questions which he couldn't find out about Sam through his digging around on Sam's entire background.

What a great opportunity this is...Now, he had to control himself and make everything flow as naturally as possible. So the man wouldn't suspect he was lying about being Sam's friend." Taylor thought to himself.

After Edmond escorted Taylor to the chair, Taylor looked around and noticed how old and unkempt everything looked around the house.

He imagined Sam must have left immediately after his parent's death and only came to the house once in a while.

"It's been long since I was able to reach Sam, he wouldn't answer my phone calls or emails so I decided to come personally..." Taylor fought for composure before he moved on to give in to his curiosity.

"I recently heard about the death of his parents and I was so shocked!" Now that's a good way to start his investigation from the beginning, and fill up his unanswered loopholes so far.

"Oh yes... Sir Travis and Samantha. A very nice couple." Edmond's expression changed to sadness.

However, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for Taylor to get him to spit everything out and start talking!

"So, how did it all happen?" Taylor thought he was too straightforward, until he noticed Edmond's sad look before he opened his mouth to respond to his question which sent a relief sigh below Taylor's breaths.

"It happened five years ago, after Sam returned from his summer holidays at his grandma's house. Sir. Travis and Samantha thought of taking Sam to a boarding school since he was getting too addicted to video games and didn't want to study. I could remember Sam getting mad at his dad anytime this issue comes up." Edmond reached out for a glass of water and handed it to Taylor who impatiently took it while looking at Edmond with the why-did-you-paused continue look.

"Then suddenly, everything changed...I arrived one morning after spending all my nights at the hospital to be with my sick wife, and I found Sir and Madam shot and they were lying right there..." Edmond pointed towards a direction a few meters from where Taylor sat.

"After their funeral, Sam and his sister lost everything, since their father was accused of getting involved with doing some bad stuff with some bad people, which sent him into bankruptcy. The police suspected it was suicide...They said Travis killed Samantha and then later killed himself since he couldn't handle the situation. But Sam was the only one who knew the truth since he was there that night. He kept telling the cops it wasn't suicide and that someone killed his parents, but he couldn't see the killer's face, so the police never believed him. And there was no CCTV footage to buck his claim." Edmond finally paused to take his seat next to Taylor.

"Nobody believed him too. Then suddenly, Sam disappeared, and I never saw him until he called me two nights ago to come to the house. I was so happy to finally see him after a long time. But Sam left me worried after he told me everything that happened when he left for his grandma's house." The worry was evident on Edmond's face as he moved closer to Taylor in his seat.

"Please, could you help me talk Sam out of his revenge?" Edmond's tears now affected Taylor who suddenly felt bad for Sam.

"Revenge? on who?" The curiosity was now killing Taylor to know more.

This couldn't be Jason Taylor's handiwork...could it? Was that why Sam was with Jason? He had already suspected a connection within them. Was this it?

Taylor began to crack his brain and his mind began to make deductions about the knowledge he had gathered so far with the one he just heard...

"His revenge on Ray Valdez!" Edmond nearly choked on his tears.

"It's enough that Ray killed Sam's parents but I am afraid he might end up killing Sam and his sister too.." Edmond moved to sit closer to Taylor and held unto his hand.

"Sam is now filled with bitterness and quite resentful. He is currently desperate for revenge. You said you were his friend right? Please help me talk him out of it.

As Edwond held onto Taylor's hand, Taylor's mind became blank upon hearing Ray Valdez's name mentioned.

During his hacking days, before he quit everything and started his office surveillance work, he had worked under Ray Valdez's syndicate.

He had hacked into many businesses for Valdez and even banks to retrieve enormous amounts of money countless times.

Taylor realized he was even the one responsible for giving Ray Valdez a new identity and background, before he later found out that Ray Valdez was an escaped criminal druglord from his formal country and one of the FBI's most-wanted criminals.

As a clueless college student then, and only working to pay off his college fees, Taylor became scared when he found out about Valdez's little secret.

However, Taylor had to later threaten Valdez to give all the evidence to the cops so Ray could pay for his crimes. But he realized his life could be in danger... Therefore, he thought out a plan of escape from Valdez's grasp.

Taylor had to threaten Valdez to let him go or else he would release every piece of information he gathered on him so far and hand it over to the FBI.

Since he suspected Ray wouldn't kill him since he needed him as one of his best hackers and loyal too.

But Taylor realized he couldn't hold onto that for long, he needed a strong backup plan that would lengthen his life in the long run.

Hence, Taylor created a countdown programmer that would automatically release all the information he had on Valdez so far directly to the FBI even after his death. He was able to convince Valdez that, he had to be alive since he was the only one who could change it. Since Ray would never be able to break down the passcode to stop it.

That was the only way Ray Valdez allowed Taylor to leave his syndicate harmless, even though he knew Ray continued to keep track of his every movement.

Even though Taylor joined Valdez's syndicate out of compulsion because he was threatened, and the life of his mom was on the line at that time.

But now, he had nothing to lose, hence, he had been free so far, away from them and everything. He barely remembered the last time he ever encountered them. It was like they vanished from the face of the earth.

Until Taylor later met Kristine after she was also betrayed by her boyfriend...Caleb Donnells, and it was a pretty cruel breakup for her which she remembered to this day.

However, they both consoled each other in their loneliness and became friends since then.

Taylor followed Kristine everywhere she goes just to be close to her, and when he found out that she decided to transfer to Textile State Walker Empire's branch, he immediately started his process of transfer too.

How did it all happen?" Taylor finally asked in shock after Edmond's narration.

"Well, Travis didn't know anything about Ray Valdez's darkest secrets in the Underworld from the beginning, so they became business partners." Edmond began to narrate the story of how it all happened.

It started seven years ago, Ray appeared before Travis Wilby in a business conference seminar and introduced himself as Richard Wilson.

Taylor rose his eyebrow when he heard that name. It was the new identity he gave Ray during the time he was working under him.

Ray later approached Travis with a business proposition that sounded too good to be true.

Even though Samantha, Travis's wife, warned him about Ray's suspicious acts and unscrupulous behaviors which she had been noticing for a while now, Travis didn't make anything of it and told his wife to respect Ray's privacy.

Their business began to blossom and they later became partners by exporting and shipping company goods to and from different countries, until Travis began to notice certain strange numbers and suspicious signs on most of their containers.

Instead of Investigating further, Travis confronted Ray about it and that was when Travis's life changed.

Ray threatened Travis with his family's life to let things be as it was, and not interfere.

He even proposed a 10% percent share of his illegal shipping goods to Travis which Travis denied.

But later, Travis had no option but to accept it and they both continued working together, but his conscience began to eat it up and since Travis was scared for his family's safety, he sent Thea to a boarding school when Sam refused.

Hence, he sent Sam to stay with his grandmother in Textile state so his son wouldn't snoop around and find anything suspicious that might endanger his life.

Sam was a very naughty mischievous kid and enjoys snooping around his father's study, especially when his dad blocks his credit cards, he would break into his dad's study for cash, just to purchase more video games.

As time went on, Travis consulted an honorable cop with complaints about Ray's dealing, but the cop asked for a shred of detailed evidence so they could arrest Valdez.

Travis then decided to become a spy to gather evidence for the cop.

But the mistake Travis did was to involve their family lawyer, Anthony Spencer, since he didn't know Anthony was corrupt.

Ray had already bought Anthony out to report every suspicious thing Travis does.

Therefore, the lawyer sold Travis out to Ray. Then they both planned and took all of Travis's businesses from him, with the help of the family's lawyer, and left a huge debt for Travis before they killed him and camouflaged it as suicide.

A hitch in their plan was when Sam suddenly returned home for summer vacation without his parent's knowledge and witnessed the entire scene of his parent's death, but he couldn't see the killer's face.

After the funeral and the cops closed his parent's case as suicide, Sam and Thea had to move to their grandma's house in Textile state but their grandma later died too.

Moreover, Edmond didn't hear from Sam ever since, until recently when Sam appeared out of nowhere and told him everything that happened, and how he found out about it from their family lawyer after he called Sam a year later to confess everything...

As well as what Sam was planning to do and risk his life in seeking vengeance.

Taylor sat attentively as he listened to everything Edmond was telling him, which shook him a little.

Although, it's understandable how Edmond was scared about Sam's life, since Ray was a very dangerous criminal without a soul in him.

Meanwhile, How was Jason connected to Ray? Why did Sam approach Jason instead?...

Wow! it just couldn't get better, and it keeps getting worse the more he digs deeper. And now, the mystery was suffocating him.

Taylor finally excused himself to leave when he realized it was getting late.

The mood in his expression now was solemn as he bid farewell to Edmond and moved towards the door and left.

"Could you call me on this number when Sam returns?" Taylor didn't forget to leave his contact information.

He realized he had to track down Jason now in order to find Sam...

"Sure! Take care, Son. I hope to see you again." Edmond called out as Taylor left towards the door.

"Me too, Edmond. Goodbye!" Taylor shut the door behind him and returned back to his taxi whom he told to wait for his return.