The man in the video’s thumbnail image was none other than Joseph, whom I had parted ways with a short time ago. However, he seemed to be in a bad way with his eyes sunken and dark eye bags below them, a world of difference from the strong man in my memories.
Trembling, I tapped on the first voice message, and the others played sequentially.
“Come over and help me figure out how to deal with this. I found him in the alley behind The Jade. There are no other wounds on him apart from a few prick marks. He has probably been injected with a high dosage of drugs, and the other party is determined to have him addicted at a single go. They’re really ruthless.”
And so it went.
A buzzing started in my mind. So, Ashton still didn’t protect him in the end?
I rushed over to The Jade, only to see Emery waiting anxiously at the door. From the looks of it, she had been waiting for quite some time.
While leading me in, she murmured, “This way. I have someone watching over him.”
“Are you sure it’s drugs?” I asked softly, harboring a final shred of hope within me. Like Ashton, Joseph was an outstanding man, so he shouldn’t be tainted with such a nasty substance.
“In all likelihood, it is.” Emery sighed regretfully, saying nothing further.
At the end of the corridor on the first floor, tall and burly bodyguards were keeping guard outside the room door on the right, one on either side. Their indifferent expressions made it so that no one dared to approach the room.
Emery stopped for a moment at the door and questioned one of them, “Did anything happen?”
“Everything has been normal,” the bodyguard replied.
In response, Emery nodded. “Okay. Open the door.”
“Understood,” the bodyguard answered respectfully. Then he took out a key and unfastened the safety lock hanging on the door before pushing the door open.
But when we walked in, the huge room was empty.
Emery and I exchanged a glance, reckoning that Joseph must have hidden away. “Perhaps he’s in the bathroom.”
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