"She'll be fine, Sam. They have tracked down her cellphone location."

"I know but...did they do it right? I mean, obviously, the cops are-"

"Useless, I know. But this is the FBI we're talking about, they know what they're doing. Just sit tight."

"Yeah, pretty much all I can do anyways."

Sam was feeling utterly useless. Since the time he'd received the news about his sister, all he had done was freak out. Meanwhile his guest had received news that the contents of the hard drive had been decrypted and evidence pointing to a lot of shady people was obtained, including the ringmaster of this whole mess - 36-year-old billionaire Jack Leach - owner of Amber Enterprises - a company who had overtaken the likes of Amazon and Microsoft in terms of wealth accumulation and popularity.

As of now, they were driving in a standard FBI vehicle to the spot where they had traced Ashley's phone to. Meanwhile, another team was on its way to arrest Jack Leach.

The FBI officer now looked at Sam and his friend, "Let's go through the plan once more. We have given you the hard drive and fitted a transmitter in your socks. When you both go in there, just hand them the drive after you ascertain your friend is safe. Once she is with you and you give them the drive, walk out and meet back here. My team will handle it from there. In case you realize something is wrong, just scream "All in a day's work!" and we'll take it as a signal to storm the place. Our snipers will be covering you from the top of the opposite building in case things go downhill. Once Ashley is no longer in their grasp and you three are safely out, we will make our move. Is that clear?"

The two teens just nodded, and with a determined expression and a few nervous steps, and walked tentatively in the building.

"Hello, anyone there?", shouted Sam. Just then four masked men appeared in front of him. One of them said, "Where is the drive?"

Sam showed the drive and the masked man proceeded to take it from his hand. Sam stopped him midway and said, "First, my sister. Where is she?"

The man who appeared to be the leader nodded to one of his men. The man slipped back into darkness, but came back after a few moments, holding a blindfolded and handcuffed Ashley.

"Ashy! Are you alright?", asked Sam's companion.

Hearing that all too familiar voice and that nickname, the blonde's head perked up, her lips parting in shock; there was only one person in the world who called her Ashy...

"Li...Lily? Is that you? What the actual fu-"

Sam interrupted, "Let her go. We'll give you the drive."

"Not so fast, chummy. First, we need that drive. And do we need to remind you who's in charge here?", the leader said, brandishing a gun from his waist belt.

Lily suggested, "One of you hand over the girl to him and another one take the drive from me. It's only fair."

The leader nodded and the exchange was made. Sam caught the now uncuffed Ashley and removed her blindfold.

"SAM!", She exclaimed, hugging him.

Slowly, with guns still pointed to them, the teenagers started taking small steps back towards the door. The kidnappers, meanwhile, studied the drive and, assuming it to be encrypted, started pacing a few steps back.

As soon as Sam and Co. reached the outside gate, they grabbed each one of Ashley's hands and started running to the predecided meeting spot.

Once there, the FBI medical team also examined her and said she'll be fine.

"Okay, you better explain what on earth is going on here! You were MIA for more than 3 months, Lily! THREE. BLOODY. MONTHS. Wait, did these guys kidnap you as well?"

Lily took a deep breath, motioned for Ashley to take a seat in the FBI car and began,

"No Ashy, I wasn't kidnapped. I'm so sorry, though.. Look, what I'm about to tell you - you may not like it very much but I swear it's the truth."

"Are...are you secretly a criminal..? Or an undercover agent of some sort?" That elicited a small laugh of amusement from both Sam and Lily.

"Gods, no, I'm not! Listen, will you?"

When Ashley nodded, Lily continued, "You remember I told you I was investigating a big criminal and you told me to be safe?"

"I'm guessing you did exactly the opposite?"

That caused a slight smile on Lily's face. "Well, sort of. Have you heard of the company Amber Enterprises?"

"Of course, who hasn't? They're like the next big thing in the world of tech, or at least that's what everyone says."

"Well, let's just say they climbed a lot of dead bodies to reach the top. I was just investigating their roots to do an article on them, but I noticed a pattern. People who had lodged complaints against them were either dead or missing. The living ones would not talk to me, scared for some reason. All they said was they wanted nothing to do with him anymore."

"So...let me guess, you went to the cops?"

"No, you remember I had an investigative journalism internship to investigate the mob lynching in Toronto? That case took me to the FBI. Over the course of time, I became good friends with an officer there - Jason Turner. He is arresting the Leach father-son duo as we speak."

"Oh. So you went to him?"

"Yes, and I told him what I had gathered. The FBI was never onto the Leaches, so he said he'd investigate stuff from their side and get back to me. But before he could, I found out something...in Jordan's wallet. It was my picture."

"Wha...okay I'm confused. 1, Why did you look in his wallet and 2, What was my best friend's picture doing in my fiance's wallet?"

"Umm...", Lily looked nervously at Sam who in turn held Ashley's hand in his.

Lily continued, "Ashy...I'm so sorry but...Jordan wasn't who he claimed to be. He was in the company of some really bad people. The picture seemed to be taken at a candid moment when I was walking along the road as if taken by a stalker. I suddenly realized we didn't know much about Jordan's past life, so I went through the police records using the software in my office that we journalists are allowed to use, and guess what, I found him..."

"Jordan had a past police record?", Ashley's voice was now barely a whisper. It was true, she loved Jordan more than her life, but Lily had been her childhood friend and also a damn good investigative journalist.

"Yes, honey, and a rather heinous one too. He was released from prison three years before he met us...he was charged with an attempt to murder. What's more, is the case was somehow linked to the Leaches, but they had covered their tracks pretty well so the trail ended at Jordan."

"What...I...It's not that I don't trust you, Lily, but you're making it impossibly hard for me to. Why didn't you tell me then if you knew? And Sam, you knew about this too?"

"No, I didn't. At least not till my car almost hit a bleeding Lily in the middle of the night."

"What?"

Lily continued albeit after a deep breath, "Jordan was a contract killer by the name Romero Jenkins and he tried to kill me. I'm sorry, Ashy but that's the truth."

"Wha...What?" Ashley whispered. She felt like she'd been punched in the gut with an iron knuckle.

"I'm sorry, honey.", Sam said before continuing, "Jordan revealed that Jack Leach had somehow found out Lily was working against him and said he owed Jack a huge favor for getting him out of prison, so he had to do one last job...kill Lily. That explained what he was doing with my picture. He said he knew you'd be broken but he'd take good care of you. That he really loved you."

"He loved me so he decided to kill my best friend? He'd always been quiet and mysterious but I always thought that was part of his charm...What a fool I'd been! What happened then, Lily?"

"Well," Lily flinched a bit at the memory, "Let's not get into the details. He stabbed me near a forest in the middle of the night and I almost passed out. He took me for dead and fled. Unfortunately for him, I was alive. I staggered to my feet and walked the streets for help. The most fortunate incident in my life happened, then, Sam was returning from a weekend trip on that Monday morning at 3:45 am and I almost bumped into his car. He took me to a hospital and I told him everything."

"How dare that bastard even think of killing you? I still can't believe he did it! I'd gut him like a fish if he were here." Ashely exclaimed as she removed her engagement ring and tossed it on the pavement with disgust.

"Well, Jack Leach has many puppets. Like the one who caused that accident that killed Romero...or Jordan, whatever you wanna call him."

"Wait, why would Jack want Jordan and me dead? I didn't even know shit and Jordan was his own guy, right?"

"Well, Jimmy is yet to give a statement but my guess is Jack wanted to tie all loose ends. He must've known you and I were close and maybe he thought I might have told you something. And Romero anyways knew a lot about him so..."

"Why did you never go to the cops? Why only the FBI? And what is this hard drive that I was kidnapped for?"

"Well, the hard drive was made by Jimmy Schneider - the guy who tried to kill you. He had been with the Leaches since the beginning and hence had stored all data pertaining to their malpractices in a drive for reference. I ransacked his apartment before the cops could and get it. Good thing, too. The FBI informed me that one of the detectives on your case - Detective Henry Jenkins - was on the Leaches' payroll. That could have gotten quite ugly..."

"This is all so hard to digest..."

Lily's phone vibrated in her pockets indicating she had a message. When she read it, she had a smile on her face.

"I think we all need time to digest whatever happened. I just got confirmation that Jack has been arrested and that we can all go home for now. The FBI will come to us if they need it. As it is I'll be working with them most of the time to close the case."

"Oh great. I missed you, Lily. Thank you, both you and Sammy. Let's go home, now, it hasn't seen Lily in three months."

Sam smiled and said, "Okay, we should meet this weekend to discuss more. For now, let's all go home and rest." With that, he called a cab and proceeded homewards.

"So Ashy...I heard you missed me?" Lily said with a mischievous smirk, one that Ashley was thrilled to see again.

"Oh I did, Lilzoo. The rent is killing me, you know? You are in my life for one thing - sharing rent. Then you disappear and boom, it's all on me!"

Lily frowned and playfully slapped Ashley's arm as they both hailed a cab and Lily gave him the address to the place she'd been dying to live in again for months now.

(A/N: CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS WELCOME. HAPPY READING!)

P.S. I know the end is very rushed and, well, quite the crap, to be honest. But I was on a word limit for the book or I'd have tried doing better. Thank you for reading this book, it means a lot to me.