The Miracle of You

Hunting them down was easy.

Gregory Callahan was one of those who had enough power and intelligence to find anyone he wanted to find. He had been in the industry for many years now, so he knew exactly what to do.

He remembered hunting down those who had betrayed him before. People who had tried to take advantage of him, and even those who had tried to frame him for something that he didn’t do.

He found those people shortly after they had committed their transgressions. Nobody could escape him. Wherever they were hiding, he could sniff them out without much effort on his part.

So, using his hidden connections and various influences, he found Pamela in no time.

In just one week, to be exact.

It turned out that they lived in the countryside near a large forest, a semi-isolated area from the big city. It was an obscure part of the country that almost no one entered because it was a purely rural area where only farmers and nondescript individuals had lived for generations.

They were a tight-knit community, but they were also scattered throughout the greenery, and sometimes it was hard to find each other’s houses because the distance was too great.

It seemed that the pair decided to stay there because they couldn’t risk taking a plane out of the country lest Gregory stopped their flight and detained them on the spot.

It was pathetic, really. The two of them lived in a small, cheap house that was nothing like the Callahan mansion. The landscape around the house was rough, and they had almost nothing.

And yet, the most infuriating part was that they both seemed very content with it. They had a small farm. Winston raised chickens and cows and even started planting crops in their backyard.

Even with such a poor lifestyle, they were happy, and Gregory couldn’t understand it. He had given Pamela everything she ever needed. She had everything that she desired, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. The jewelry, the expensive devices, the best furniture there was, and she and Gregory even had two children together, for Pete’s sake!

And yet, she betrayed and left him without hesitation.

Just for this?

It angered Gregory to the point where he reached the boiling point.

It wasn’t difficult to send men to get rid of Winston for good. He was no longer their hired help after he resigned, and he was also in an isolated area, which meant there was little to no possibility of witnesses being present.

All it took was five of his best men to take over the mission. One lured him into the woods pretending to be a poor young man from the same area who needed help, and the next thing Winston knew, the other four ambushed him.

And the rest was history.

Pamela was forced to return to the mansion after the investigation was forcibly closed, and she was locked in her room for a while. Although she was technically in house arrest, she refused to come out from her personal sanctuary, much to Gregory’s irritation.

Later that night, Gregory sat at his desk and listened to his men’s detailed report.

And Winston did know something, just as he had suspected. The files matched the new information that he had just received.

Something that deserved to be eradicated as soon as possible.

‘Very good,’ Gregory thought with satisfaction.

Everything was going as well, as he expected.

***

“Well? Aren’t you going to tell me what really happened?”

Christian’s voice drifted into his father’s ears, his tone flat and almost callous if it weren’t for the steely look in his eyes.

“I wasn’t interested before, but now that it has come to this, I think I need to know,” he said impatiently.

“Do you now?” Gregory’s voice was soft, bordering on wistful. The change in tone was strange to hear.

Christian leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s something about her death that caught Huckington’s attention, so I figured that I’d come here to get the answers I need instead of sending my men to investigate for me.”

“That’s right,” Gregory said. “You made the right decision.”

“Then tell me everything,” Christian said without preamble. “So I can start making my plans.”

Gregory nodded. “Your mother betrayed her family. That’s the root cause of it all. She did not care about the fact that she had kids. She basically left us and everything else for another man.”

Christian looked uninterested. “Yeah. The gardener.”

Gregory smiled. “The gardener who knew more than he should.”

Christian raised an eyebrow, and he now looked a little intrigued. “What do you mean by that?”

“He was biding his time. He planned to blackmail our family with what he knew.” Gregory shook his head. “He wanted money. A lot of it. But he needed more dirt, so he applied to be a gardener at the mansion so he could gather more information and evidence if possible because he didn’t have enough solid evidence to completely convince the media. Something clear and irrefutable to prove his credibility.”

“Proof of what, exactly? What kind of evidence did he need so desperately?”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

One corner of Gregory’s lips turned upwards. “Let’s just say that the little weasel saw something that he shouldn’t have.”

Christian leaned forward a bit. “Well, you can’t just simply leave it at that. You’ve gotten me curious now.”

Gregory smiled, but it now had a sinister nuance to it. “You truly are my son.” He leaned back against his seat and placed both arms on the armrests. “But before we get to that, let’s talk about your secretary first.”

Christian raised an eyebrow. “What does Camille have to do with this?”

“You’re aware of her background, are you not?”

“Of course I am. We even talked about it back then. Is that a rhetorical question?”

A thin smile curved Gregory’s lips. “But not in great detail, I’m sure. Because certain records were deleted permanently.”

Christian’s brow furrowed slightly. “What are you talking about?”

If there was one thing that he hated the most in this world, it was being kept in the dark about details that would most certainly benefit him.

“No worries. She herself has nothing to do with it, as she wasn’t yet born during that time. You don’t have to concern yourself with the thought that the woman you love might be different from what you thought,” Gregory said with a knowing smile.

Christian almost wanted to laugh.

Right. His father still thought that he genuinely had feelings for Camille.

What a riot.

“I see. I feel at ease, then,” he said calmly, smiling back coldly.