Chapter 335-He Picked My Verity

Jaguar:

After I told Ragnar and Theodore about the call, we rushed to the cars, contacted the warriors, and ordered everyone stationed along the c-border to report to the cliff.

But when we arrived, the warrior who had called me looked ashamed.

I approached him immediately.

"What happened?"

He quickly began explaining.

"We thought she had driven off the edge, but it seems she turned onto another road instead. After that, she avoided all the security cameras, and so far, we haven’t been able to locate her vehicle."

At least one thing was certain now.

She had not driven off the cliff.

What I couldn’t understand was why this warrior had called us with such half-baked information before confirming anything.

"And you decided not to confirm it first before giving us that half-baked news?" Ragnar snapped, grabbing the warrior by the collar.

Theodore immediately stepped between them and pulled Ragnar away, freeing the warrior.

Ragnar forced himself to calm down.

"We still need to look for her," Theodore reminded us.

He was right.

Our first priority was finding Gigi.

Ragnar looked deeply anxious. He stepped away, pulled out his phone, and tried calling her again.

Her phone rang, but she didn’t answer.

The road the warrior said Gigi had taken led toward the mountain range beyond the inhabited part of the island.

The island was still far from fully occupied. There were acres upon acres of untouched land, places even we knew very little about.

We had no idea what could be hiding out there.

And Gigi had taken the most frightening route of all, leaving behind no information about where she was going.

Seeing my brother so depressed and stressed out made me feel awful.

But one thing kept confusing me.

What exactly had happened after I fell asleep that made Gigi leave the house in the middle of the night?

And where had Theodore and Ragnar been at the time?

"Do you know what happened?" I asked Theodore as I approached him.

By then, a large group of warriors had gathered near the mountain range. Ragnar was assigning them different routes to cover, drones had been brought in, and tents were being set up because this was the last place Gigi had been seen heading toward.

Whatever lay ahead was dangerous, so everyone had to move carefully.

I had barely asked Theodore the question when I noticed the strange look that crossed his face.

"Theodore, did something happen?" I asked again, this time more firmly.

"It’s probably not that."

The way he said it made me feel like he knew exactly what had happened.

"Theodore, I’m asking you something," I insisted.

"Well, last night was pretty eventful, to be honest. With Verity and Gigi, there was a lot going on."

The mention of Verity sent a slight tremor through my chest.

I hadn’t expected her name to come up.

"Did they—they argue?" I asked, stumbling over the words because that would be bad.

I was ready to defend Gigi and fight whoever had upset her, but if that person was Verity, my hands were tied.

Verity had already been through too much. I wasn’t going to traumatize her further by questioning or upsetting her right now.

As for Gigi, despite her brother being an asshole, the truth was that she had just lost a part of her family.

Now everyone was turning against them too, so I understood her situation to some extent.

"Verity was caught in the attic trying to get information and see the evidence of her brother’s crimes," Theodore explained. "When Ragnar found her, she ran out of the attic and through the living room. She accidentally bumped into one of the maids, injured her foot, but still kept going until she reached her room."

Theodore paused, placing one hand on his waist while rubbing his eyes with the other.

"Wait, she was injured? Was she okay? Did she lose a lot of blood?"

As the questions left my mouth, Theodore slowly lowered his hand and stared at me.

I didn’t know why.

It was a strange look.

Maybe he was already beginning to notice how I felt about Verity.

Then again, it was probably obvious. I didn’t usually care about anyone like this.

"Come on, dude. Tell me," I urged.

"You know how Verity was traumatized in the past because of our mistakes?"

Theodore didn’t need to say much more than that.

I already understood what he meant, so I nodded.

"Well, it turns out..." He cleared his throat softly, looking uncomfortable. "I wanted to fix things. Redeem myself."

Theodore rubbed his temples.

The way he kept pausing and glancing around was completely unlike him.

"Theodore, I swear to God, if you don’t finish this story in one breath, I’m going to lose it."

He immediately raised his hands, trying to calm me down.

"I defended Verity because Ragnar was going to throw her out and ban her from ever coming near the mansion or the office again. So I lied and told him I had given her permission to go up there. But that’s not the point."

He paused briefly.

"The point is, after Ragnar left, I decided to clean the wound under her foot. That’s when Gigi came in. Verity was having an anxiety attack, and Gigi started crying because she was thinking about her own brother."

Theodore stopped again, placing both hands on his waist and stretching his neck back.

"And I picked a side."

I stared at him.

"I chose to clean Verity’s wound. I told Gigi, very nicely," he added quickly, "to go talk to Ragnar because he would comfort her. I guess that upset her."

When Theodore finished, I remained silent, staring at the ground.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

I immediately looked up and shook my head, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"No. I’m so glad you didn’t leave Verity alone."

The moment those words left my mouth, relief washed over Theodore’s face.

It was as if he stopped blaming himself for a moment.