Chapter 83 - Where'd they go?

Note:

- I promise I haven't forgotten about this. I'm just extremely busy and all over the place hence the no chapters. You probably won't see another chapter for a while but hey, this one is decently long so yay?

- I WILL FINISH THIS STORY, WHETHER IT'LL TAKE ME A YEAR OR TEN YEARS. I REFUSE NOT TO

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POV: 3rd person

"Is Nero with Aiden at your building?"

Leo "coincidentally" needed to go Matthew's floor and he was hoping to run into his favourite employee, except he wasn't there.

In fact, he hadn't turned up at all. No warning, no nothing. Which rung a hundred different warning bells in Leo's head.

To start off, Nero had never not come into work and had to be physically dragged out when he tried to stay for too long. Moreover, if he were to take the day off, he would most definitely call in and tell someone. In this case, no one knew of his whereabouts or reasoning for not coming.

But that was not the main reason why Leo was distressed. He and Nero had talked over the phone last night (and through most of the night) and the man most definitely said he was coming into work today. He even emphasised he had to come because he had something he left undone that had to be done by the end of today.

Finally, Leo's inability to get in any form of contact with Nero or Aiden was the final straw and hence, the onset of an upset stomach and panic. So he called Erwin, hoping the bad feeling had was just a bad feeling and nothing more.

After Leo said his opening question, there was only soft breathing. He assumed his friend hear him and was about to repeat the question but Erwin coolly answered,

"Aiden is not at your place?"

Leo's stomach began twisting. "No... nor is Nero. That's why I asked you because they were meant to get coffee together before going to their respective workplaces."

"... why do you know they were meant to get coffee together?"

Leo could hear the smugness in his voice and he probably would've sniped back but he was too busy dwelling on the two's whereabouts. "We talked last night but that's not your business. What is your business is your employee being considered missing without a trace."

"... how do you know it's without a trace? He probably let his department know–"

"Call them and ask. Call them and please do prove me wrong. I would want nothing more."

There was more silence, then Erwin followed through with his request. A couple of unclear words later, Erwin brought his attention back to his phone and this time, his voice was laced with concern.

"You were right. Aiden hasn't turned up to work and didn't let anyone know beforehand, which is very uncharacteristic of him."

"Let me guess, he's also the type who won't take a day off unless he was bedridden and would make sure the entire building knew he was gone if he was gone?"

"Yeah, especially since we're nearing our deadline. I'm pretty sure we have a meeting together as well, a meeting that cannot be missed."

"Bloody hell..." Both the CEOs were now losing their heads over their missing employees, anxiety taking over their minds.

"So, do we just work through the day and hope for the best? Something could've popped up from their other job," Erwin said after a moment.

"But that's a night job. If something did happen now, especially at eleven thirty pm, we should be more than concerned. Unless I check on them, I won't be able to work or sleep."

"They're not weak, Leo."

"I know that and they're probably fine but better safe than sorry. I'd rather have them be aggro against me for thinking they're incapable than not chase after them and find out that they were in trouble and it could've been prevented if I went there."

Silence fell on the other side before Erwin released a surrendered sigh and agreed with his friend. "Yeah, you have a good point but where do we go first? No one knows where they are and we don't know which coffee shop they went to, so it's not like we can look in-store for clues."

Leo's office phone began ringing but he ignored it to think of some sort of solution. "Does Aiden have social media of any sort? Nero mentioned he barely uses his."

"I mean knowing Aiden, probably yeah."

"Your lack of confidence tells me you don't have him on anything."

"Well obviously. I'm not one to add my employee."

"You're also not one to make out with one but here you are."

"Shut up. I found Aiden's Instagram and lucky for us, it's public."

"Nice. Did he post–"

Leo's office landline began going off again while at the same time, Cindy was knocking on the door and mentioning something about a meeting.

Leo put down his phone and began reorganising his day really quickly. In about five minutes, he spread all of his duties to his vice and employees, effectively making his entire free. Cindy was confused by the last minute decision but considering how this was very out of character, he had some sort of valid reason to do so and therefore, didn't question him on it.

Leo got back to his friend, who was still on the line and immediately apologised. "Sorry about that. I just had to push all the responsibility for today."

Erwin snorted in amusement. "I'm a CEO as well, so I know. But you timed that really well. Go get your coat and meet me at the Starbucks that's four roads down from your building."

Leo's face lit up. "You found the coffee shop?"

"Yeah. Luckily for us, Aiden decided to go for a pretty looking diabetes in a cup and conveniently put a photo of it on his story with the specific geotag."

"A lead. Wait, you're going? Don't you have work and a very important meeting?"

"I did the same thing you did, excepted I got yelled at by five different people. As for the meeting, I'm sure my assistant can deal with it fine. I don't see myself working effectively if I didn't go and constantly worried for Aiden."

"... just Aiden?"

"... and Nero."

Leo eyerolled. "I'll meet you at the Starbucks."

"Yeah."

With that, the phone call was over and both men made their way to the shop.

At Starbucks...

"Hello, I was just wondering if any of your current staff have been working since eight thirty or so?"

The man at the counter looked at Leo at the odd question, considering how this was the first he had ever come across such an oddly specific question. If people wanted to get the number of his co-workers, they'd usually do it as soon as they pick up their coffee, not a couple of hours later. There was also the fact that two of the most wanted men were currently standing in a regular coffee shop, in front of him.

"Um, well, we have Cassy who opened up the store but she's currently making the beverages so..."

"Perfect," Leo exclaimed. "Could you do me one and tell her that we urgently need to speak with her. You can even say that it's Leonardo Covell and Erwin Fonzo that wants to speak with her if it'll get her to move faster."

Leo wasn't one to get his ways by using his name and status but desperate times calls for desperate measures.

The young man just nodded in a dazed manner and followed through with their request. Meanwhile, the two CEOs stood on the side to avoid holding up the line. But that proved to be ineffective, since everyone in the venue stopped what they were doing to either gape at the men, take photos of them or shamelessly check them out. Even the calling of "next" didn't move the line till the man in front of the line realised he was going to be late for whatever commitment he had.

Completely unfazed by the eyes boring onto them, Erwin and Leo talked among themselves, speculating where the other two could have gone and what could have gone.

Needless to say, their guesses were no close and no way as serious.

Cassy came to them faster than they expected but from her starstruck expression, something told them that she had just ditched her tasks to come to talk to them.

Erwin sure as well wasn't complaining.

"H-Hi, how may I help you today?" Cassy was panicking. She looked like a mess and she had eyebags from two hours of sleep. She tried patting down her hair and dusting off her apron but they all proved to be useless.

"Hello, we apologise for halting you from your responsibilities." Erwin went his classic, charming smile her way and she felt herself becoming faint.

"Oh, don't worry about it! It's completely fine."

"Great. So we heard you've been here ever since the store was opened?"

"Mhm."

"And I know you guys have been busy ever since then but we don't really have any other leads and this is our best shot."

"Right..."

"Did you have two customers about this and this height?" Erwin showed the estimated heights with his hands. "One had blue hair, blue eyes and the other had black hair, black eyes and was most likely wearing glasses. I think the blue haired one ordered diabetes in a– I mean, a drink with a lot of sugar.

Cassy's shoulders slumped in dejection. Of course, the hot ones are always gay. "As you mentioned before, we were quite busy this morning..."

This time, it was Leo's and Erwin's that slumped in disappointment. Cassy felt bad but they didn't let her finish.

"But luckily for you, I think I might know who you guys are talking about."

If both of them were dogs, their ears would've perked up in excitement and their tails would be thrashing around.

"Really?" Leo asked, trying to contain his hope but failing.

Cassy snickered internally at their reactions and her fujoshi blood found it adorable. "Yeah, they were kind of hard to miss, considering how they were bickering the whole time and one of them had baby blue hair. Was there anything specific you wanted to know or...?"

"Everything," Erwin hurriedly blurted out. "Just tell us everything you observed when they came in."

"Well as mentioned before, they were bickering with each other. I think it was about coffee tastes or something. All I know was that glasses was winning the argument."

Leo doesn't know why but he felt a sudden urge to puff out his chest in pride and gave a smug smile to his best friend. Erwin was more along the lines of murdering Leo with his eyes.

"Oh! I should also mention it wasn't me who actually served them. It was another employee who's currently on break. I just made the coffee for them and observed them with heavy interest."

"I see... was there anything out of the usual during their time here?" Leo asked.

"Hmm... not that I can think of. They got their coffee, gave their thanks and left the store. Although..." Cassy trailed off with furrowed eyebrows and was clearly in deep thought.

"Although?" Erwin repeated, trying to get her to finish what she started.

"Well now that I think about it, there was something odd but it might just be me being paranoid or overthinking. And it had nothing to do with them directly."

"Tell us anyway."

"During their entire here, there was a customer at one of the tables who was staring at them the entire time."

Leo's heart dropped to his stomach and Erwin's mouth dried up.

"I just assumed he was just a morning creep who was checking them out but the stare seemed more... cold than lustful. Moreover, after they left, he left almost immediately after them. I think... he might have been following them. OH MY GOD, THEY HAD A STALKER!"

"Was there any features you can recall about that man? Absolutely any." Leo was panicking and his voice was showing it. Erwin was also panicking but years of maintaining neutral masks seemed to pay off.

"I– well not really. I mean he had his head shaved and he was wearing a leather jacket. Uuuummmm Oh! He had a tattoo on the back of his neck. I think it was a butterfly? Also, I think he was wearing a silver bracelet but that could just be my memory making that up. That's all I can recall, sorry."

"No that's alright. You did a lot more than we expected. We're truly in your debt. Tell us if you ever need a favour from us. We'll let the receptionists know that a Cassy from Starbucks has full permission to visit us in our office." Leo gave her an appreciative smile and she was dumbfounded, astonished and was about to faint.

Luckily, her co-worker (the counter boy), overheard the second half of the conversation and fainted on her behalf. So she had to quickly snap out of it and help him out.

Leo and Erwin awkwardly bid their farewells and got out of the coffee shop.

Once outside, Leo began gnawing at his lips in worry (a bad habit from childhood) and Erwin's eyebrows were furrowed in thought.

Leo broke the silence first. "Shaved head, leather jacket, butterfly tattoo and maybe a silver bracelet. That's specific but not specific enough in this vast city."

Erwin hadn't responded to Leo's comment, still in deep thought. There was something about that description that was doing his head in. It was on the tip of his tongue.

"Erwin? Are you still there?"

He still didn't respond.

"Wow. Mate, you're really out of it. Are you that worried for Aiden?"

That's when it clicked for Erwin. Out of it, high, drugs, drug dealing, drug smuggling, mafia, butterflies, bracelets, the fucking Killucs.

"Holy shit..." Erwin breathed out as he looked at his friend with wide eyes.

The expression alarmed Leo and he looked back at Erwin with newfound nervousness. "What? Did you figure something out?"

"Yeah, possibly but I sure as hell am hoping that I'm completely wrong about this."

"I've never seen you this distressed before. You're freaking me out, Erwin."

"It's because I have every right to be distressed if my theory is correct." Erwin had his jaw clenched, which was very uncharacteristic for the man. It made Leo even more nervous.

"Well, what is it?" Leo impatiently spat out.

"How well do you know your mafias?"

The question was the last thing the other man expected. "W-What?"

"You heard me, how well do you know of the mafias around here?"

"How is this– I know a couple? There's obviously the Killucs and then the Romanos... wait you don't think–"

"Oh but I do. Did you forget the time we ran into at the club? They were trying to collect information on–"

"on the new drug that the Killucs are trying to deal out," Leo finished the sentence, breathily. "Nero told me about it the next day after I pestered him about it."

"Which you filled me in on as well."

"After you threw a childish tantrum."

Erwin squinted at his friend. "I did not throw a tantrum. Look, that's not the point and we're running out of time."

"Wait, how did you know it might be them who are involved with the two's disappearance?"

"All the Killuc's and loyal men have three common attributes. I've heard of two and coincidentally, they coincide with Cassy's description. One, they all have a tattoo of a butterfly on the back of their neck. Call it an initiation requirement. And the other one is that they have some sort of silver jewellery, whether it be a chain necklace or chain bracelet. Now we can call it a coincidence but all things considered, there are too many factors, such as timing, that reject that theory."

Leo hadn't realised he had been holding in his breath and promptly released it in heightened anxiousness and worry. "Fuck... how do you know all this?"

Erwin shrugged nonchalantly. "I guess there were some benefits with sleeping with an unskilful, chatty one night stand who happened to be part of a mafia family."

"Bloody hell..."

"Now we know who, which isn't good since they probably do everything as fast and efficiently as possible. On top of that, that still doesn't give us an idea where they could have taken the two boys if they haven't been left in a ditch already."

Sometimes, Leo forgot how blunt Erwin was as a person could be but this time, it was his quirky way of trying to ground himself and not freak out. In reality, he was probably freaking out about this just as much Leo was.

Both men were left to think about what to do next, thinking of possible places their employees could've been dragged to. It wasn't until a couple of minutes when Leo hesitantly broke the silence.

"This could be completely off and this is my own theory but I think I might know where they were taken."

Erwin perked up at that. "Hit me."

"Well, Nero was kind of keeping me updated with their progress (because I threw a tantrum when he refused to let me in on the tea) and he mentioned how their factory for production for their drug was leaked to the police–"

"I'm sorry but since when were you both that close, that you've begun telling each other everything?"

Leo's ears turned red at the sudden call out. "We don't tell each other everything."

"Really?" Erwin didn't believe a single word if his eyes said anything.

"We don't... maybe... shut up and let me finish."

Erwin just held his hands up in surrender.

"As I was saying, they leaked it to the police and I am pretty sure they went to check out the factory. Except, the family found out that they were on their tail and moved their base of operation elsewhere. So now, it should be an abandoned factory. Now if I were a bad guy, I'd probably take them there. This is completely baseless but it's better than nothing?"

"Hmm, so we're looking for an abandoned factory. Except there's more than we can count on our fingers."

"Well, Nero mentioned it was near the CBD?"

Erwin brought out his phone and began searching. "Well, in that case, that leaves us with... five. Still quite a bit but better than more than ten."

"And we have your teleporting, so it'll be much faster."

"You know, I don't go abandoned factory hunting. I can't exactly–"

"I'm not telling you to put us in front of the factory, as convenient as that would be. Just look at the address and find the closest place you can drop us off."

"What am I? Your personal uber driver?"

Leo eyerolled at his friend's dramatics. "Oh shut up and let's go. We're wasting time here."

"Yeah, yeah."

With that, both men entered the portal to their first factory.

♤♧♡♢

Three factories later and both men were losing hope. The previous factories greeted them with rats, the rank smell of dirt and questionable substances, the sleeping homeless, and a lot of fucking cobwebs. Their suits had almost turned white when they came out of the second factory and they spent ages trying to brush it all off, bickering through the entire process. More importantly, they weren't greeted with what they were looking for and their expectations were quickly diminishing.

They thought of calling it quits and trying some other lead but they had the day off and only two more factories left, so they might as well check it all out.

They were at their fourth factory and as they entered the place, they immediately noticed that this was very different from the rest. Although it had graffiti, broken windows and dirt like the rest, this one was much cleaner on the inside. There were no traces of cobwebs and the number of rats scouring around was minimal.

People were here recently and it wasn't just the homeless. In fact, this place had no homeless.

This rang alarm bells in both men and they went on alert. Another odd thing about this place was that it didn't have the same dingy smell like the other factories. Rather, it had a sweet scent mixed with the smell of rust, which was beyond abnormal.

Erwin and Leo promptly began investigating the large place, checking near the now unfunctional and rusty machines. By the looks of it, it was probably some sort of clothing factory. They kept looking around and walking further in, hoping to find some sort of clue and luckily for them, god seemed to answer their prayers.

As they walked further in, they heard the sound of voices and pounding. Leo and Erwin looked at each other and snuck closer to the source of the voice, all while being fast paced. As they came closer, they noticed an open entrance that was blocked by sturdy men, facing towards the room and they could hear the tone of the voices.

One sounded taunting while the other sounded pleading and defenceless. The latter sounded quite familiar and it immediately registered to both men who the voice was.

"Aiden!" Erwin whispered out loud, on top of the sound of more thumping. At that, Erwin and Leo dashed to the room. As soon as they were a couple of feet away from the men in front of the door, the two door guards noticed the presence behind them but before they could move an inch, Erwin created a portal under their feet and connected it to the ceiling, near the factory entranced. This caused them to free fall with a yelp and hit the concrete, hard.

Leo and Erwin entered the room, to come face to face with something they'd never expected to see and something they hoped to never see.

Brad Killuc was standing, looking at the new company in frozen shock but that wasn't the important detail.

Brad was standing over a limp, bloody body with blood pooling around. One of the tied arms was clearly broken as well as the left leg. The face was disfigured, nearly to the point of unrecognisable but the uncharacteristically dim blue eyes peeking through his half-lidded lids and the baby blue hair in stark contrast with the blood was enough for the two men to identify who it was.

He looked like he was on the verge of being crumpled and crushed, causing a sudden rush of fury run through the CEOs' veins. However, the sensation of shock was overwhelming and so they were still processing the sight beyond them in a frozen state.

They snapped out of it when Aiden used the last of his breath and energy to wheeze out to his saviours, "Help... Nero... Please..." before he lost consciousness with what looked like a relieved smile.

Erwin and Leo directed their attention to the other man in the chair, who was drenched in sweat and very much conscious, but on the verge of joining his friend. Nero's head was drooped down with his hands tied behind the chair. He didn't look bruised or battered but he was breathing heavily, trembling and shaking against his restraints, and constantly whispering out loud, "no, no, please, no," over and over again.

Leo broke out of his stupor and ran up to his employee as he yelled in a panicked tone, "Nero!"

Nero stopped shaking and he stopped speaking, which somewhat relieved the other man but it was quickly washed away when Nero lost consciousness as soon as Leo reached his side.

Funny enough, he also went out with a small, relieved smile.

The entire room then was silent, with the mafia's crew still in shock due to the presence of such influential people. The other two on the other hand were also shocked but that was mainly due to the sensation of reality and dread crashing down on them.

Brad was the first one to break the stalemate of silence. "W-What are you do–"

He was quickly cut off when there was a sudden eruption of blames from Nero's side. All the lackies and the Killuc jumped in the other direction, initially confused by the source of the confusion. But that was quickly resolved and they quickly paled when they found out what it was.

Leo had let go any sort of restriction of his Oddity and called forth his salamander's flames. It coated his entire body in a raging, red flame (none of his clothes is set on fire), with his golden hair shining brighter than before. His eyes turned from a clear, gold colour to a blazing blood orange colour.

The scariest was his expression though. His eyes were expressionless except for rage in his eyes and his mouth wasn't snarling or frowning. Instead, it was cold, straight lips with a little bit of curling downwards. Even among this heat, it was enough to send chills down their spines and their ancestors' spines, even with the intense heat.

The expression and aura alone were screaming his intent. His intent to kill.

Although surprised initially, Erwin soon got used to the heat and did nothing to smother the killing aura. After all, if he didn't do it, Erwin would've. How badly he wanted to throw them against the wall and dismantle them limb by limb.

The only thing that was stopping him (and Leo) was the two unconscious men, especially Aiden. The latter especially since he's a huge advocate on not murdering people, regardless of what they've done (well, to an extent) and Erwin had nothing but respect for those wishes.

So he gave his friend a knowing look and simply said, "Make sure you don't kill them."