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After Amos had made the request to rescue the girl he loved, Mr. Black had of course made his subordinates escalate the investigation on the issue, though what they could discover was still quite limited thanks to the strengthened security of the Miller Restaurant.
Mr. Black's assistant pushed up his glasses. "Crystal Miller's freedom does not seem to be restricted in any way. Although there seem to be certain people protecting her, and recently even the White family's youngest daughter accompanies her personally, which is strange."
The buff man hummed in thought, indicating him to continue.
The assistant had wanted to mention that perhaps the information his boss got was wrong, but considering how he had fucked up with the matter of the commissioner last time, he didn't dare to do any more or less than he was told. "The girl's mother, from our investigation, does not seem to leave the house at all. Her movements are mostly limited to just the third floor of the restaurant, which is the residential area, though she does sometimes come down to the ground floor."
Mr. Black looked a little interested. "So she never leaves the place?"
The assistant shook his head. "From what we observed, no. Either she is a true homebody, or her movements are heavily restricted."
"Any regular visitors?"
"Aside from the guests, there seem to be only three."
The secretary placed pushed forward three files, containing the profiles of Dixie, her mother, and Emilia.
The hero's father could tell who they were with just a glance at the picture on top, having already investigated Emilia before, and tapped his finger on the desk for a while before nodding. "Alright, what about the security around the place? How does it look?"
The assistant looked a little awkward. "W-We couldn't confirm it fully, but before the White family's daughter moved in, there were already around a hundred armed personnel, many armed with automatic weapons."
"And now?"
"N-Now there seem to be at least twice as many."
Mr. Black sighed. With this kind of lineup, it was already impossible to just march in and grab anyone.
It was not that he couldn't muster up a similar force, it was just that if they fought like that, they would very quickly be facing the military instead. Neither he nor his rival would benefit from that, and Mr. Black didn't want to shoot himself in the foot just to blame his rival.
As for capturing her on the way to school, that was even more impossible.
Although there would be fewer people protecting her at that time, they would be on a much higher level of alert. And the risk of accidentally killing the girl would also be much higher.
Not to mention the absolute mayhem that would be caused by doing such a thing in public. Mr. Black was simply not willing to bear such repercussions just to fulfill a single promise to his son.
However, making a business deal was, of course, very much within reason.
Mr. Black didn't know for what reason the owner of the Brown's confectioneries stuck so close to the Miller woman, perhaps they got along quite well, but that didn't matter to him.
In any case, he had no intention of harming the woman, so even if Mrs. Brown got along with her, there was no reason for her to be against cooperating with him.
Of course, this was based upon the reports he received on Mrs. Brown herself, supposedly a free spirit who often made ruthless business decisions. Under her leadership, the Brown family's confectionery company had grown from almost nothing to now being able to compete with several international brands.
It was no small feat, but of course, she was still no more than an ant in front of the Black Tiger Corporation. If he truly wanted to, he could easily crush both her and her company.
Interestingly enough, the woman seemed to have set her daughter to get into the good graces of the White family's little girl.
Of course, Mr. Black thought that it was a good strategy to take a big leap forward, as long as it could clear the way for a major deal in the future. It showed how the woman wouldn't hesitate to use her own daughter to further her goals.
Mr. Black didn't take long to make a decision. Wasting time wasn't his style, so he immediately instructed his secretary to arrange a meeting with Mrs. Brown.
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One of the primary reasons Emilia had decided to investigate the case of Michelle along with Crystal was to let the girl discover her own 'hidden talent', and as she did so, Emilia could work on getting rid of whatever mental abnormality she was going through as well.
Of course, Emilia was well aware that there was a limit to how much the heroine would be willing to just believe in her words. If she truly wanted to make her shine, she would have to show Crystal how capable she was.
This was why she had just been looking for an opportunity, and this was exactly it.
After telling the heroine to wait outside the room, Emilia locked the door and moved in front of the seemingly paralyzed Michelle.
Given that the girl had refused to speak or move until now, even when Crystal had repeatedly made it clear that she was here to help, Emilia knew that if she tried to do the same thing, nothing would change.
However, she was not Crystal, the pure-hearted heroine who only believed in doing good.
There were things she could do that Crystal couldn't even think of doing.
With her extremely short brown hair and dull black eyes, the girl on the bed looked quite similar to a skinny boy, which was quite a sharp contrast to the bob cut and vibrant face with chubby cheeks in her picture on the file.
Emilia simply stared back at the girl's uninterested face for a few minutes, and then she smiled. "How about… we make a deal?"
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~ To be continued ~
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DustyDream: This is the regular chapter. A bonus chapter should be up within an hour or so, once I'm done editing it.
Thank you for all your support!