CHAPTER 71: CHAPTER-71. (MR. AND MRS. MORRIS).

Two days went by in a haze.

The kind of haze that messes with your head. Hours felt heavy, dragging on like they had never ended, but at the same time, they slipped away too fast.

It felt as if I could not grab hold of anything real. Nothing made sense anymore.

Whenever I closed my eyes, all I could see was Caroline and her pale face.

The way her hands shook, the way her voice broke when she told me about the blackmail. And whenever I opened them, I saw Nicole instead.

His face was harder, angrier, but under it, I could still see the cracks.

The guilt, confusion, fear. He was fighting demons I could not even name.

We did not do anything stupid during those two days. No loud fights, no random meetings that anyone could stumble across.

Whoever was pulling the strings... they were watching, waiting. That much was obvious now.

Caroline had run away last time, but this time she could not keep running. She had to be part of it.

We all needed answers, and hiding was not going to help anymore.

While I continued to worry endlessly, Dave and Nicole were not sitting idle like me.

They dug into it from both sides, in their own ways. Nicole made calls, reaching out to people he trusted in places that honestly made me wonder how far his connections went.

Dave did not talk about his methods much. He just worked in silence with Josh.

Calm and focused was his mantra, and the silence he worked in sometimes scared me.

But every path they followed led to nothing.

Nicole’s first try was at the club itself. He asked the same friend who owned the club to dig out the security footage from that night.

It should have been simple. But the answer came back faster than we thought: the tapes were not corrupted or misplaced. They were wiped. Gone. Clean.

As if somebody already knew the request was coming and erased them before we even thought of it.

Dave tried something else. He went after the man who had harassed Caroline at the club, the creep she had been forced to fight off. A guy like that should have been easy to track.

People like him always leave a trail, but this one? Nothing.

No records, no name, no identity, as if he had never existed.

Like he was planted there for one night only, just to play his part in a script someone else had written.

Every lead just collapsed. Every attempt to dig deeper only tightened the net around us. It felt less like searching for truth and more like walking in circles on a leash.

And each time, the silence that followed only pressed down heavier, like we were being laughed at.

By the third night, Dave finally spoke what we had all been feeling. His voice was calm, flat, and unreadable when he said, "We’re not chasing ghosts anymore. We’re being led in circles."

And he was right.

That evening, Nicole set up another meeting.

This time Caroline would be there too. He did not want another quiet hideout or abandoned corner.

He wanted somewhere public, flashy, unexpected. Somewhere the enemy would least expect us to meet.

He chose a high-profile restaurant. Elite, expensive, the kind of place where secrets could hide right in the open because no one dared to question people who could afford to eat there.

For outsiders, it might have looked like nothing more than a small reunion between old friends and families. But if you looked closer, it was a powder keg waiting to explode.

Walking into the restaurant with Dave beside me felt strange.

The air smelled like jasmine and polished wood, and the golden lights sparkled across crystal glasses.

My heels clicked softly on the marble floor, and for a moment I felt too loud, too exposed, even though the room was buzzing with chatter.

The manager was waiting for us near the entrance, like he had been expecting us all day. His smile stretched wide, polished and fake, and his eyes lit up as soon as they landed on us.

"Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Morris," he said, almost gushing. His gaze flicked between Dave and me before settling on us with a warmth that made my skin crawl. "Such a stunning couple. Truly, you two make the evening brighter."

My stomach knotted instantly. The words ’Mr and Mrs. Morris’ slammed into me like a brick.

Heat rose to my face, my ears burning, and my throat tightened. I wanted to correct him as I opened my mouth to say those words out loud, but as if those words just died on my tongue.

Dave did not even flinch. No surprise, no embarrassment, no denial. Nothing.

His face stayed calm, unreadable, as though the comment didn’t matter at all. Somehow, that silence made the knot in my chest even tighter.

The manager went on smoothly, clearly enjoying himself. "We have prepared a private room for you, of course. Also, your other guests have arrived."

I followed stiffly, every step feeling awkward, while Dave walked like nothing had been said.

The corridor stretched long, lined with velvet curtains and golden chandeliers, until finally the manager stopped at a heavy wooden door.

He gave a little bow and opened it with a showy flourish. The second we stepped in, the air changed.

Nicole was already there. He sat at the far end of the private room, a glass of wine untouched in front of him.

His posture was straight, but his face was restless, his brows furrowed deep in thought. His head snapped up when he saw us, his gaze sharp as it flicked from me to Dave.

"You’re late," he said flatly, his tone clipped with impatience.

The silence that followed was thick, heavy.

Dave did not blink. He pulled a chair out for me with that calmness that sometimes unnerved me, then sat down across from Nicole.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low and steady, sharp as ice, "Like we care."

The words landed like a slap. I swore I saw Nicole’s jaw tighten, his fingers flexing near his glass, but he did not argue, at least not yet.

I sat down slowly, my heart hammering against my ribs. The table between us did not feel like a dining table.

It felt like a battlefield, and the space in the middle was no man’s land.

Nicole leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing as he studied both of us. He looked like he was waiting...for what, I could not tell.

Maybe he was waiting for us to speak first, maybe to gauge how much we had uncovered, but what he did not realize was that our situation was not so different from his.

The silence in the room was not quiet. It was dangerous.

It felt like the storm right before it breaks.

And I knew deep in my bones, whatever happened next, it was either going to bind us together...or blow everything apart.