Chapter 706 Hiding Places and Hunting Grounds
Freya turned her phone screen toward Wyatt, smirking as she spoke. “You still have one more shot. Catch Paul, and you’ll clear your name of ‘watching the door and letting the thief out.’”
Wyatt’s eyes narrowed the moment he saw the message from Yunice.
She’d told Freya she was safe, but didn’t say where she was. It was obvious—she was hiding from him.
Freya set the phone down and exhaled a puff of white smoke. “I know you could track her down if you wanted to. But take my advice: don’t. An angry woman is harder to catch than a greased pig. You’ll only get burned. Use that energy on finding Paul instead.”
Wyatt turned and left without a word.
At his private club, he summoned the heads of his intelligence network. Dozens of agents quickly scattered like waves into the night, each mobilizing their contacts for a blanket search of Paul’s whereabouts.
At a sleek wooden desk, a girl around seven or eight years old sat scribbling down complex chemical formulas. She looked up, catching Yunice staring, and blinked.
“Is there something on my face?”
Yunice smiled and shook her head. “No. I was just curious… those are some advanced formulas for someone your age.”
The girl answered matter-of-factly, “They’re not hard. I understand them as soon as I see them.”
Yunice nodded. “I can tell. It’s your gift.”
From the kitchen, Laurie leaned out and called, “Yunice, stop distracting Betty. Come help me.”
Yunice replied with an “okay” and stepped into the kitchen.
While handing over an apron, Laurie muttered, “You really know how to pick a hiding place. Showing up here was your way of calming Wyatt down, huh?”
Laurie was one of Wyatt’s people. If Yunice was hiding under her roof, Wyatt would relax. Anyone else taking her in might’ve sparked a war.
Yunice didn’t want to trouble Carl. He was getting too old to be dragged into chaos.
Laurie glanced at the expiration dates on the spices. “Just stay here. Once Wyatt drags Paul in, then you can go.”
Yunice glanced toward Betty and asked quietly, “Does Betty look like her dad?”
She didn’t resemble Laurie much.
Laurie replied, “She takes after her grandfather more.”
She gave Yunice a sidelong glance, reading the question behind the question. Anyone who knew Laurie had a daughter would eventually ask who the father was—and why the child was always hidden. Why, even at home, the girl called the nanny ‘mom.’
Laurie answered without prompting. “I used to date a chemistry genius. Turns out he was making ice behind my back—bouncing around foreign labs and staying off the grid.”
Her expression didn’t shift as she continued. “Plenty of people came after me to get to him. It was Wyatt who kept me and Betty safe.”
She looked over at her daughter and chuckled. “Anyway, that life won’t last much longer. Word is he got beaten to death abroad. No one’s chasing us anymore.”
Laurie didn’t sound sad—not even a little.
She looked back at Yunice, her smile wry. “I was pregnant, and he didn’t even know. He had three or four wives overseas. A whole pack of kids. I’m sure he forgot me the second he got on the plane.”
Yunice couldn’t help but wonder how she and Wyatt had first crossed paths.
Laurie answered before she had to ask. “Back when he was hiding out from a hit abroad, he stumbled into a medical zone I oversaw. I was working as a pharmaceutical chemist at the time. He helped me deal with some people who were threatening me, and I patched him up. After that, we had what you’d call a ‘life debt.’ He gives me face.”
Then, as if something sparked in her memory, she teased, “Hey, back in high school, did you ever lose one of those enamel name badges? The kind with blue crystal on top?”
Yunice frowned. That was so long ago. A tiny trinket like that—she couldn’t remember.
Laurie said, “When I first hid him, he was covered in blood. But when I opened the curtain again, he was sitting up against the wall, holding one of those blue stone school badges. I tried to read the name, but he hid it before I could.”
A blue crystal badge…
That was the kind her high school had used.
Back at the club, Wyatt sat alone in the shadows, a glass of liquor in his hand, his face dark and unreadable.
A man hunched near him, awkward and hesitant. “Wyatt… Paul couldn’t even outmatch you at his peak. Now he’s just a rat in the sewer. Don’t let him get under your skin. Come on—let’s toast to your success. The minute we finish this drink, your men will bring him in.”
Wyatt didn’t move. His brows were drawn, his expression ice cold.
The man swallowed his words, realizing he’d said the wrong thing. He shifted awkwardly, eyes darting—and that’s when he noticed the ring on Wyatt’s right hand.
It looked like a wedding band.
Wyatt kept turning it unconsciously with his thumb.
Clearly, he had something else on his mind.
Judging by the storm brewing in his eyes, whatever was bothering him had nothing to do with Paul—and everything to do with someone at home.