Virgin At 25-Chapter 96: THE END OF THE BEGINNING!

THIRD PERSON POV

Maxie didn’t even let Tory finish.

She just shook her head, eyes blazing with disbelief.

"Yeah. Sure. Diana is the demon of the family. Right."

She scoffed hard. "I don’t believe you."

"Maxie..."

"Save it." She shut him out, her hands raised. She turned her back on him and walked away, already dialing again.

"Come on, Zion... pick. Please pick." But the call still didn’t go through

Her legs were shaking but she kept moving, muttering, "I don’t have time for any confused Langley story today."

Behind her, Tory stood completely frozen, like she’d slapped the truth out of his mouth.

He watched her walk off.

Watched her desperation.

Watched her fear.

His jaw clenched, then he spun around, marched straight to his car, got in, and slammed the door.

The tires screeched as he sped off... straight past her.

Maxie paused mid-street, staring after the car in disbelief.

"Wow," she muttered. "What the hell is wrong with that one?"

She shook her head aggressively.

Then kept walking.

Kept calling.

Kept breaking.

Tory drove straight to the Langley estate but everything sat quiet...

Too silent.

Tory stepped through the front doors, and the first person he saw was Mrs. Venn, the old housekeeper.

She jumped slightly when she saw him. "Master Tory, you’re home."

"Where’s everyone?" he asked immediately.

Mrs. Venn swallowed.

"Your father... left the house two hours ago. Your mother too. She left with Mrs. Diana."

Tory’s eyes narrowed...

Mrs. Venn shifted nervously.

"Is... is there a problem, sir?"

Tory forced a small, tight breath.

"No. You can go. If I need you, I’ll call."

She hesitated but nodded and hurried off.

The silence that followed was thick, wrong and heavy.

Tory stood in the middle of the living room for a long moment, eyes distant, mind racing.

Then... slowly... he turned toward his father’s study.

The door was slightly open. Just slightly. He didn’t think much of it but it felt unusual too, every instinct in him screamed don’t.

So he turned, started walking away. Midway he abruptly stopped, his breath caught.

And then he spun around and rushed back, shoving the study door open with one hard push.

The room was dim.

Cold.

And in the center, there was a man tied to a chair, head hanging, wrists bound, blood dried on the side of his face.

Ace sitting unconscious and bruised

Tied up like an animal.

Tory stumbled back a step, air punching out of his lungs, and awkwardly gave out a chuckle

"It is this serious...?"

Back at the cliff, the wind howled against the cliff a little too strong.

Victor Langley stood at the very edge, tall and immovable, his long coat snapping violently behind him. Below, the ocean crashed against jagged rocks, furious, loud, endless. The kind of waters that swallowed secrets without hesitation.

Flashlights flickered across the cliffside. Men in black tactical gear spread out in precise formation, scanning the terrain, shouting commands, securing ropes, sending drones over the churning waves.

But not one of them dared look Victor in the eye.

He had not spoken since he arrived.

He didn’t need to.

His presence alone was enough to crush the air out of the night.

A man approached cautiously, helmet under his arm, boots crunching on gravel.

"Sir..." he said, voice tight. "We swept the entire drop. The currents are strong, but..." He hesitated. "There’s no body."

Victor didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

The man swallowed hard.

"No trace of her in the water."

A muscle ticked in Victor’s jaw. The only sign of emotion he allowed.

Another man, older, more seasoned stepped forward.

"We’ve deployed sonar scanners, sir. Nothing."

He paused. "The impact should..."

Victor cut him off with a slow turn of his head. Just a look.

The man shut up instantly.

After a long, heavy silence, Victor finally spoke, his voice low, quiet, and slicing through the wind like a blade.

"You said she fell not vanish into thin air."

The men froze.

The leader of the search party approached slowly. He was the same man who had exchanged harsh words with Aec moments before the car went flying off the cliff.

"Sir," he began, clearing his throat as if trying to gather courage. "The police were here earlier... but... they didn’t find her body."

Victor’s eyes shifted toward him cold, sharp, warning.

"And what exactly," Victor asked, voice low, "am I supposed to do with that useless information?"

The man swallowed. "W-we’re still searching"

"No." Victor stepped closer, towering over him. "What you’re doing is repeating the police. You are not the police." His tone cut through the night like a blade. "I pay you to give me something better. Something useful. A lead. A direction. Anything that isn’t stupidity dressed as an update."

The leader stiffened, bowing his head. "Yes, sir. I understand."

Victor turned away, jaw tight, ready to leave the clearing. His patience was almost gone, and the men could feel the temperature of the night drop with his every step.

Then a scream cut through the forest.

Sharp. Panicked. Echoing.

"Sir! Sir!! We, we found a body!"

Every head jerked up. Flashlights whipped toward the voice.

Victor froze mid-step.

The silence afterward was so heavy it felt like the trees were holding their breath.

Slowly, very slowly, Victor turned back around.

"Where?" he demanded, his voice suddenly deadly calm.

The man who screamed appeared at the edge of the hill, breathless, eyes wide with shock.

"Down by the riverbed," he said, pointing with a trembling hand. "It’s a woman. We... we found a woman’s body."

Victor pushed through the bushes without waiting for anyone to lead him. The men scrambled after him, their boots sliding against the damp soil as they descended the slope toward the riverbed.

The body lay half-submerged near the rocks, the current gently nudging it back and forth. A faint beam of light flickered over the figure as the men gathered, their heavy breaths mixing with the hiss of the water.

Victor stopped a few steps away.

The woman’s body was twisted unnaturally from the fall. Clothes torn. Skin bruised. Her face... almost unrecognizable and swollen, scraped, bloodied in a way that made it impossible to identify features at first glance.

One of the men stepped back nervously, clearing the way for him.

Victor reached into the inner pocket of his coat.

Slow. Deliberate.

He pulled out a scarf, soft, delicate, patterned with faded embroidery.

He held it between two fingers, staring at it with a cold, unreadable expression.

"Put this around her neck," he ordered quietly.

The men exchanged looks. None of them moved at first until the squad leader swallowed hard and obeyed. He knelt beside the lifeless body and carefully tied the scarf around the bruised neck.

His hands trembled.

When he stood, he cleared his throat and said cautiously, "S-Sir... this is the scarf we found on her neck the day we took her. You said it belonged to Mrs. Catherine... Master Aec’s mother."

Victor slowly lifted his gaze to the man.

A stare colder than the river itself.

The leader’s voice faltered.

"I... I only meant... you recognized it, back then. You said..."

Victor’s expression hardened like stone.

One sharp, furious glare.

And the man’s words died in his throat.

Without saying another word, Victor turned away from the corpse, from the men, from the river, and began walking back up the slope, his steps slow, but burning with controlled rage.

No one dared follow until he disappeared behind the trees.

Only then did the men exhale, the weight of his silence sinking over them like a curse.