Chapter 238: Paranoid?
Ryan’s POV
Things were going great in Ryan’s world. He had managed to save Vivian from her ex and she was doing much better. She was even able to speak now, having said her first words a few days back.
With all of that he should have been on cloud nine, with nothing able to dampen his mood. Yet Ryan was anything but happy.
He was uneasy, and no matter what he did he just could not let go of his disquiet. Instead the anxiety within him was growing and growing, and he had no idea how to squash it.
Things were not making any sense. Vivian had been attacked by her ex, an attack that Ryan had managed to stop. Gwendolyn and Bryce now knew that Vivian had survived thanks to his press conference. That should have rattled them somewhat. The two of them should have been on the attack or at the very least looking for a chance to strike again.
But so far there had been absolutely nothing.
It was strange.
Ryan had had Gwendolyn Stuart the fourth disowned. Even if she had some extra cash like he suspected, she should have been fuming and lashing out like a cornered animal, making mistakes that would make it easy for Ryan to track her down and teach her a lesson. And yet the way that things were going did not meet that narrative at all. With the injuries Bryce had received wherever he had gone to lick his wounds, he should have already resurfaced. His injuries forcing him to seek help. Without much money Gwendolyn would not have been able to find somebody to treat him, ( black market doctors did not come cheap). Yet still there was nothing.
What was he missing?
***
"Is it possible that her father is still giving her something? Even if she had some money hidden, surely with her spending habits it should have run out by now," Mark shook his head.
"On that front I can positively say the answer is no. I have had my ear to the ground for quite some time. No one has noticed any transactions from Henry Stuart’s account going towards unexplained expenses. So that is a definite no,"
Sighing Ryan buried his face in his hands, then he looked back at his friend. "How am I so bad at this?"
Mark gave him a worried look, "Bad at what?" His friend asked. Straightening, he looked over at the other man, "At protecting Vivian," He replied, unable to keep the defeat that he was feeling from his tone.
"By now I should have long handled this situation. I should be able to hold her after she’s had a nightmare and reassure her that it was just a bad dream. That Bryce and Gwendolyn have been captured and can no longer hurt her. But I can’t because it’s not true. Why am I failing at this? How can she ever be safe if I’m so awful at being her protector?"
Without a word, Mark picked up a piece of paper from Ryan’s desk. Then he balled it up and before Ryan could even blink the other man threw it and hit Ryan right on the forehead.
"Hey! What was that for?" Ryan asked is he glared at his friend, his fingers rubbing at the spot where the projectile had landed. Mark gave him an unrepentant look. "That was for speaking down on yourself. Gwendolyn and Bryce are not on the loose because you are letting them be free. You are literally searching in the dark without any clues whatsoever. So cut yourself some slack,"
His hand dropping from his forehead, Ryan looked helplessly at his friend. "How can I cut myself some slack when Vivian nearly lost her life, and had to fight to get her voice back. Most nights she has these horrible nightmares and I can barely help her because I’m having my own while laying next to her. Just how am I supposed to go easy on myself when I see all of the ways in which my failure to handle the situation is negatively affecting her?!" Instead of throwing another piece of paper at him like Ryan had been half expecting his friend to do, Mark instead got to his feet.
"Come on," He said and Ryan found himself following the other man out of his study without another word, curious to see where his friend wanted them to go.
***
As it turned out, Mark’s magical location was the gym, and Ryan had to admit the man was on to something. As he lay into his punching bag, (it was the more durable one that he’d recently gone into producing and it was holding up well). Ryan felt more and more of his frustrations ease as he continued to hit the bag, his best friend supporting it on the other side.
By the time that he finally felt less stressed, his entire shirt was drenched in sweat and his arms were aching. Taking a seat on a nearby bench, he gratefully accepted a bottle of water from Mark when the other man offered it to him. Uncapping his own bottle, Mark took a drink and then looked down at Ryan.
"So, what conclusions have you come to while you were boxing?" Taking a gulp of his water, Ryan shared a theory that he had not been wanting to entertain, but it now seemed to be the most plausible one.
"Despite being cut off, the way that she is moving points to Gwendolyn still having access to a significant amount of wealth. That means I have to go back to considering her a serious threat instead of just a nuisance. Wherever she is, she is not desperate for cash, that makes her even more of a threat," It was a worst case scenario, a scorned Gwendolyn who still had the material wealth to come after him. But he’d rather be on the lookout for that than being blissfully ignorant in thinking that she was limited in her attacks due to poverty.