Gloria sat on a bed inside an empty room, she did not know where she was and how long she has been here. What she did know was that the door and widows were locked and that there were at least three men in the other parts of the building, maybe even more. She had not seen any of them, after their brief moment in the dark apartment. They had given her food through a small opening inside the door, and she had a small bathroom where she was able to see to her basic needs. She only did not dare to take a shower, in fear of one of the men creeping inside the room to spy on her, or maybe to do even worse. She had heard them talk about it, but there was one among the named Frank, who was against it. Not knowing who of the three was Frank, but she was grateful that he was guarding her from that faith. But she wondered what else was going on outside the room, did they make contact with her family. She did not know how much they were going to ask her parent, probably, much more than they were able to afford. Her family wasn't as rich as Aemilia's or Sebastian's. Maybe the both of them will jump in to help out, if her father excepted their help. He normally wasn't as keen, but her mother will talk some sense into him. She sighed, who was she kidding. Her mother couldn't convince the man to divorce her, even when she spelled out how unhappy she was. This all made her feel even more hopeless, will she see her friends and family? Will she survive this? These were questions she loved to answer with confidant yes. Only this was not the case, at least not now. The door flew open and one of the men entered the room. He was already unbuckling his belt.

" Hello, we just discovered that you are worth nothing more than the dirt under our boots." He said with a smirk on his face. "Parents spending working hard to pay off debt and all that boring stuff. Facing divorce and all with all, we are not able to hustle much out of them." She jumped from the bed and ran towards the furthest corner, away from him. "So I know a way you can make it up to us." He jumped towards her, and grabbed her before she was able to flee. "Not so quick." He turned her so that she was facing him. That is when he struck her, so hard that she fall towards the ground. He grabbed her again, only this time she started to scream as loud she was able. Hoping that this man wasn't Frank. Another man appeared in the door opening.

"Justin, what the hell are you doing?" The man screamed.

"Having fun with our guest, little brother." Justin replied. The man entered and peel Justin off her.

"Did you forget, why she is here. Do you think that her parents will pay if she is being thatched?" The man, she hoped, was Frank said.

"Her parents are not able to pay half what we were hoping for." Justin remarked, trying to grab her once again. But the other hold her outside his reach. "So she is not even worth the trouble, so let use at least have fun with her."

"Did you already forget who's friend she is. Aemilia will not let her friend suffer." The man snapped. "Just contact someone, make the demand and we see what we are getting." Justin growled. But left the room.

" Thank you." Gloria whispered.

"Do not thank me. He is right, you will not fetch much." The man said. "But I am not willing to course more harm than I need too." He glanced at her, just for a brief moment, before leaving her alone. She still didn't know who he was, but at least for now she had seen two of their faces. But will this help her, she did not know.

******

Sebastian sat inside his office, Adam was sitting at the desk next to his. He had not asked him to be here, but he did not have the heart to send him away. Hector, Aemilia's father, entered.

"So this is your business. In my eyes, it is an upgrade from the hellhole you came from." Hector said loudly. "You were smart to prepare for it. Maybe not as smart to mail every client off your fathers' company about what happened, not that I blame you for that." Sebastian frowned.

"It is not that I didn't play with the idea, but in the end I didn't do that. I wanted to show professionalism." He said, and the both of them then looked at Adam. Who shrugged, and sighed. So he had mailed all the clients, well it was his father and brother deserved. That and a bit more. Hector sat down, and sighed.

"Well what is done, is done. There is nothing we can do about it now. The same goes about my wife." He said, and Sebastian hung his head. "I knew my wife was not happy about your marriage, but that she will go so far as by hurting Aemilia..." He shook his head. Sebastian knew what he meant, it was something he had suspected, but he never expected that she would do it. "I have talked with my lawyer, and initiated divorce, I do not want to be married to that woman." Sebastian couldn't help but to see the irony, Rosetta was pushing Aemilia and him towards a divorce, but now she was the one getting one.

"I am sorry to hear that." He said.

"No, you are not sorry, but she is still Aemilia's mother. So she stays your..." Hector started.

"Shark-in-law." Adam finished him and all three of the men started to chuckle, which quickly changed to a full belly laugh. Other employees looked at them, which did not take long.

"But I am not here to talk my personal life with you." Hector said. "I am here to discuss business. Now that you have the time, I want to give you a boost." He placed a folder on the desk, which was quite thick. "This is the numbers of the current quarter, from one department." Sebastian sighed, he was already gasping for breath by the idea of doing the numbers of all the departments. "The accountant of that department came in a car incident, he is fine besides a minor head injury. But I gave him a month off to rest, and heal. That was before I heard about you getting fired, but when I heard it, I knew that this was the right moment to give this to you." Sebastian looked once again at the folder, Hector had not told him which department he would be crunching the numbers for. But to give this to an outsider was a huge deal.

"Sir, I do not know what to say." Sebastian said. "But are you sure about this? This company is there to support the bigger companies with this kind of thing. I do not know if we are capable of doing this."

"But I do, and that is more than enough." Hector replied, Adam nodded. They indeed could use this extra boost in their business. Sebastian wanted to thank him, again this was not a small favor. But his phone rang.

"I am sorry, can I take this?" He asked, showing Hector his phone.

"By all means." Hector replied. Sebastian picked up, it was an unknown number. Which was strange because this was his private cellphone, nobody called him with an unknown number on this. Only when someone lost his or her phone, or had a new number. Still, he picked up.

"Hello?" He said, there was nothing the whole time. Only somebodies breathing and some kind of static as if someone was busy on their phone. "Hello." He repeated.

"Is this mister Coleville." Said a disfigured voice, that was probably what they had done on their phone, activated the app to disfigured it.

"This is him." He replied and he quickly placed the phone on speaker. So that the others might hear him as well, he placed a finger to his lips to let the others know that they need to be quiet. He had the feeling that this were Gloria's kidnappers, Adam grabbed his phone and activated recording, and Hector grabbed a pen and paper to write down the phone number. Which was probably a burner, but it was useful nonetheless. He looked at his phone, waiting for what is to come.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"We have your pretty lady friend, and we want a large sum of money." The voice said.

"What is your price." Sebastian said, as calm as he could.

"Twenty million." The voice replied. "But ten would also do." He nodded, this will be a large sum of money, but not as large as they wanted for Aemilia. It was only a large sum of money he did not have, maybe he could borrow money of Hector. But that was a concern for later.

"How do I know that she is still alive?" Sebastian asked. On his screen, popped up a message with a photo. He only could see once, he quickly took a screenshot from it. Knowing that they might need to use this photo later, and Emma really wanted to see it.

"She is still in one piece and untouched. But I am not willing to promise that this will stay like this, she is a beauty after all." The voice said. Adam jumped up, a combination of anger, sadness and helplessness showed on his face. "You have one week to gather the money." Then the owner of the voice hung up the phone. Adam screamed in anger, Hector sat in defeat, and Sebastian quickly picked up his phone and called Emma Blackwater.

"Mister Coleville, to what do I owe the pleaser." She said, when she picked up the phone.

"They made contact." He said, and quickly told her what happened. She said that they needed to stay put and she would be there in a matter of minutes. Which she was, she requested the recording, the screenshot, send towards her and she took the paper with the phone number with her.

"I will do my best, but it will be better if you all take the steps they requested. Gather the money, inform her parents." Emma said, and the men nodded. Sebastian did not know how he was going to tell this to Aemilia, maybe just how it is. That the kidnappers had made contact, and which the amount of money the requested. He sighed and Hector nodded.

"It will not be easy, but we will do our bests. Officer Blackwater, I thank you for your hard work." Hector said, he shook her hand, and Emma left them. Adam sat down with his hands in his hair.

"Adam, we are going to everything in our power to get her home." Sebastian said, Hector looked at him. Probably wondering what his connecting with Gloria was. "He has being on a blind date, the evening that Gloria got abducted. He feels guilty that he was not there to protect her." But he suspected that there was a lot more going on, but that was how much he was willing to share with him. Hector nodded.

"I understand what you mean, I wished that I upped the securaty of that building. Something I wanted to do when my daughter was still living their, but this would have gone against Aemilia's wises to stand on their own two feet." Hector said. Sebastian looked at his father-in-law, he loved his daughter with all his heart that much was clear. He knew how much Aemilia hated the bodygaurds her parents, and he now thought mostly her mother had hired. To get her back in line, which of course never happened. It was because the last guard that she slept with mister Velvet during the party. He knew all of this because she had told him, and he took that information with him when he looked for a bodyguard. That was why he landed on Hendrik, who was an older man with a daughter of his own. Aemilia herself had told him that she liked having Hendrik around, which in his books was a good thing.

Hector looked around. "I am going to contact my bank and tell them to make preparations for the withdrawal." Sebastian nodded.

"I already emptied my savings account." Adam chimed in and he gave Hector the envelope with cash. "It is not much, but it is all I have." Sebastian was surprised at this, Adam always told him that he was proud of his savings and that he withdraw the money only when he absolutely needed. As when his dog needed a surgery a couple of years ago.

"I am going to do the same thing." He said while walking towards the rest of the office. "Everyone, we just got a large assignment. This means that from tomorrow on, we will put our best foot forward. There are also some personal things going on inside my life, some of you already know what it is. This thing just got a new development, which will take up some of my attention." A man called Frank stood up, Sebastian did not know this man very well. But he worked hard and never complained about anything.

"Boss, I think that I am speaking for all of use that we understand. Although a lot of use, myself included, do not know what this is. We know that you will give it your all, like you always do." Frank said, Sebastian nodded and thanked the man in silence.

"Thank you, Frank, I am going to take the day off and deal with this personal matter. As well, reviewing the assignment to divided under the team. You will receive an e-mail this evening." He said, turned around to grab his back and together with Adam and Hector left the office.

*******

Aemilia was passing the store, Daniel Velvet was leaning against the counter. He clearly had not taken the hint that she did not want him there. Hendrik was standing in the store, ready to remove the man. But Aemilia feared for their professional relationship if he did that. Maybe she put too much value in that relationship, but she was so proud when Morgan had told her that her store was the only one selling Velvet's pieces. The door of her store opened and Sebastian entered the store, together with her father and Adam. She quickly looked at Hendrik, had he called Sebastian? He shook his head, so no he did not call, but why were all three of them here? Daniel pushed himself off the counter when he saw Sebastian.

"So you most be the husband." Daniel started.

"And you must be the one-nightstand." Sebastian replied. Daniel looked shocked. "Yes she told me, and you know what I do not care what you think about our marriage, I do not care what you think of me. But Aemilia has told me that she asked you to keep this relationship to business only. But yet I find you here inside my wife's store, I see at her that she those not know what to do with you. Because she loves the pieces you create, so much, though, that we both wear it on our fingers." He now showed Daniel his wedding ring. "I believe that is the only reason Hendrik here as not put your ass outside this door. So I am now here to tell you as a husband, not a jealous one, but as one that cares about his wife. Leave her alone." Daniel raised both his hands, was he surrendering or was he mocking Sebastian. She was not able to see his face, and Sebastian's expression didn't tell her much either. But Daniel turned towards her and smiled.

"He is a keeper, I will respect your wises. And sorry that I crossed a boundary, but I wanted to see the better man." Daniel said and then turned towards Sebastian. "Take care of her, otherwise I will be back." And he left. Aemilia couldn't believe it, he was here all this time to meet Sebastian. How did he know that Sebastian would be here today? It did not matter, or did it.

"Aemilia, the kidnappers have made contact." Sebastian said. Getting her back out of her own thoughts.

"They did, is she still alive?" Aemilia asked and Sebastian, with her father and Adam, told her everything. From the strange voice app, to the photo and the amount of cash.

"Did you already inform officer Blackwater?" She asked, of course he had. What a stupid question to ask, but there was not much else she could do at the moment.

"There is one other thing you need to know, sweetie." Her father said. "Your mother and I are going through a divorce, I can no longer stay with her after what she has said and done." This somehow did not surprise her, she knew that her parents were not happy with their marriage. They had different views, morals. Something that she was able to see even when she was little. "That said, she will still be your mother and she most be respected as such. Although, I will support you if you are going low- or no- contact with her."

"Yes, she is still my mother, however my respect is something earned. She lost mine a while ago, and I think I will sleep better at night if we go no contact with her." Aemilia said, meaning every word. She did not hate her mother, but she simply did not trust her.

"As you wish. Do I need to arrange a lawyer for a siege and desist letter?" Her father asked. But she shook her head, that was something she was able to do herself.

"Thank you daddy." She said. She walked over to Sebastian and wrapped her arms around his waist. Silently preying for a good and happy ending.