The meeting with Katrina was set up to be at her estate in three days. She had sent us two invitations per Alexander's request, meaning that two of us will need to go into the lion's den. Her so-called party was going to be on third day, counting today.

We had today, tomorrow, and half a day to figure what in the world we need to do because we'll be meeting her on the night of the third day.

"Emmaline, do a thorough search through all the agents that were on the team with Agent Simmons for their latest mission." Alexander began and Emmaline went to her computer before he even finished.

"I'm going to make some calls. Figure out what the hell is in that USB and any files we may have on this clan."

"Okay." Alexander nodded in agreement with Victor before he turned to look at me. "I want you to check over Katrina's house cams. Make sure your father was actually there, when, and if he was with anyone."

"Camera? What camera?" I looked over at him confused.

I was looking at Alexander, but it was Victor that replied back to my question. "We put surveillance camera near the entrance of her house and the club she owns for another case. We never took it off I guess. I'll give you access."

I went over to Victor's desk as he sat down. Meanwhile, from the corner of my eye, I saw that Alexander was going back to sit down at his desk. After getting myself linked to the surveillance cameras, I went back to six months ago, around the time that the task force just got put together, and ran it through with the facial recognition program directly inside the system. It will automatically stop the video when it finds a match.

"It's going to take a few hours. There a lot to cover." I informed everyone while making sure everything was correctly in place.

Keeping an eye once in a while on the surveillance cameras and checking that the facial recognition program was working, I also continued my sweep through Phoenix Headquarters' network, our network. I was a little under halfway done yesterday, checking for traces of anything being hacked or taken from our system, and was determined to get that done today.

If anyone did indeed hack in, I would find out before the end of the day.

*

During midday some time, Alexander disappeared for a at least a few hours. When he came back, he looked weary and dead tired. I gave him a puzzled look as he walked in, but he simply ignored me and sat down.

It was near the end of the day, that we all got together to go through what we found and Victor was the one that started us off.

"No one I contacted even knew something was stolen, meaning the government agencies kept everything tightly under wraps and the only people that knew about the flash drive were the agents linked to the case, the person in charge, and now us. And about the clan, there really isn't much info. However, all their members so far were not in any systems. It's like they never existed in the first place. In order for this clan to erase a person to this level, they must have an insanely good hacker on their end."

The moment Victor mentioned a hacker, I stiffened slightly knowing he was right. For them to have a completely erased every member, leaving no trace behind, they're good. It's no wonder why no one has caught them yet or even come close to having them within their grasp.

"So," Emmaline began as soon as Victor finished, pulling up pictures of eight agents from different places in the government on the large screen. "All the agents on this screen were killed within the span of three weeks. They were all kidnapped when they were unarmed and at their most vulnerable, meaning that this clan knew and memorized the agents' personal lives to the smallest details."

Emmaline gave a sigh before she continued. "This team was stacked and they truly did bring in the best of the best to this case. Each agent had a long list of accomplishments and not all were listed there because some were probably missions that 'didn't happen' as soon as it was done."

"They were kidnapped, tortured, and then left for dead. Each body was..." Emmaline squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "Was horribly disfigured, some burned alive, some had missing body parts."

With each and every word, hope of finding my parents alive was fading.

"Um... yeah... that's all I got. I did dig through financials and everything to see if any of them might be working for the Viperidae clan, but I got nothing."

I closed off my horrid thoughts and put on an impassive mask, then quickly shared my info. "I found that Katrina was telling the truth. Agent Luke Simmons did visit her four weeks ago with his wife."

"Wait, what?" Victor glanced over at me with widened eyes.

"Yes. My guess is that Agent Luke heard about the other agents involved in the case getting murdered, and clued his wife in. They went to the informant together."

I always made sure to call my father by Agent Simmons, because I felt that the moment I slip here, it's all going to become too real.

"Tomorrow, we'll get the aliases ready and figure out a plan to quickly get in and out of Katrina's party." Alexander concluded, and just like that, everyone headed home.

Alexander and I headed towards the medical wing and talked with Mr. Blades for a little bit, then we headed home with Mrs. Blades.

*

I was freshly showered, changed into a large t-shirt and shorts, sitting on the armchair in Alexander's room and was typing away my laptop because I was almost done checking through Phoenix Headquarters' network when I saw something a little odd.

Whoever hacked in didn't leave much, but there was no way I could not recognize who it was. Even if this person left less than one line of code, I still would have known. Unable to believe what I was seeing, I looked it over again and again until I couldn't deny what right in front of me.

The metal I was wearing on my chest became heavier and I clutched it tightly through my shirt, my heart pounding.

The sound of the door creaking open knocked me back into my senses and I slammed my laptop down and looked up.

Alexander strode in and closed the door behind him. His dark greys found me and I could see him questioning my behavior through his eyes. I looked away and put my laptop in my bag and headed into the bathroom stiffly. Closing the door and locking it shut, I gripped the sink and tried to calm down. I looked up to see a tired woman with haunted blue eyes staring right back. Unable to look at myself further, I turned on the tap full blast and splashed my face with icy cold water.

By now, my breathing has somewhat returned to normal and so has my heartrate.

"It's not possible," I mumbled to myself as I looked at myself in the mirror.

Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door. "Angel," Alexander started gently. "You okay?"

"I'm perfect," I almost growled out stiffly in defense, but calmed myself enough to make it sound causal.

Wiping my face with a towel and taking a few more deeper breaths, I unlocked the door and walked out without once looking at Alexander.

"I'll take the floor," I informed him as I took a pillow and the blanket and put them on the floor.

"I don't understand," Alexander questioned my actions wearily.

I met his gaze and raised an eyebrow. "You don't understand English?"

His eyebrows pulled down in confusion. "What's wrong with the bed?"

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms across my chest. "Because it's yours."

"You didn't complain last night." His lips lifted into a small smirk as he approached me.

"Remember what I told you this morning, last night didn't happen."

My comment didn't stop him from coming closer and his long legs were closing the distance faster than I hoped. Soon, he was right in front of me, toe to toe, but not yet touching.

"It did happen." The words softly slid out of his mouth.

I glared at the man standing in front of me. "Fine. It did. However, it won't ever happen again, so take up on my kind offer or else you will be the one taking the floor or the sofa."

Alexander remained silent as his hands landed on my hips and slid up to wrap around my waist. I tried to take a step back, but his arms held me to him, so I avoided him by looking away. A second later, I felt a soft kiss at the base of my neck. He trailed his kisses up to my jaw line. "What's wrong, Angel?" I heard him whisper against my ear.

"Why would you think something is wrong, Red?" I knew I should be stepping away from him, but my body didn't want to move out of his embrace.

"Your defense mechanism is to get aggressive and angry."

I cursed mentally at him for being able to read me so terrifyingly accurately.

"Why do you still try to put up that wall around yourself when you know I can see through it all? Save yourself the trouble, and don't do it." Alexander leaned back to take a look at me and I still couldn't meet his grey eyes.

"Angel, you can trust me."

I shut my eyes tightly and bit my lip as tears prickled behind my eyelids.

Slowly opening my eyes, I stared up into his eyes and cupped his face with both my hands. "Can I, Red?"

Alexander remained quiet and waited patiently for me. He didn't need to reply back because he knew that he was probably the only person I could trust in this world at the moment.

I hesitated for a moment. "Your mother was right. Someone did hack into our network."

I took a step away from him and he let me. Not looking at Alexander, I grabbed my laptop and opened it up. Alexander stood right behind me and looked over me to check my laptop screen.

"Do you know who?"

"That's where it gets tricky." I sighed out as I handed my laptop over to him.

He looked over from me to the screen with a perplexed expression on his face.

"There's only one person I know who writes their code like this."

Alexander puts my laptop down since he couldn't understand any of it, and eyed me carefully.

"But there's no way it could be her. She's dead."

Alexander's eyes strayed down towards my neck where I knew the chain of the dog tag that I always wore around me neck peeked through the collar of my shirt.

"Who?"

"Cadence." Her name escaped my lips in a whisper and I felt a painful tug in my chest.

The room fell absolutely silent. From the moment her name was spoken, I felt as if I just solidified what was just a suspicion.

"Are you sure..." Alexander trailed off and I immediately narrowed my eyes at him.

"Am I sure what?" I spat out venomously, my temper rising.

"Are you sure Cadence Reyes is dead?"

Immediately, the energy left me and I sat down on the sofa. "Yes."

"How can you be sure?"

"Are you sure you want to know?" I asked him wearily as I stared into his eyes.

Alexander didn't answer, but I could see his answer.

"I told you before that she was killed, Red. I was there when she was shot. I saw the bullet pierce her body, and her body crumble to the ground." I couldn't stop the tears from welling in my eyes. This was the first time I was telling what happened.

"You ask me how I can be sure she's dead? Well, that bullet was mine." The tears slid down my face and I couldn't stop them from falling, nor was I really trying.

"I was the one that killed her."

****

That concludes chapter 18! Hoped you liked it.

Please don't forget to comment, share and vote if you liked it !! :D

Until next time,

InvincibleBunny