Chapter 9 - Chapter IX

Veronica woke up from a bad dream, the fear creeping in her heart as she felt it beating fast. The incident in her dream seemed real.

Cliff's Edged by Hayley Kioko filled her room to which she jolted realizing someone was calling her. 'Ugh.' She fell on her trembling legs as she landed her feet on the floor. 'What a beast.' She muttered sadly yet at the same time, satisfied. Veronica persisted to stand up on her legs once again and grabbed her phone on her vanity mirror's table. 

Seeing her mother's missed calls, a bad feeling crept on her and just as she was about to return the call, Pearl's number appeared to call her. She rejected the call and rather proceeded to call her mother.

'Mom?' Veronica was nervous now after seeing so many missed calls and SMS messages and with her other social media messenger.

'Oh God! Vivi! Thank Goodness!' Celerina was never a kind of a weak woman but she almost lost her cool after hearing her daughter's safe voice. She tried her best to hide her extreme worry. 'There was a news broadasted earlier in TV and radio about your father being involved to a graft and corruption scam. It will surely be the headlines for tommorrow's newspapers.' 

Veronica took time to process what her mother just said but like her mother who raised  her to a be a strong woman, she calmly replied, 'How is father?'

'He's in his office talking to his lawyer and staff on how to counter the issue and possibly the case that will be filed against him.' 

'Did the source was discovered?'

'Not yet. But my team was working on it.   I was worried because you were not answering my call for half an hour now and I asked for your friends help to contact you but you're also not answering theirs. I already sent our people to fetched you home.'

Veronica was physically, emotionally and spiritually drained that she no longer bothered to explain to her mom as to why she was not answering their call. She will have time to explain later but first she needs to get dress and wait for her parent's men. 

'Okey mom, I will get dressed.' 

'Vivi, be sure to lock your room very well until my men arrived. I can't risk endangering anyone of you.' Her mom said with gentle yet firm voice.

'How about Edcel, August and Justine!?' Veronica suddenly thought of her younger brothers and she once again feared for their safety.

'Don't worry. They're already here.'

'Okey mom.'

It was never neither a public or anyone's knowledge except Veronica that her parents owned a security agency. They used a dummy owner so that the company won't be traced back to them. Her father was the one responsible for the manpower security team while her mother's the heads of the security agency's IT team. It's also not a common knowledge except Veronica and her father that Celerina was an IT expert. And that's because of her own roots back in Country R.

Celerina was pacing back and forth as it's been 4 hours since her call with her daughter. 'They should have been here already.'

'Vivi hasn't arrive yet?' Came the worried voice of her husband, Eddie Wang, who just went out of his office. His meeting was done few minutes ago but he stayed a little bit in his office to call his friends for help but unfortunately, you will truly see the true colour of a person when you're at your worst. There were some, he knew, that wanted to help him but by the fear of being implicated to his scandal, decided to offer their help, 'spiritually' .

Eddie Wang chuckled in sarcasm. Those who called him willingly to offer their help were his daughter's friends family but after all, against a more powerful force stringing behind the issue, those families couldn't do much significance.

He adviced each to just stay in the sideline for the time being as things were still undercontrol. Or so he believed until a bad news was delivered which triggered his heart attack.

Celerina looked very calm in contrast to the storm that she was feeling inside. An underling reported that her daughter's car was ambushed. Good thing that their men was loyal until the end that most of them sacrificed their lives to save their young miss. But that also saddened her for the lost of the lives of their valiant men. She's feeling a bit helpless now that her husband suffered from a heart attack due to their daughter's accident. 'It's no longer a simple political attack.' Celerina thought. She made sure that her husband's heart rate was stable before going out to check on her daughter. 

Even to their men's effort to keep Veronica safe, unfortunately, her head  bumped into the car's door and the impact was too strong she was left unconcious. Another agent pulled her out of the water to hide between the rock edges as their attackers bombed the car killing the driver and the other agent with them. 'That attack was intended to not just threaten but to seriously kill the young miss.' The agent told her with a dark expression.

Veronica suffered from an internal hemorrhage and she undergone a surgery which made Celerina losed her composure earlier. A strong woman she might be, but at the end of the day, she is still a mother. She does not have enough power and influence in Country P and her husband is also now lying in the hospital bed. She couldn't do it all alone. She made sure each room was heavily guarded and with a strong resolve  proceeded somewhere hidden and safe to call someone from her hidden contact.