The Billionaire's Authentic Daughter ▶️

9 9 | J U L I E T

"Right. Pari will be so disappointed in you."

She looked like was going to argue but instead buried her head in his lap.

My hopes that Pari was just trying to scare us were dashed when two hours of us searching for her everywhere turned up no results.

Boonsri, who had been doing a good job of keeping a clear head, finally lost her cool when she grabbed Eli by his collar. "She said she saw that man from the story. Did you know that there was a killer on this island but you still brought us here?"

Eli trembled all over as her fist dug into his throat. "N-no, I....I didn't."

Frida rushed between them. "Please, he did nothing wrong. It's not his fault."

She shoved him away. Nova, Colin and Sloane returned from the direction they'd gone searching. Their worried faces were enough confirmation that she was nowhere to be seen.

Abeo and Aurelio showed up with more disappointment. "We asked Braxton. He didn't see her," Abeo told us.

"Norman is going to come back in a few hours. We'll try until then. If we don't find her, hopefully he might know what to do," I said.

We split into groups and took on different part of the island.

"Guys, please do not go anywhere alone. Now is not the time to show that you got big balls," Nia pleaded, looking pointedly at me.

We searched high and low for the girl, looked in places where others had already been but it was like Pari had disappeared, her things were all left behind. Not the way I had wanted to spend my damn birthday.

"Norman will be here soon," Eli told us.

"I hope she's safe." Boonsri said. Nia put an arm around her shoulders.

Nova tapped my shoulder and gestured to himself and the forest.

"What? You're going to look for her again?" I asked.

He nodded.

"It's no use. We've been there a few times now."

He made a gesture I couldn't understand, then gave up and started toward that direction.

I grabbed the back of his collar to stop him. "You're not going there alone when you don't even have your device with you, not that it would've helped much anyway."

He finally relented. We had no other choice but to wait for Norman to arrive. When we went out to the shore around the time when Norman told us he'd be back, we were relieved to see his yacht idling in the water with Norman talking to someone. That someone turned out to be Braxton.

"Oh my God, we meet him again!" Boonsri squealed, despite having been near to tears a few minutes ago.

They seemed to be arguing about something. Braxton disappeared inside the cabin hastily after a few minutes. As we approached, my eyes caught sight of a movement far away along the shore.

I saw two other figures talking - a man and a woman. The man was holding her hand and although they were a lot far for me to notice their features, the girl looked oddly familiar.

I saw her head turn toward us and she stepped back. She muttered something to the man and then turned back and hurried away. The man advanced toward Norman's yacht.

That was when I recognized him as Darius, the other member in Braxton's band. I stopped walking. The others would just have to go without me as Darius might recognize me. Somehow I'd fallen behind from my group, making it easy for me to slip inside the cover of the trees.