part 47

Third Person POV

Flashbacks (5 Years Ago.)

Few days before the explosion.

Adam's been busy for the past few months with his company. Weird things have been happening for quite sometime now, numbers were being tempered with which led for the shares to skyrocket unbelievably high.

Adam had to settle this up before his company gets sued for stock manipulation, and find who's behind it and why were they doing it which consumed almost all of his time and energy. He would come home at dinner time and have his dinner and sleep, sometimes he would come even later and fell right asleep due to exhaustion.

However while he was busy fixing his company problems, he missed how his wife changed drastically in the span those few months. How her tone became more sarcastic unlike the usual, and how she avoided him at all costs that if not for Giuseppe who joins them for meals, he wouldn't see her at all.

He failed to notice how she was being pulled away from him slowly but steadily.

He failed to see the storm brewing right under his nose and inside his house.

Never in his wildest dreams did he imagined that whatever that was happening was connected, he only started connecting the dots after the cancerous cells of doubt had spread wildly in their relationship.

Until they reached the point of no return.

And he blamed himself for it so severely.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Adam was in his office, thinking of possible suspects after the issue of the fake numbers was almost all settled. Then, as if he suddenly remembered something, he reached out for his phone that was laying in front of him on his desk, and dialled a number before putting it on his ear.

"Is someone sniffing around me?" He asked the person on the other side of the phone as soon as the call connected.

"Not you precisely. They're searching for the key families in the mafia. The Protecters and the head family of the mafia." Came a voice of a man from the other side of the phone.

"But they targeted my company?" Adam stated in confusion.

"They wanted to drag at least one of the families out and they only had one clue to follow." Informed the man.

"Meaning my company wasn't the only one to go through this." Adam stated more than asked.

"I'm sure you already know, but you should confront them as the businessman Mr. Knights and not the head of The Protecters. The Protecters should not utter a beep or move a finger until Adam Knights no longer suspected, that way you guarantee both of the families continuation." Advised the man.

"Don't worry, I'm more familiar with using my brain than my fists." Adam assured. "But aren't they becoming more and more brazen each passing day, shouldn't that be dealt with?" Adam questioned.

"They're anxious, seeing that whatever power they have is nothing but an empty shell, with the real owner out there as powerful and alive as she'll ever be, and whistleblower among them, possibly rattling them out to their enemy. They would want to get rid of the thing that's endangering their positions." The man explained.

"And the least thing they want now is to have the head family making an entrance, especially if it's empowered by their loyal guardian who happened to be rumoured to have be one of world's richest families and possess an army of men like no other in terms of strength and loyalty." Adam said. "That's why they're ransacking well known companies from behind the scenes, waiting to see if The Protecters will make a move." He added.

"Indeed." The man confirmed.

"They're even stupider than I pegged them to be." Adam noted, shaking his head in disbelief. "If The Protecters were that naïve to get easily wavered and played, they wouldn't be assigned with the protection of throne of the underworld neither would they have lasted this long." He continued in the same tone.

"Just be careful until this all passes." The man said.

"I will." Adam said before hanging up.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

A couple of days later Adam got a message from his men telling him to be extra careful that strange movements were noticed around him and his wife, but he discarded it thinking that they were the same people that were after The Protectors, and went on about his life as the ordinary.

Emma's strange behaviour never once popped in his mind because he blamed whatever little strangeness he noticed on pregnancy hormones. He heard what they do to a woman, how sometimes a woman can come to hate her spouse whom she once loved earnestly because of them.

However when the messages kept coming almost on a daily basis, Adam's attention was caught and he decided to hold a meeting with Jeff who was not only his right hand man in terms of business but he also held a great amount of power in The Protecters' family.

It was when Emma barged in their house that faithful morning and held him up from attending the meeting he arranged.

But just before Emma got in the house, his phone pinged with an SMS, but he couldn't check it up because of Emma who distracted him up with her sudden outburst.

However just as Emma exited the door after their fight, his phone pinged once again, reminding him of the earlier text message.

When he opened the message he was shocked with what Jeff sent.

Suspicious movements were detected in the house late last night, we're checking it up for devices as we speak.

Was what was written in the first minutes that came about five minutes ago, but what left him gobsmacked was the second one.

Evacuate the house, now! Bombs were found in almost every corner of the house.

Adam was just about to call him when he saw a figure running up to him.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean! How come they got bombs in my house where my pregnant wife resided, undetected!" Adam questioned Jeff who seemed to be just as dumbfounded as he was. "WHY THE HELL AM I PAYING YOU LOADS OF MONEY EACH MONTH IF YOU CAN'T PROTECT ME AND MY FAMILY!" Adam yelled.

"Master, you have to get out of here right now! We don't have much time left!" Jeff said in rush.

"How much time do we have?" Asked Adam.

"Roughly ten minutes and counting, but-." Jeff trailed off.

"But?" Adam asked.

"It can be remotely detonated which means we may have less than 10 minutes." He told his boss.

"We won't be able to leave the premises in that time, the best option is to use the escape route." Adam told him.

"But, sire! If we do, we could get buried under the ruins with no exit and an amount of air that won't last for long." Jeff said.

"If we don't we will definitely be blown up in in a matter of minutes." Adam stated his eyes wondering around the corners of the house. "Where are Emma and Giuseppe." He asked still looking for them.

"Mrs. Knights left the premises earlier along with young master, Müller and Jürgen." Jeff told him cautiously. He didn't want to tell his what came to find out few minutes back.

Adam scrunched his eyebrows at him when his words registered in his mind.

Could it be a coincidence? But they all left just in time to be out of the premises and in a safe distance from the explosion. Adam's thoughts went into overdrive.

The he remembered something. Something that she said just as she exited the door, but his mind was too preoccupied that he didn't pay attention to it.

See you in hell, Mr. Knights. Make sure not to mess with me then and tell the others too.

Could Emma do it? Can she really blow him up with dozens of innocent people. People that trusted her with their lives.

If he remembered correctly, she sent all of the house's original employees home and replaced them with her people few months back.

Then, as if on cue, one of the employees caught his attention.

He was one of his men, not Emma's.

How? Up 'till yesterday he was sure the house swarmed with Emma's people..

He looked up, examining the house help that went about their duties, only to see that there were only his employees.

All traces of Emma's people vanished as if they never existed. Not even a telltale sign of them been there once.

"Sire!" He was snapped out of his thoughts with someone shaking him.

He looked at Jeff who still had his hands on his shoulders. "Call all of the employees. Activate the alarm. Tell them to head to the escape route one by one right now!" Adam ordered him.

"Sire, your safety comes first-" Jeff started to argue.

"No, my orders do. I'm not leaving a single man behind me, they're here because of their trust in me to protect them. My loyalty is to them as much as theirs belongs to me." Adam cut him off. "Stop wasting time, and let's separate that way we won't waste time. Hurry up, we have less than eight minutes left." He urged.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Fortunately, most of the workers were out of town and were unable to report to work when Emma called them yesterday evening which enabled Adam and Jeff to evacuate the house within six minutes, leaving them a minute and a half for them to follow them through the escape route that was under the mansion.

Even though they wouldn't be able to reach safety before the explosion, Adam hoped that they would be shielded from it and emerge unscathed.

And just as he thought the escape route served as a shield to them from the explosion, and they were able to come out safely. Though there were few scratches here and there, they still were alive and kicking and that's something to be thankful for, seeing that they just had a whole mansion exploding above their heads.

"Find Emma. Bring her in front of me dead or alive." Adam ordered Jeff darkly.

Jeff nodded his head in agreement to his boss' command, he too was pissed at Emma. He never would have thought she would stoop so low, discarding every ounce of humanity and bomb her own husband. The one who loves her so dearly and spared no expense to make her happy and safe.

Nothing can justify what she did. Not a single thing can spare her now from his boss' raging beast. Jeff thought as he went about his order.

"I will find you, Emma, and when I do I'll show you how fun bombing people is." Adam said to himself, an ominously dark promise dancing in his blackened orbs.

A/N

Hey, lovelies!

Now you know how Adam survived, and there's more to come in the upcoming updates.

Hope you enjoy it.

Until next time, happy reading.