It was rather strange that a van abruptly stopped in the middle of a spacious four-lane highway in the quiet night.
"Wait here!"
Hiram ordered. His deep eyes firmly stared at the excessively silent van parked in front of them.
Generally speaking, when faced with such a peculiar situation, people tended to hop out and check what was going on. But, they didn't.
"Then what should we...?" Carl had already unfastened his safety belt. He was about to get off to have a look when he heard Hiram's voice. So he stopped.
"Don't worry about it, just go straight ahead." Hiram said, with his eyes focused on the van, as if he was thinking about something.
Rachel also sensed that something was wrong. She agreed with Hiram. Besides, it wasn't an accident, so it was better to leave as soon as possible.
Carl sat down again and backed up the car. He was about to leave.
But just in that very moment, The door of the strangely quiet van opened suddenly.
Around seven or eight big men came out of it one after another. Each of them held a steel rod, which shimmered under the light of the street lamps.
"Carl, ignore them! Just drive away!"
Hiram ordered as he held Rachel's head on his legs and wrapped her in his arms to protect her. Carl pressed the accelerator, and with a massive sound, they drove away immediately.
With the steel rods, those guys smashed the car's windows from outside while the car drove past them.
With a loud banging sound, a crack appeared in the window where a rod had made contact.
But luckily, the car drove away before their next strike.
Carl grasped for breath. Although he slowed down the car, he didn't attempt to stop. "Cousin! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
Hiram who was sitting in the back seat shook off the glass debris from his clothes and answered.
"That's good. If it had not been for your prompt judgment, I would have been dead by now." Carl said with fear. He didn't dare to imagine what would have happened to him if he had gotten off the car.
Rachel sat back, thinking that it was quite fortunate that they left in time, or they would have been in great trouble. She patted the debris off of Hiram's knees, then asked, "What's going on? How could someone ambush us at the entrance of the Tulip Palace?"
"Cousin. Could it be Patrick Yan's conspiracy?" Carl guessed. They had just returned from meeting Patrick, and all of a sudden this horrible incident happened.
Hiram shook his head thoughtfully, "He is not foolish a man, he won't plan an attack near my place."
"Then... Who do you think is the culprit behind the attack? Jay is already in prison." Carl couldn't think of anyone else who would take such a big risk.
At that moment, they had already driven past the Tulip Palace. The three of them were not sure if those big guys were still lingering there waiting for them to come back.
Hiram took out his phone, and he dialed a call after telling Carl an address, "Take us to Luke's house. We would be safe there."
Luke was a lawyer. He had made a lot of enemies in his line of work. Therefore his house was equipped with both privacy and safety.
"Chad, check a local car with the license plate number of H9437. Also, pull the security footage in front of the Tulip Palace to figure out where that van came from. I need the results within an hour."
Hiram said methodically. 'How dare they ambush us in front of my home, ' he thought.
Rachel was also terrified. She was a little sleepy before the attack, but after the incident, she couldn't think of sleeping.
Right at that moment, she realized that Hiram was totally right. She had boarded a dangerous pirate ship that would frighten her at every step.
After a while, they finally arrived at Luke's house. Luke was quite annoyed when he was woken up at midnight, but he opened the door immediately when he saw the man standing outside.
"You two are..." Luke wore his boxers and looked at them with sleepy eyes. But when he noticed Hiram's unusually serious face, he realized that something had gone wrong, "Wait a moment. Let me change my clothes."
Right after entering the house, Hiram led Rachel to a spare room.
Hiram nodded his head, "Fine."
After they reached the Streams Building, Hiram went to work while Rachel was led by Carl to the studio Hiram had mentioned.
"Celine, are you working?" Rachel asked Celine while she was walking around the idle studio downstairs. She realized that Hiram had told the truth.
Although it was not that large, it was enough for them. They could also hire some more employees.
"Yes. I'm in the tea house. So, what about the idea I discussed with you the other day?" Celine asked in a low voice. Members of the Team A asked for information every day, but she felt too embarrassed to ask Rachel.
"Of course no problem. And I have a good news: I'm going to establish an independent studio so that we can work together again!"
"Really? Wow. Rachel, you are great! I'm going to share the good news with everyone!" Celine said excitedly.
"No problem. But don't be too hasty. Hand in your resignations as required and serve your due responsibility. Don't make the situation too awkward." Rachel reminded Celine as she wandered in the big balcony to have a look at the scenery.
'Great. It's not much different from the view of the president's office upstairs, ' she thought.
"Of course! We've worked for this company for a long time. It isn't much trouble if we stay for another few months!" Celine assured Rachel.
Rachel looked at her watch to check the time. She assumed that Hiram might have finished the conference by that time.
"Let's leave it like this now. I'll talk to you some other time." Rachel said and then hung up the phone.
She had a general idea about the studio and found that it only lacked some work supplies, which could be arranged when they moved in.
After leaving the studio, Rachel went upstairs towards the president's office.
Her studio was very close to his office. It was just three to five minutes' walk. That's to say, it was quite convenient to meet each other.
Maybe, this was the actual intention behind Hiram's plan!
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