Love Me Back (Amelia and Daniel) novel Chapter 332

Before Ruby could even scream, a man in a surgical mask clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her into another van.

She was terrified, but she didn’t cry or struggle. She understood that sobbing would do no good—if anything, it might just provoke the men in the van, and she didn’t want to find out what would happen then.

Her lips pressed tightly together as the masked man tore off a strip of tape, ready to cover her mouth. He seemed to expect her to put up a fight, but to his surprise, she sat there, astonishingly quiet.

“Think she’s in shock?” the driver called from the front, slamming his foot on the gas as they sped away.

“Probably,” the masked man replied, glancing down at the little girl—she couldn’t be more than five or six, with an angelic face. Since she wasn’t making a fuss, he taped her mouth and tied her wrists with a gentler touch, not even securing the knots too tightly.

Ruby’s eyes darted around, taking in her surroundings. The van was ordinary, nothing special. The two men didn’t stand out either, but she forced herself to remember every detail she could. The driver, for example, held a cigarette between the fingers of his left hand, and his right ear was oddly shaped, as if a small piece were missing. The masked man’s eyes were cloudy, and a faded scar ran along the tail end of his left eyebrow.

She also memorized some of the road signs, though she couldn’t read most of the words yet. Instead, she focused on landmarks: they drove onto an overpass, passing a striking silver-gray skyscraper with a bold chrome logo on the roof—she didn’t know what the letters meant. After exiting the overpass, they passed a shopping mall. Ruby remembered going there with her mom once.

Inside that same silver building, Daniel had just wrapped up a core strategy meeting with the executive team when his assistant hurried in and knocked on the conference room door.

“Mr. Campbell, you have a call.”

Daniel didn’t even look up from the project files in front of him, his brow furrowing. “You see I’m busy. If it’s not urgent, take a message.”

“It’s your wife. She sounded really anxious.”

In an instant, Daniel snatched the phone out of his assistant’s hand. “Why didn’t you bring this in sooner?”

The assistant muttered to himself—strict rule, no devices allowed in the boardroom, and he’d already been chewed out for coming in after the meeting ended. If he’d interrupted at the wrong moment, he’d have been in serious trouble.

Daniel motioned for him to gather the paperwork and take it to his office, then started dialing back as he walked out.

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