Love’s Cunning Ruse

Chapter 177

At Lavender Club.

Adeline was fuming, glaring at the two trembling men before her and cursing them out. “You guys are completely useless! I asked you to kidnap a woman and you couldn’t even manage that!”

Elliot gave Adeline a glance, furrowing his brows. “Just what the hell happened?”

This was certainly unexpected.

The two men had a pretty solid plan. One of them pretended to be a janitor, knocked Julie out, and stuffed her into a cleaning cart before wheeling her out of Simpo Co. The other guy was supposed to meet him at the door.

Next, they were supposed to deliver Julie to Adeline, but on their way, a sedan appeared out of nowhere and blocked their path. Two armed men got out of the car.

Their job was just to bring Julie to Adeline. They never signed up to kill anyone, let alone face armed guys. So, to save their own skins, they ditched Julie. Elliot had suspected from the get-go that Adeline was behind this. That’s why he came to her first, instead of explaining everything to Kieran Hernandez. Now they were in a real pickle. They had no idea who the two men that appeared out of nowhere were. But one thing’s for sure, it was quickly spiraling out of control.

Adeline knew how serious this was.

Frowning, she dialed Kieran’s number.

Twenty minutes later, Adeline and Elliot arrived at Simpo Co. They weren’t alone. Dylan was with them.

After listening to Elliot’s side of the story, Dylan turned to Adeline, clearly unhappy. “I just finished dealing with a suicide case. Are you trying to keep me busy?”

Although this wasn’t Adeline’s intention, she knew she was the one who started all this. So, she kept quiet, letting Dylan chastise her for once.

Elliot informed Payne Hernandez about the location where the kidnappers grabbed Julie. Payne was reviewing the traffic department’s surveillance footage. Just like the two men had said, Julie was taken by two masked men, one tall and one short.

Having seen the footage, Kieran was already on the phone with the police. “Yes, that’s correct. Two men, one tall, one short. The tall one’s about 174 cm, the short one’s around 168 cm. I’ll send you the footage right now…”

Payne sent the suspects’ snapshots to the police station.

Dylan, still not entirely convinced, asked Kieran, “Could it be…”

Dylan suspected Lucian Hernandez, but didn’t voice his suspicion. Kieran knew what he meant.

The room fell silent, save for the clicking of Payne’s keyboard.

Finally, Payne broke the silence. He pointed at his computer screen and said to Kieran, “The suspects were driving a car without a license plate. I managed to track it down using the surveillance footage. The car ended up in the northern suburbs. But there’s a stretch of road there without surveillance. I skipped that part, checked all the possible routes, and confirmed that the car ended up in an abandoned parking lot in the northern part of the city…”

someone to

“No need.”

“No need.”

voices spoke simultaneously. One was Kieran’s, the other came from

to look at the door following

He looked at Kieran and said, “I’ve already checked

“The suspects must have switched cars on the stretch without surveillance.”

swiftly on his computer. “According to my records and analysis, 48 cars passed through

in any of these 48 cars?” Elliot asked,

up and looked at Payne. “Give me all

numbers. He then turned to Adeline and said, “The quickest way now is to take these plate numbers to the police. Let them check all the car owners…”

the printed plate numbers, quickly dragged Elliot out

Payne, “First, track the final parking location of the 48 cars. Then find the missing car without surveillance. After that, list all

confused. “There are 13 suspicious cars in

for me.” Dylan had

watching the video of

and also

couldn’t explain how he knew.

up her call with the police and turned her attention to Dylan. This was the forensic scientist, Dylan, that Hayden had mentioned. He had incredible observation skills. He was better at psychology and deduction than autopsies. He was quick, able to spot every

the surveillance footage, Dylan would have Payne zoom in, and then make accurate judgments based on the micro-expressions on the driver’s

some skill in this area too, just not as

just

didn’t show any expression, but Hayden knew, the more calm this man seemed, the deeper his thinking

at the phone on the table, for a long

to Julien and said, “You don’t

wrong. She gave Hayden a cold

repeat what he had

This mission to rescue Julie is very dangerous. Even though you look so cool when you fight that I want to lie in your arms right away, I think you really

dared to lie in my arms.” Julien said

Julien. He said,

Julie, Julien would never compromise, so she calmly

who can give me orders is

since she had been following him,

a reason not to let Julien participate in this mission. He wasn’t worried about Julien’s safety like Payne was. But rather, he was more worried