“Please sir, I don't want the cab to notice me,” Danica instructed the cab driver while they kept on the cab in the front tail.
This was how it had been since morning. Danica didn't go to work because of this great task.
She had been following up with her mother's movement while she was in disguise, a fedora over her head and oversized glasses on her eyes.
The cab took several corners and Danica's cab ensured that they were not missing any tracks as they followed behind Mrs. Antonio's cab, leaving a considerable distance.
Minutes later, the cab pulled up to a halt right in front of an outdated bungalow.
“Stop driving, sir,” Danica notified, watching how her mother got off the cab and entered the building from the windshield.
And without any resistance, she retrieved her phone and scrolled down her contact list, and stopped at Noah's number.
She gulped down the saliva in her throat first and thereafter dialed the number.
In Noah's residence.
Noah and Jasmine sat right next to each other on a double setter Davenport in the living room, while the two police officers in their uniform sat adjacent to them.
“We've been trying to track down the car's number since yesterday, sir, and I'm sure the location of the cab would be revealed soon,” one of the officers spoke up in a reassuring manner.
“How soon, officer? Stop trying and catch the criminal. It's twenty-four hours already,” Jasmine raised her voice while tears gradually pooled in her eyes.
Noah folded his lips and reached over to pull her into his embrace. The last thing he wanted to see at that moment was her tears.
The second officer parted his lips to add to the conversation when the shrilling tone of Noah's phone interrupted his action.
Noah ignored the call, thinking it was probably a business call, and he wasn't in the mood to talk about business at the moment.
“Why aren't you picking up, Noah?” Jasmine wiped away her tears and asked him, looking from his face to the ringing phone in his pocket from time to time.
“I'll return the call later,” he answered perfunctorily, and his gaze back to the officers.
“Thank you for coming, and I'm expecting a positive response soon,” he told them in a light tone.
“Of course, Mr. Cooper,”
With that, they got to their feet together with Jasmine and Noah.
Right then, the phone stopped ringing but began again almost immediately.
Jasmine stared at his suit pant pocket and reached out her hand to bring out the phone.
“Business or no business, I have a feeling this call is an important call,” Jasmine said impatiently, stretching out for Noah to collect.
Noah stared at this woman in front of him, knowing that he could never win against her.
He nodded and took the phone from her and slide the screen.
“Hello, sir. This is Danica,” Noah had recognized the person's voice even before she introduced herself.
A flicker of irritation passed over his face as he scoffed in silence and asked nonchalantly, “Yeah, what is it?”
“You need to start coming to Macdonald's old estate with the cops right away, sir. My mother is the culprit behind your daughter's disappearance, and she's here currently,”
Noah thought he had just misheard all that Danica said just now. So, he removed the from his ear and gave it to Jasmine.
“Please start coming immediately, sir,” Danica spoke impatiently, not knowing that the phone had been given to someone else.
“Start coming where? Who are you?” Jasmine interrogated directly,
All this time, the police officers were still standing in their midst and watching the whole drama.
“Aurora is kept in Macdonald's old estate. I'm here, and I'll be waiting for you with the cops,”
Jasmine hung up on her immediately and looked up at Noah's face, her eyes dazzling with happiness.
“What are we still waiting for? Didn't you hear what the lady said just now?” He asked him breathlessly, but Noah could only stare forward in silence.
Jasmine couldn't understand his strange attitude and scampered toward the officers.
“Let's go now, officers. The person who just called said our daughter is hidden in Macdonald's old estate, so let's hurry,”
The officers stared at Noah and were surprised at his relaxed attitude.
Didn't he hear that his daughter had been found already?
“Mr. Cooper, shall we?”
Instead of responding, Noah strolled ahead, and Jasmine quickly followed him in strides out of the house.
Aurora sat uncomfortably on the neatly white bedspread that covered the bed, which was far smaller than hers.
Her gaze rested upon this familiar face, but she couldn't remember where she had seen the face, sitting on the wooden chair and smiling at her softly.
“Can you remember my face?” the woman asked her, her gaze wrapping around hers and holding it.
Poor Aurora shook her head indecisively, still not understanding what was going on.
When the cab they boarded yesterday took off right after Jasmine got down to get her phone from the grocery store, she asked the driver where he was taking her without her mother, and then he told her there was a surprise for her.
Up to this moment, Aurora was still wondering what the surprise could be.
She cried the whole night and kept telling the cab man that she wanted to go home since there was not any surprise happening and the man had promised her that her mother could come there the following day.
And now, instead of seeing Jasmine on the seat, it was a cheeky woman with sharp jaws and blonde hair in a french twist she was seeing.

“Come on, little girl. I work for your Daddy, I'm his assistant,” Mrs. Antonio let out, and it was then Aurora's brain turned quickly.
She recalled the first time she saw this face, it was at the party both she, Jasmine, and her father attended. Again, she saw her briefly on her birthday.
“Do you remember now?” Mrs. Antonio pressed and Aurora nodded slowly.
Mrs. Antonio smiled brightly and crossed her revealing shapely legs and then proceeded.
“Do you know why you're here, little one?”
Aurora stared at her face for two seconds and shook her head sideways again.
“Well, it's your daddy who hurt my feelings,”
“I did all my best for him to notice my daughter and which he did,”
By now, Aurora's face had crumpled up like paper as she wondered which daughter she was talking about.
And it was as if Mrs. Antonio read her thought, “It's Danica, dear. Danica is my daughter,” she clarified, and Aurora's eyes bulged.
This was Danica's mother?
“But do you think what your daddy did was right enough, by ditching my daughter?” Mrs. Antonio asked in a harsh voice now, the smile playing around her face was now long gone.
Aurora gulped. She couldn't understand her words accurately, but she could guess that she was probably mad that her father cut off ties with Danica.
“So, since you're the apple of your daddy's eyes, I'm going to keep you here as his punishment and no one would be able to ever find out your whereabouts,”
Hearing this, Aurora felt like screaming and jumped out of the bed to attack her but then as little as she was, she suppressed her emotions and only allowed her tears to roll down her cheeks of their own accord.
“But why, ma'am? My Daddy hasn't done anything wrong. It was your daughter who said she doesn't like me, she doesn't like kids,” she put on a brave look and said confidently.
Mrs. Antonio's eyebrows lifted at her confidence and just as she opened her mouth to retort, she heard a loud thud from a distance. As if in the living room.
“What is wrong over there, Robert?” she stood up from the chair and asked, but the thud came in with force now, and she quickly rushed into the aged sitting room.
Reaching there, she was beyond shocked to see these people, as her fast strides immediately came to an abrupt halt.
A gasp fell out of Jasmine's mouth, and her eyes had gone so wide as soon as she saw Mrs. Antonio.
Meanwhile, the police officers who had come in with them had been attempting to separate Robert from Noah's grasp, but he wouldn't oblige as he kept choking his neck, blue veins standing out at the back of his palm.
“Let him go now, Mr. Cooper.” One of the officers ordered in a light tone.
Both Jasmine and Danica hurried in the direction Mrs. Antonio had come out from, and soon found Aurora sitting and sobbing on the bed.
“Aurora,” they both called out simultaneously as they surged into the room.
Aurora looked up, and her tears came to an abrupt halt, at the same time Jasmine had lunged on the bed and pushed her onto herself and began to weep bitterly.
“Forgive me, Aurora, I'm so sorry,” her voice trembled so bad.
Aurora was too overwhelmed to say anything as she just embraced her so tightly, as if not wanting her to leave her again.
Danica couldn't explain the rate at which her own tears poured hysterically out of her eyes as she watched them with pure adoration on the bed.
Half an hour later, one of the police officers threw Robert recklessly into the cell, who fell to the fall helplessly and groaned in anguish, taking in the pain Noah had created in his whole body.
While he sat straight and watched all of them through the prison cage, he thought within himself, was Noah a CEO or a street fighter?
How could a hand that only deals with pen beat someone to a stupor?
At this time, the team leader of the officers had been asking Mrs. Antonio questions, but she wouldn't say a word as her gaze continued to linger on Danica's face.
“What, Mrs. Antonio? Do you wish to murder your daughter from your rude stares? Officer, please remove the handcuffs and let me see what she's capable of doing,” Noah fired as he banged the table and stared at her face impatiently.
Jasmine held Aurora closely to herself, not wanting the little girl to be scared of her father's fierce behavior.
“Yes, your daughter was the one who called me and told me you're the criminal who kidnapped my daughter for your own selfish interest,” Noah flared on and on. The more he looked at her face, the more the fire in his eyes glowed.
He could by no means accept the fact that his trusted assistant would do that to him.
Suddenly, Alicia arrived at the scene out of nowhere, rushed over to where Mrs. Antonio was standing, and then sent two hard slaps across her face.
Everyone in the space, including the police officers, was stunned by Alicia's attitude as they quickly went over to hold her.
“You lowlife bitch! I warned you, didn't I? I warned you to stay clear away from Mr. Cooper. How dare you go ahead to kidnap Aurora?” Alicia roared menacingly, attempting to free herself from the police's hold so that she could beat the living soul out of her.
Noah, Jasmine, Danica, and the head of the officer exchanged a glance among themselves and then took their eyes back to the fuming Alicia.
“Hey, young lady, why did you do that? How are you related to this woman?” the head of the police department threw the question at Alicia, who immediately answered without a moment's hesitation.
“I was her accomplice before, officer. She had sent me to poison Jasmine,” Alicia confessed through clenched teeth, and a loud gasp escaped from Jasmine and Danica's lips.