LIX. inquiry

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Robert had never done anything like this before so he was a bit nervous. But he was more excited than anything. He had never seen his father so happy from something that he did. He couldn't wait until he received what Father wanted. He would forget all about his precious Yves.

Robert dialed the number that Father gave him with shaky fingers and waited for it to ring.

"Hi, you've reached Reno Technologies Incorporated. Please dial the extension of the person you are trying to reach or wait for the operator," a cheery woman said.

Robert dialed the extension that his father had given him, but there was a strange message that followed. "We apologize for the inconvenience, but the Players are currently out of commission. We are not taking any requests. Thank you and have a nice day." The line went dead.

Robert was left staring at his phone, wondering what went wrong. Similar things continued happening with all of the places that he called. None of them wanted to hunt down Alex Stroud.

It seemed that the reason why the Players were not available was that someone put a hit out on a person who worked for an agency and their people retaliated by kidnapping and torturing their leader. After they did that, the Players had destroyed their headquarters and computers. Nothing was left of them but an answering machine. Now all of the other agencies were afraid to take on missions with people who used to be in their world or innocents. Robert was getting declined left and right. He was so frustrated.

He was so desperate that he ended up calling the Agency, a place that was well known for only taking cases that were against criminals. The man who was in charge of the Agency was an ex-police chief with a guilty conscience, so he refused to harm any more people who didn't deserve it. He created the Agency to make sure that justice could be served to the rich and powerful. Robert was precisely the kind of man that they would target. But he was so desperate that he tried anyway. The worst thing they could say was no.

He said the pizza order of the week and was put through. It had taken a considerable amount of bribing, but someone managed to give it up for $10,000.

"You've reached the Agency. Please state your name and business."

"My name is Robert Chavez and need the location of a certain someone."

"Please wait."

Aren't they going to ask me who referred me? Maybe knowing the pizza order is enough because it changes weekly. Because of their exclusivity, they don't have to worry about referrals. With bated breath and sweaty palms, Robert listened to the waiting music and hoped that they would able to make his dream come true.

"Sir!" A panting subordinate ran into the boss's office, looking completely bewildered. "I don't know how you knew this was going to happen, but Robert is on the line right now, asking for a location for a certain someone."

The boss leaned back into his chair with a smug smile. He was always right. After looking into Robert and Yves's backgrounds, he knew how Robert was going to react to not being able to find out who took his girls. He was a desperate child trapped in a man's body who never got to make his father happy because he was always being upstaged by the ghost of his talented brother, Yves. He now wanted to get Yves so he could bring him to his father and finally be seen as a success in his eyes. Yves hadn't even been there while Robert stayed with their father. But it seemed that their father thought Yves was better and would never let him forget it.

But today was Robert's lucky day. The boss was going to give him exactly what he wanted.
"What can I say? I know how people operate." He twirled happily in this swivel chair. "Connect him directly to me. But don't tell him who I am."

The subordinate nodded and quickly left the room. The boss tried to ignore the nagging guilt in his heart once he heard the phone ring.

He picked it up with excitement. "Hi, my name is Zack, and I'm going to be your representative for the day. What can I help you with, sir?"

"Hi, uh, my name is Robert Chavez, and I need the location for someone."

The nervousness was palpable in Robert's voice. You should be nervous, you piece of shit. I created my business to destroy men like you. I hate that I have to help scum like him, especially knowing that he's putting his hands on my Rose. But this is all for her safety. Everything I do is for her. "We can definitely help you out with that, sir. Why do you need to find this person's location?"

Robert hesitated, and the boss fought the urge to grit his teeth. C'mon, you incompetent buffoon. Make something up, so it's not obvious that I'm biased towards this case! I need Yves out of the picture. He's too distracting for my little flower, and he keeps putting her in danger. I saw the tapes Starfire stole from the Players. I know what Kieran did to her and Yves must pay for his crimes against my love. "I think he's been uh, molesting my girlfriend and I want to make sure that he pays."

And the boss had thought that this day couldn't get any better. Perfect, perfect, perfect! He's obviously done his research on the Agency. Not a bad job for an idiot. "I see. I'm sorry that you're in that predicament, but we can definitely help you with that. It's one of the things that our founder focuses on. So what's the guy's name?"

"I believe that he now goes by the name of Alex Stroud? He's a lawyer for Borden Law Firm, and he's dating that socialite, Stephanie Woods, the daughter of the famed crime boss, Mr. Woods. Or he was, rather."

This was something that the boss was not prepared for. He didn't think that Alex was going to make a move on his little flower so soon. He couldn't believe that he broke up with her. "Oh, so they broke up?" He tried to keep his voice uninterested, but he couldn't help raise it an octave or two.

"No, I believe she died a couple of days ago. She was murdered in her apartment. I didn't hear much about the details. Is this relevant to my case?"

The boss chuckled nervously. "We like to get as much information about the person that we're looking for as possible." He cleared his throat. "We'll do our thing and get back to you in a couple of hours, maybe even faster than that. Someone will contact you about the billing beforehand."

"Yeah, sure, name the price, and I'll pay it," Robert replied dismissively.

"That'll be $15,000."

"That includes?"

"Well, sir, I assume that you want to do something with his location. Were you planning on kidnapping him, perhaps?"

There was silence on the other end as Robert debated telling this man his entire plan. The boss was interested in what was going to happen to Alex, so he tried again. "We don't care what you're going to do with him. If he's the scum you described, we certainly wouldn't mind if you were going to anything to him."

Robert sighed, and the boss grinned. Got him. "Yes, I am planning on kidnapping him."

"Glad to hear that! We can help you out with that process as well. From my preliminary search, I know a couple of things about Alex, so I used that to create your package. I assumed you were going to kidnap him, so I included the hacking of his security system and the distraction of his doorman in the package. We will leave a card for you so you can access the private elevator to get into the apartment itself. We just need to know the date and time you are planning to attack."

"Now that you say all of that, this is starting to sound like a bargain. I'll take it all. Once you get the location, I'll let you know my exact plans."

Since Alex was a client, the Agency already had all of that information, but the boss couldn't tell him that. He would wait a day or two before sending the information so that Robert would think that they had worked diligently to find it. "Excellent, sir. Is there anything else that I can help you with?"

"No, that's it. Get me that location as soon as possible." He hung up without saying goodbye but what else could you expect from a child molesting prick? But the boss wasn't too worried about him. He wanted to know more about Stephanie's murder.

Did Alex finally snap and show Stephanie his true colors? If that's what happened, what would he do to my little flower if he found out about her true identity?

He logged into his three monitor Dell desktop and searched. It seemed that the cops thought that Stephanie was another victim of the serial rapist that was parading around Manhattan, terrorizing women in their lavish homes. He was trying to rape her when he accidentally snapped her neck.

He read the article a couple of times before leaning back in his chair to think about the situation. He knew that even though the police were officially saying that it was the work of the serial rapist, they were still trying to eliminate Alex.

Her death didn't sit right with him. It fit too well, but there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't get involved in an active police investigation. All he could do was see how it went from the papers and watch to see if Alex was arrested.

His mind was racing, and he wondered what his next move should be. But he knew that Robert would take care of everything that he needed and he would be able to claim his Rose once again.

This time she would love him.

On the day of Stephanie's funeral, the sky was not a cliche grey with rain clouds but a clear blue. The birds were chirping, and the sun was beaming down brightly on New York. The funeral was about a week after her murder.

Virginie had not been officially "invited" to the funeral, but Alex begged her and Jabari to come for emotional support. Virginie had been doing this "acting but in real life" thing for a long time and he needed some pointers to look right at the funeral. He didn't feel guilty for what he did, but if he seemed too nonchalant, it would be suspicious.

He had previously wanted her to come to the wake as well, but Virginie thought that it wasn't her place. She didn't know Stephanie that well, and Stephanie despised her. She already thought that coming to the funeral was going to be a mistake. Going to the wake would be overdoing it, and she didn't want to pretend that she knew Stephanie or cared about her because that would be just asking for attention.

The cops were going to be at the funeral to see if the perp would make an appearance but little did they know, he was the one who was going to be sitting front and center, pretending like he didn't kill his girlfriend a week ago.

Virginie had decided to arrive at the funeral with Jabari instead of Alex to try to extinguish any idea in the people's mind about her and Alex having an affair. It was partially correct, but it had nothing to do with the reason why Stephanie was laying in a coffin right now.

The cops had come to Virginie's apartment, but she was ready for them. She and Colette wove an intricate tale filled with details about the time the four of them spent together watching Kill Bill and eating burgers.

Corey charmed the detective with his wittiness and jokes. The man left with his stomach full, and heart eyes for Colette which Corey and Virginie hadn't been too keen on but sacrifices had to be made.

As Virginie was putting her hair in a slicked back ponytail, the text alert on her phone told her that Jabari was waiting downstairs. She quickly tied her hair up and looked in the mirror before heading out. She was wearing a black ruffled hem trapeze dress with caged thin heeled black sandals. The makeup she had on was simple: a glossy nude lip and some mascara. She was trying to call as little attention to herself as possible. She wished that she hadn't agreed to do this. She was already regretting the decision, and they hadn't even left.

She twirled quickly in front of the mirror, even though she knew she wouldn't be satisfied with what she saw in the slightest. She exited her closet, grabbed her black clutch from her dresser, and started to head towards the door.

"I'll see y'all later, I'm heading to the funeral," Virginie called out, her hand on the doorknob.

Corey and Colette were cuddled up together on the couch, watching a dumb romantic comedy because Colette loved them for some reason. Ever since they kissed in the apartment a couple of weeks ago, the two had been inseparable. Corey had been sleeping over every night and only left to go to work.

Virginie was happy for them. Colette deserved someone who cared about her and would treat her right. Maybe she could feed off of their happiness because she knew she would never be able to have that. The chances of anything like that happening to her that had been dashed long ago, and she had come to terms with her fate.

"Have fun! Give the bitch a big smooch for me, please," Corey replied.

Virginie rolled her eyes. "Will do, asshole."

He turned from the couch to look at her, his blue eyes full of amusement. "What? Did I say something wrong? They say it's bad to speak ill of the dead, but that woman was a bitch." Virginie could hear Colette chiding and slapping him quietly from where she was standing, but Corey still stared at her, beaming hard as ever.

"Goodbye, Corey." Virginie opened the door and headed towards the elevator.

As she walked out the elevator, she saw Jabari standing at the door, looking bashful and handsome as he caught her eye. She knew he wasn't the type to wear anything fancy, but he definitely tried. He was wearing a crisp white button up with a grey tie, black slacks, and black wingtip oxfords.

"You ready to go?" She asked, raising an inquiring eyebrow at him as she stepped outside.

"You look amazing," he gawked. "Remind me to take you out for dinner sometime so I can show you why you're vying after the wrong friend."

Virginie giggled, and Jabari scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry about that, I make a lot of jokes when I'm nervous."

She laughed again. "Don't worry about it, it's cute."

Jabari cleared his throat, still looking a bit anxious. He looked around.

"Is there something wrong?" Virginie asked gently. She had never seen him like this before. He was kind of worrying her.

He shook his head and laughed, shakily this time. He cleared his throat again before speaking. "This funeral has me thinking about life and death and all of that philosophical shit...I realized that I never thanked you for saving Alex's life and taking on the task of protecting him. Alex is one of the very few people in my life that I trust entirely and I don't know what I would without him. So thank you for always putting your life on the line for him. It means more to me than you know."

Virginie was so stunned she didn't even know what to say. "Y-you don't have to thank me, you idiot. Saving people is my job."

He raised a brow. "You didn't have to save Alex that day at the coffee shop. You could've let him die without an issue. You put yourself in the line of fire for a man you didn't even know. And for that, I am forever grateful."

She nodded, not knowing how to respond. "You're very welcome, Jabari."

Jabari chuckled and held out his hand, his face flushed. "Shall we then?"

She took his hand gladly and smiled. "We shall."

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