Chapter 27

Liam held the fresh fingerprints cautiously and left the place very quickly. His actions were a huge

contrast to Ethan, who remained unmoving.

“Are you still going to visit Mr. West, Mr. Knight?” Caleb asked, recalling the excuse he used to come

upstairs earlier. Although it was a pretense, it was true that they wanted to find Tanner.

Lawrence had been pushing them for results, and Tanner’s whereabouts were quite a mystery. It was

challenging to locate him, but since they were already here, there was no reason for them not to try

their luck.

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed. The task given by Lawrence had to be completed, and at the same time, he

genuinely wanted to meet Tanner in person, too.

Caleb paced to Room 1907 and knocked on the door politely, but there was no response from inside

the room. He knocked several times, but there wasn’t even a single whisper of sound.

“Mr. West is probably not in the room. Maybe he hasn’t returned yet, but he didn’t check out, so he’ll be

back. Since we now know that he’s staying in this hotel, it will make things much easier.”

He knew that this was a task assigned by Lawrence, so he was aware that this was a high-priority

case. They had to find Tanner as soon as possible.

“Keep an eye out for Tanner West. Inform me once you have news.” Ethan shot a glance at Room

1907, then shifted his gaze to Alice’s room. His eyes were like deep pools, and his thoughts

unreadable.

“Got it.” On the other hand, Caleb didn’t dwell on it too much, thinking that Ethan just wanted to settle

Lawrence’s task.

As for Alice, all they had to do was wait for the results of the fingerprint comparison.

In the meantime, the atmosphere in Room 1909 was a little tense.

“Who’s that earlier?” Archie asked with a concerned look. “Why does he want your fingerprints?”

Who is he? Alice rolled those words around her tongue but said nothing as she peered at Apollo. She

didn’t know who he was, but she knew he was Apollo’s biological father.

“You don’t know? Why did you give him your fingerprints, then?” Archie was shocked that she would

give away her prints so carelessly.

He knew that she had always been a cautious and thorough person. Therefore, he figured that she

would at least know the other party’s identity and motive.

Instead, she didn’t say a word. If it were someone else, she would have a plan of action ready to go.

Nevertheless, when she recalled the resoluteness and decisiveness of that man from seven years ago

to force his prey to a corner, she didn’t know what she could do now to escape from his clutches.

For a while, Alice didn’t utter a word.

Seven years later, that man suddenly found her at her door and demanded her fingerprints, which

caught her off-guard.

She knew precisely the reason he wanted her fingerprints, and the results of the fingerprint comparison

would be out very quickly, given his abilities.

Alas, that only caused her anxiety to spike as she was even more worried that he would come knocking

on her door again.

“By the way, Elijah came to the Imperial Hotel today,” Archie said out of the blue, interrupting her

thoughts.

“What happened afterward?” Alice’s brows twitched a little in surprise. Considering the utter mess of

the wedding, she reckoned that the Wolands and the Yeagers were in cahoots and had agreed on the

terms beforehand.

Logically speaking, Elijah shouldn’t have appeared during the wedding, as the Wolands had already

sold her off.

“After you left for the wedding ballroom, Emma checked into a room in the hotel, and Elijah went

straight there, staying inside for about half an hour. Then he left the hotel after that. So what do you

think they’re discussing that they needed to check into a hotel room? And even at the time of your

wedding? I find it a little odd.”

“Oh…” Alice muttered softly, but her one-word reply was rather dragged out, sounding playful yet

mocking.

Emma was the illegitimate daughter Elijah brought home more than a decade ago, but he later

discovered by accident that she wasn’t his biological daughter. No one else knew about this; Alice only

found out by chance.

Not long after he knew that she wasn’t his daughter, he turned her into his woman instead. At that time,

she was still considered a minor in some states.

Since then, he had been ‘publicly’ keeping his mistress at home.

Of course, it wasn’t odd that they checked into a hotel room for some fun, but it was a little weird that

they chose this time and venue.

In a hotel room, Caleb was reporting the things he had just learned about Alice, but it was all the same

old story which wasn’t much different from their findings seven years ago.

“Check again.” Ethan lifted his head and had already recovered the usual calmness in his eyes.

Unfortunately, the suffocating, oppressive air about him remained, and it had the side effect of

rendering people nervous and tense.

As a result, Caleb and Liam straightened immediately as they quickly answered, “Yes.”

If Ethan said to check it, then that was what they had to do, and they had to be more attentive each

time. They had to check everything in greater detail. Even if it was just the slightest oddities, they had

untangled the thread until everything was laid bare!

Ethan’s phone was beeping the whole time, and he finally picked it up to check what the ruckus was

about.

It was messages from the group chat with his buddies. There were already dozens of notifications, and

they weren’t stopping.

‘Damn it, Jordan is such an as*hole for stealing our proposal, and he’s presenting ahead of us! That

as*hole stole the entire thing and used it right in front of us! On stage! This as*hole has always liked to

play dirty, but I didn’t think that he could be this dirty. He’s an utter as*hole. He’s just asking for me to

rip him a new one!’

Most of the messages were Irvin cursing madly.

‘What’s the point of cursing at him now? Quickly think of a solution,’ Chris texted, trying to calm Irvin,

who had clearly lost his cool.

‘What solution? The five people in the planning team came up with that proposal after spending one

month on it, and we’re less than two hours away from the presentation. I can’t come up with a solution

even if you give me a miracle. I give up.’

That was just how harsh reality was, and he had no choice but to succumb to his fate. Although he

wasn’t completely devastated at the moment, he was really disappointed and didn’t have a single shred

of hope left.

‘That as*hole will die a terrible death. My brother must have something to do with this. Pops mentioned

that he’d promote me if I do well. It’s over now. Not only will I lose my promotion, I might also even be

called a plagiarizer and risk getting kicked out of the company. To hell with it. They can do whatever

they want. I’m done with this bullsh*t.’

Irvin had totally surrendered. Even through the phone screen, they could feel his humiliation and

indignance.

There were quite a few people in the group chat who came from influential families. Quite a few of them

even managed their massive family businesses, and even they knew that there was no solution for

Irvin’s current situation.

Even if he could come up with a vastly better proposal, he still had less than two hours until the

presentation.

For his team to come up with a new proposal that had to be better than the original for such a massive

project in less than two hours was utterly impossible.

At least, they couldn’t do it.