Chapter 675: The names

Felix had been quiet for long enough that Dayo could no longer sit still.

He was standing near the window of the room, staring outside without really seeing anything. The city continued moving as usual, cars passing below and people going about their day, while his daughter was somewhere he could not reach. Every minute that passed without news made it harder to keep his thoughts under control.

Felix finally closed the laptop halfway and looked at him.

"I’ve finished checking the connections."

Dayo turned around immediately. "Okay. Tell me. Who are the people? You should let me know who we’re dealing with."

Felix did not answer right away. Instead, he opened the laptop again and turned it toward Dayo.

"You should see this yourself."

Dayo walked over.

Two names were displayed on the screen.

Michael Erickson.

Silas Vane.

For a moment, Dayo did not move.

His head fell back slightly as he stared at the ceiling. He had spent months pulling apart everything connected to those two men. Companies had been exposed. Money had been traced. People who once protected them had started turning away. He had taken his time because he wanted them to lose everything piece by piece.

Now those same names were sitting in front of him because his daughter had been taken.

"Fuck."

Felix watched him carefully.

Dayo pulled a chair closer and sat down. His hands rested on his knees while he tried to make sense of how the two men had ended up at the center of this.

"How did you connect them?"

Felix brought up the first set of documents. "The investigation they told you to interfere with is connected to an IRS case. I followed the information from the investigation and found one line leading toward Silas. Another part led toward Michael."

Dayo looked at the screen.

"At first, I thought that could still be coincidence," Felix continued. "Different companies can appear in the same investigation for different reasons. So I went further."

He opened another file.

"The company that contacted Luna about that collaboration. I checked where their money came from. Some of the funds used for the offer were transferred through one of Silas’s backup companies."

Dayo’s expression changed.

"They paid for the collaboration?"

"Not directly from Silas to Luna’s team. The money went through another company first. From there, it was used to support the offer and the project they presented to Luna."

Felix switched back to the timeline they had been building.

"Then look at what happened around the same period. Bella was removed from the house because of that emergency call. Luna was taken out for the meeting. Wayne’s phone was compromised. You were pulled back to the office. Jennifer was left without the protection she normally had around her."

He paused and looked at Dayo.

"Someone planned all of those things together."

Dayo stared at the timeline.

He remembered Bella calling him and telling him she had to leave because her family had been involved in an accident. He remembered telling her to go because he had already been heading home. He remembered Luna calling him about the collaboration. He remembered the message from Wayne’s phone and how quickly he had turned the car around.

At the time, every part of it had looked separate.

Now it didn’t.

Felix leaned back slightly. "Looking at all of it together, I don’t think this is coincidence anymore."

Dayo kept looking at the screen.

"It’s them," he said quietly.

Felix did not argue.

The conclusion was difficult to avoid.

Dayo stood and walked toward the other side of the room. His thoughts went straight to the months he had spent dealing with Michael and Silas.

He had known they were dangerous. He had known they had people, money and influence. He had also known that he had enough information to hurt them badly.

There had been several moments when he could have pushed harder.

Instead, he had chosen to take his time.

He wanted Michael to watch his position weaken. He wanted Silas to lose the protection he had spent years building. Every company that fell, every connection that disappeared, every person who stopped answering their calls had been part of a larger plan.

Dayo wanted them to understand that they were losing.

He wanted them to feel it.

That decision now looked different.

"I could have ended this months ago," he said.

Felix looked at him but allowed him to continue.

"I had the information. I had enough to put more pressure on them. I could have finished it instead of taking my time."

His voice remained low, but the anger underneath it was clear.

"I wanted them to lose everything slowly. Their money, their companies, their influence, the people who respected them. I wanted them to know what it felt like to have nothing left."

Dayo looked down at his hands.

"Now Jennifer is the one paying for it."

Felix pushed his chair back and stood.

"Don’t do that."

Dayo looked at him.

"Don’t blame yourself for everything that happened after you went home," Felix said. "You left work because you wanted to spend time with your family. That’s not some stupid decision."

"I should have known they would go after them."

"You didn’t know they were going to kidnap Jennifer."

"I knew they were dangerous."

"That doesn’t mean you could predict this."

Dayo rubbed his face and looked away. He knew Felix was right, but knowing it did not make the guilt disappear.

Felix walked over and stopped a short distance from him.

"Calm down, bro. I understand how you feel, but right now that’s not what we need. We need a way out."

Dayo remained quiet.

"Now we know who the culprits are," Felix continued. "So we have something we didn’t have before. We can work with that. You deal with the people holding Jennifer. I’ll keep working on Michael and Silas and the second demand."

Dayo looked back at the laptop.

"What exactly do you want to find?"

"Everything I can. Why they chose that investigation. What they want you to stop. How that company connects to them. And where Jennifer could have been taken."

Dayo nodded slowly.

Felix pointed toward the phone on the desk. "You need to keep dealing with the calls. Don’t let them know we’ve figured out who they are. If they think you’re still confused, they’ll keep talking."

Dayo picked up the phone and checked the screen.

"I’ll do that."

"We also need to be careful about Jennifer. We can’t rush in without knowing where she is."

"I know."

Felix returned to the laptop.

The door opened.

Luna walked inside.

She looked exhausted. Her hair was slightly untidy, and the fear from the last few hours had not left her face. Amanda had brought her back as quickly as possible after the meeting, and Luna had barely spoken since arriving home.

She had expected to find Dayo alone.

Instead, she heard Felix say something before he noticed her.

"Michael and Silas are behind it."

Luna stopped.

Dayo turned.

She looked from him to Felix, then back to Dayo.

"What did you say?"

Neither man answered immediately.

Luna stepped farther into the room. "I heard Michael. And Silas."

Dayo looked at the floor for a second.

Felix closed the laptop.

Luna already understood.

Her face changed as the meaning reached her. She had known those names for months. She had watched Dayo deal with them, watched him collect information and slowly tear apart the protection around them.

More than once, she had told him to finish it.

She had wanted the problem gone because she wanted a normal life with him and Jennifer. She did not want to spend every few weeks hearing about another company connected to Michael or another person connected to Silas.

Now Jennifer was missing.

Luna’s voice shook when she spoke. "You knew they were dangerous."

Dayo looked at her.

"You knew what they were capable of," she continued. "I told you before. I told you to finish this. I told you to make all of it go away."

"Luna..."

"You kept saying you had a plan. You kept saying you wanted to take your time."

Her voice rose as the fear inside her finally broke through.

"I asked you to stop letting this continue. I told you that I didn’t want these people anywhere near us."

Dayo did not interrupt.

Luna wiped at her face, but the tears kept coming.

"And now Jennifer is gone."

The words came out louder than the rest.

"And now you’ve brought this hell onto my daughter."

Dayo went still.

It was not the accusation that hurt the most.

It was the word "my."

He understood why she had said it. She was terrified. She had just learned that the people she had feared for months had taken her child. Anger was coming from the same place as the fear.

Still, hearing Luna call Jennifer her daughter while separating him from that sentence cut deeper than he expected.

Dayo could have defended himself.

He could have reminded her why he had made those decisions.

He could have told her that he had never expected them to go after Jennifer.

None of it mattered right now.

He looked at Luna for a moment, then quietly walked past her and left the room.

Luna did not stop him.

Felix watched the door close behind Dayo. He wanted to say something, but Luna was already crying again, and there was nothing useful he could add.

Outside, Dayo stopped in the hallway.

He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

"My daughter."

The words remained in his head.

He understood why Luna had said them, but it still hurt.

For a few seconds, he allowed himself to feel it. Then he looked toward the room where Felix and Luna were and remembered why none of this could wait.

Jennifer was still missing.

Whatever had happened between him and Luna could be dealt with later.

His daughter could not.

Across the city, Michael was still waiting for an update.

The intermediary called first.

"How is it going?" Michael asked.

The man on the other end answered carefully. "He’s working toward the second demand."

"Did he resist?"

"No. He didn’t refuse."

Michael sat back in his chair. "Good. Keep watching him."

"I will."

"Don’t make contact unless you’re supposed to. Follow the instructions exactly."

The intermediary agreed before the call ended.

Michael waited for a few seconds before calling Silas.

The call connected after several rings.

"Any news?" Silas asked.

"He’s working on it."

Silas was quiet for a moment. "Did he say anything about the demand?"

"Nothing that matters. He hasn’t refused."

"Then we wait."

Michael looked toward the window of the room he was in, though his mind was somewhere else.

"He’ll probably try to understand why we’re asking for this."

"Let him."

Michael nodded even though Silas could not see him.

Neither man knew that Felix had already connected the second demand to the IRS investigation.

Neither knew that Dayo had seen their names on the screen.

They believed the pressure was working exactly as planned.

,***

Back at the house, Dayo returned to the room after several minutes.

Felix was still at the laptop. Luna sat quietly on the sofa, her hands folded together while she tried to control herself.

Dayo did not mention what had happened in the hallway.

He simply walked over to Felix.

"Anything else?"

Felix looked at the screen. "I’m still checking the financial trail. There are more connections, but I don’t want to give you something until I’m sure."

Dayo pulled a chair closer.

"Take your time."

Felix glanced at him. "You sure?"

"No," Dayo answered honestly. "But Jennifer needs us to be careful."

Felix turned back to the laptop.

For the first time since the kidnapping, Dayo knew exactly who they were dealing with.

Michael Erickson.

Silas Vane.

The men he had spent months trying to destroy were the same men now holding his daughter.

He could not attack them openly.

Not yet.

Jennifer was still in their hands, and until he knew where she was, every move had to be measured.

For Michael and Silas, the plan was still going the way they wanted.

For Dayo, the situation had changed completely.

He was no longer trying to find an unknown enemy.

He knew their names now.

And that meant the fight had entered a different stage.