Emily glared at the tattoo on Rylan's wrist. The huge E letter was glaring right back at her.

"How....?"

She did not need to complete her question for the others to understand exactly what she wanted to ask.

Her eyes finally left the tattoo or the guardian mark to be precise as she turned her attention on the six men who were looking at her.

She could tell that almost all of them appeared troubled to some extent, especially Simon, Sam, and Rylan.

The cute guy, or Secretary Kim as she was told, was still trying to convince everyone that he was busy with his work as he continued to work on his tablet.

On the other hand, both Domenic and Kaiden appeared just as indifferent and unbothered by the current situation as they could.

She knew that Domenic was hiding his true emotions behind that cold face of his. After all, he could not risk showing too much emotion in front of his competitor.

Probably the same could be said about Kaiden Sullivan. However, since she was not familiar with him, she could not make any guesses.

"What about your mark?" Rylan suddenly asked as he looked at her with questioning eyes.

"What about it?" Emily immediately asked as her hands gripped the inside of the blazer.

"Are you not going to show it to us....or...at least to me?" Rylan sounded unsure about his question as five pairs of glaring eyes turned towards him.

He could understand why the two Alessandro brothers and Sam were glaring at him. He was not surprised by the bone-chilling glare that he received from the girl.

However, what took him completely off guard was the death glare that he received from no one else but his own brother.

But why was Kaiden glaring at him like he just committed some kind of crime? Or did he actually ended up doing something stupid?

Before anyone else could speak Emily decided to take action as she unbuttoned the blazer and let it slip from over her left shoulder.

Immediately, all the eyes in the room looked at the mark which was clearly visible on her shoulder.

"It sure chose a great place to carve itself."

As soon as those words were out of Mr. Kim's mouth, he started regretting his entire existence.

He needed to make amends before it would be too late for him to regret.

"Look....it was not what I meant to say. For real! What I was trying to say is that a tattoo.....No! No! No! I mean the mark, the guardian mark...yes, this mark should not appear on other parts of the body. I mean it looks much pretty and great on the hands. Like on the wrist just like Master Rylan has. Right? That's exactly what I was trying to imply. I did not mean anything else. Truly!"

It took everything in Emily not to burst out into giggles at the horrified expression on Mr. Kim's face.

The guy was looking so terrified that his face had even turned a little pale. It was like he was afraid that somebody would kill him anytime.

Little did she knew that Mr. Kim was actually afraid of getting killed by his boss.

Somehow, his boss had turned even colder and ruthless in the past few days, and almost all the times when he was in that ruthless form it was due to something related to Miss Alessandro.

"Let's move on to the main point. You called us here for a private meeting. What do you have in your mind?" Domenic diverted everyone's attention as he directed his question at Kaiden.

The seven of them had moved to the center of the room so that everyone could see the mark on Rylan's wrist.

Slowly, both the groups returned to their side of the meeting room, Sullivans occupying the left side while Alessandros taking over the right side.

"In the last twenty-four hours, many things transpired in the city that has brought some changes and new situations." Kaiden started in his velvety voice as he took the tablet from Mr. Kim and pressed on something on the screen.

The next moment a screen appeared in the middle of the room and soon a CCTV footage started to play.

Emily was so shocked after seeing a screen appearing in thin air out of nowhere that she just stared at it with her mouth hanging open.

She sure was not displaying the elegant and confident aura of the Alessandro Princess anymore!

As everyone focused on the footage they soon realized that it was the footage of the Star Xander Mall of the previous day that was stolen from the mall.

After working for a few seconds on the tablet, Kaiden finally hit another icon, and one particular footage took over the entire screen.

Emily recognized herself as she chose the dresses and then asked Joy to settle the bill.

Soon she was watching the entire footage of the incident. The masked man, the shattering of glasses, the appearance of Rylan out of the blue, and then finally the moment when he stabbed her and after doing something strange to her belly, he disappeared.

"What the fuck!"

"You actually did stab me!"

While Sam and Emily shouted out their shock while they both stood up from their seats, Simon was already on the other side of the room.

Emily felt her breathing stop as she watched in horror while Simon grabbed Rylan from the front of his shirt and hauled him up.

She felt her heartbeat accelerating as her lungs started contracting in pain as her eyes followed the punch that was about to hit Rylan right on his face.

And just like that, her surroundings changed. She was no longer in the meeting room with her brothers and Sam. No! She was back at those cold dark dungeons.

The smell of blood took over her senses as the cries for help started entering into her ears.

The sound of metal rattling followed by the laughter of those sick monsters who were probably having another torture episode with some other innocent soul.

Her eyes tried to look around her, to see if she was still in the same cell as she was the previous day.

However, it appeared as if they had once again moved her to a new cell as soon as she fell unconscious the previous night after the extreme torture through which she went through.

It should have become normal for her by now. It had been ages since she was first brought to this place, ages since she was being tortured every other night.

She was sure that the marks of torture that were covering her entire body would have turned her previously beautiful form into a hideous sight.

Since they had their fun with her the previous night, she would probably get three to four days before they would again look for her.

The thought made her relax a little. But soon that familiar musical voice entered into her ears.

She turned her head towards the source and sure enough, there she was. The beauty in her elegant red dress.

She was about four to five years older than Emily but the maturity that she had in her eyes made her look like someone who had lived for a long time and had experienced the cruelty of the world and life.

"Why are you here again? Can't you just stop following me? I'm tired of looking at you every time I open my eyes." Emily could not help but complain as she turned her face away from the beauty.

"He's going to cherish you. He will never fail you. I'm sure you will finally be able to bring his soul to peace and fill his life with love and happiness."

Emily wanted to groan out loud as once again those similar words entered into her ears. The girl was about to drive her crazy very soon.

"I told you not to speak that nonsense in front of me. I'm not a fan of such cheesy poetry. Can you please find someone else to kill?" The frustration was clear in Emily's tone.

She was always bratty and her offensive mode was always on. Even though she was beaten hundreds of times, forget it.....probably thousands of times, for this bratty attitude of hers, she just could not help but still stick to that same attitude which brings most of her problem dragging towards her.

The pretty girl chuckled at Emily's words as she slowly shook her head.

"I'll get you out of here real soon. Just hang on for a little bit more and I promise....."

Before she could complete her sentence, Emily decided to cut her off in the middle.

"Listen! When I said that I'm tired of you, I meant that I'm tired of your face, your voice, your stupid poetry, and most importantly your fake promises. You have been making that promise ever since you first found me here a couple of months ago and I'm still here. Moreover, you are one of them and I don't trust you. So just get lost."

Saying that Emily decided to close her eyes and take a quick rest before the food arrived. If she failed to collect the bun and glass of water at the time of its arrival, she would need to wait for the next serving of the food.

And they only received food two times a day. Once in the morning and another in the evening.

No way was she going to stay hungry for such long hours because of a stupid teenage girl!