Chapter 318:

Robert’s POV

I was leaning my tensed torso against the car seat, gripping the phone with fingers trembling from the excess of sweeping emotion and raging anger, waiting for Ron’s answer with absolute impatience to cut off this cursed doubt that had been gnawing at my chest for years. His confused and fearful voice came to me across the line, saying: "Sir... she is in a nearby area. I will send you the coordinates of the address immediately. I will also get into my car and head there quickly."

I tightened my grip on the phone with brute force, almost shattering its screen, and ground out with a convulsed, raging jaw and a voice roaring like thunder that cut off his breath: "Send it now and without the slightest delay!"

I ended the call with a swift, violent movement, and not a few seconds passed before the phone vibrated in my palm with a powerful, successive vibration announcing the arrival of the text message with the required address in detail. Instantly, without thinking, I brought the weight of my foot down violently and harshly upon the gas pedal. The car’s beastly engine roared with a loud force that shook the street, and I launched forward at the maximum possible crazy speed, tearing through roads and curves with total indifference to death. I wanted to reach Julie at any cost, even if the price was burning the entire city... as if the whole world, with its oceans and continents, had been reduced to that small geographical spot.

My feelings blended with burning violence inside my chest, and conflicting thoughts battled hysterically in my head. Despite the fact that she betrayed my trust, left me, and went away throwing everything behind her back and fleeing my cursed, stupid, and weak heart was still thumping for her with a loud force and ache.

It was as if it were punishing me with every beat striking my chest because I loved her to madness, and because I fell naively into the webs of her magic in this despicable manner. Even my mind... even my stern mind did not cease thinking of her or imagining her features for a single second throughout the time of her fatal absence. After all those long, exhausting, and bitter years of lost searching... I have found her now; I will meet her and confront her now!

I increased the car’s speed more and more while the fierce winds battered the iron outer chassis of the vehicle, until I slammed on the brakes with sudden, harsh violence, producing a sharp, annoying screech from the tires the moment I arrived exactly at the specified address. I got out of the car door with roaring, confident, and violent steps like a destructive storm, and caught sight of one of my men whom I had placed for surveillance standing with apprehension and caution.

I rushed toward him with the entirety of my massive, terrifying stature, gripped his arm with fingers as strong as pincers, and shouted with successive breaths and eyes igniting with sparks: "Where is she?! Tell me quickly... come on, speak, where exactly is she standing?!"

The man swallowed his saliva dryly with a genuine fear that paralyzed his limbs, and retreated with his torso a little backward for fear of my onslaught. Then he pointed his trembling palm toward a nearby, secluded place, saying in a low voice: "She is there... sitting by herself, sir."

I turned my head with supernatural speed and in the blink of an eye toward the direction he indicated with his finger. My gaze instantly fell upon a slender feminine body sitting in complete calmness at a close distance from me. I could see her back and her smooth brown hair cascading softly and fluidly behind her shoulders in a sight that stole my wavering breath and tightened the noose around my heart.

I advanced toward her with heavy steps, deliberate like a mirage, and felt for the first time in my life that my strong legs could not carry me further from the excess of eagerness, tension, and violent disturbance that paralyzed my limbs and shook my pride.

When I arrived directly behind her back, with the gusts of air moving her strands, I extended my palm with visible, spontaneous trembling, placed my hand gently on her shoulder, and my voice came out raspy, faint, and loaded with the longing and torment of the years: "Julie... "

But the fatal shock descended upon me in that second like a lightning bolt that shatters bones. When the girl turned her body with extreme slowness and raised her head to look into the depth of my eyes with surprised, astonished facial features, she knitted her eyebrows in obvious confusion and said in a dry, strange tone of voice: "Who are you, sir? And whom exactly are you looking for?"

My entire body stiffened in its place as if I had turned into a statue of ice, my color paled with sweeping astonishment, and I retreated with a staggered step backward as if I had received a stab from a poisoned dagger that settled in the middle of my chest and ripped my artery. It was not her... it was indeed not Julie! She was merely another completely strange girl, resembling her only in hair color and form from behind! I brought my palm down with deadly rigidity and detachment, left her without a single word, and turned my exhausted, broken body away. I walked away from her with heavy, despairing steps, my dark eyes extinguished of their last gleam of hope and shrouded in bitter disappointment.

At that critical moment, Ron’s car arrived at high speed and slammed to a halt beside me. He stepped out with hurried paces and stood directly in front of me, his breath interrupted, and asked with eagerness and widened eyes: "Sir... did you find her indeed? Is it Julie?"

I darted a burning, harsh look at him overflowing with blood and murder, and ground out from between my teeth in a terrifying hiss that froze the blood in his veins: "Who... who the hell told you, you cursed idiot, that he found her in the first place?!"

The wretched man who had guided me to her and mistaken her identity in the beginning took a step forward in extreme confusion and dread, lowered his head downward toward the earth, and said in a fearful, trembling voice: "I... I am the one who said that, sir... I thought it was her because of the resemblance from the picture... "

I did not hesitate for a single inch, nor did I allow my mind to think. In the blink of an eye and with a lightning motion, I drew my firearm from my waist, aimed it in cold blood toward his forehead, and a treacherous, roaring bullet crashed through his skull with fatal accuracy. He fell a lifeless corpse wallowing in his blood upon the ground instantly, amidst the gasps of terror, dread, and shock from the rest of my men surrounding the place.

I lowered the weapon very slowly, looked at the rest with red eyes overflowing with madness, and said with a roaring vow: "If this stupid mistake is repeated again regarding her... I will finish you and kill you all in the same manner! Is that understood?!"