Chapter 133 The Missing Brother
The helicopter blades slowly chopped through the freezing air until they finally came to a complete stop.
The loud roar of the engine faded away, leaving only the sound of the harsh wind howling across the cliff edge. Thick snow and frozen dust swirled around the metal cabin. The rotors gave a soft groan as they settled into place.
Inside the cockpit, Dorian sat completely still. His hands were locked tightly onto the controls. His knuckles were bone white from the grip, and his jaw was clenched shut.
He had been flying for hours to get here. It was a brutal journey through rough weather and terrible visibility, but he had finally made it.
He flipped the final switch to kill the engine. The cockpit plunged into a heavy, suffocating quiet.
For a long minute, he just sat there and stared out the front window. The mountains stretched out forever in front of him. They were a wild maze of jagged peaks, deep valleys, and steep slopes covered in endless white snow.
The Silvermist Mountains.
He had not set foot in this place for three long years.
Dorian pushed the heavy door open. The mountain wind hit him instantly. It was sharp, biting cold, and the air was thin enough to make his chest ache. He stepped out of the helicopter and let his heavy boots crunch down onto the frozen ground.
He walked slowly toward the edge of the cliff. The drop in front of him was terrifying. Hundreds of feet below, the bottom of the valley was completely hidden in dark shadows.
He stopped just inches from the edge and looked out at the freezing world.
This was the exact spot where everything ended.
Three years ago, it was supposed to be a simple business trip. A private plane flying through the night with eight people on board.
His older brother, Percy. His sister-in-law, Lydia. The captain, the co-pilot, two security guards, a waiter, and the head of security.
They were flying straight over the Silvermist Mountains when something went terribly wrong. The official reports later claimed it was a mechanical failure, but the details were always blurry. No one really knew what happened in those final minutes.
All anyone knew was that the plane went down.
There were no survivors.
When the news broke, Dorian refused to wait for the local authorities. He put together his own search and rescue team and led them into the mountains. He flat out refused to let anyone else take charge of finding his family.
He made sure he was the very first person on the ground. He was the first one to spot the twisted metal of the wreckage. He was the first one to find the bodies.
On the very first day of the search, they found Atai.
Atai had worked for Percy for years as his head of security. He was a quiet, intensely loyal man who always kept a watchful eye on everything.
They found his body near the main section of the destroyed plane. The crash had been brutal, leaving his face completely unrecognizable. But his dark security uniform was still mostly intact.
Dorian vividly remembered standing over Atai in the snow. He had felt totally numb, staring down at the man, unable to process the horror in front of him.
Atai was never just a security guard to them. He was a trusted friend. He was a confidant. He was the man who had taken a young Dorian to the range and taught him how to shoot his first gun.
And just like that, he was gone.
Dorian and his team had quietly wrapped Atai in a heavy tarp and carried him down the freezing mountain.
The second day was even worse. That was when they found the others.
Lydia was resting near the broken tail section of the plane. Unlike the others, her face looked surprisingly peaceful. If it were not for the wreckage around her, she almost looked like she was just taking a quiet nap in the snow.
When Dorian saw her, his legs gave out. He fell to his knees right beside her in the freezing dirt. His hands shook uncontrollably, and all the words dried up in his throat.
Lydia was the kindest person he had ever met. From the moment she married Percy, she had welcomed Dorian into the family with wide, open arms. She never treated him like an outsider. She treated him like her own blood brother.
He loved her deeply. Not in the romantic way Percy loved her, but with the fierce, protective love a brother has for a sister.
He remembered reaching out and holding her hand. It was freezing cold and entirely empty of life.
Dorian did not sleep at all that night. He just sat alone in his freezing tent, staring blankly at the canvas wall. His mind tortured him by replaying every single memory he had of her. Every conversation they shared. Every bright laugh she had given him.
Later that same day, they found the captain and the co-pilot a few hundred meters away. The impact had broken their bodies terribly. It was a gruesome sight.
Through all of it, Dorian did not shed a single tear. He wanted to, but the shock had frozen him completely solid.
On the third day, the team found the rest of the passengers.
The young waiter had been thrown totally clear of the main wreckage. He was only in his early twenties. Dorian remembered seeing him working at one of Percy’s hotels, always smiling and so excited to be chosen for the private flight.
They found him tangled in a cluster of sharp rocks. His face was frozen forever in a mask of pure terror.
Not far from him, the search team located the two other security guards. They were found lying close together. They had been best friends in life, joining the company on the exact same day, and they had died together on the mountain.
By the time the sun set on the third day, the math was impossible to ignore.
Out of the eight people who boarded that plane, seven bodies had been recovered and identified.
Only one person was still missing.
Percy.
His own brother.
Dorian refused to stop. He forced the search team to keep looking for another full week. He completely refused to give up hope. He hiked through the snow, combing every single inch of the dangerous mountainside. He flew helicopters over the deep valleys day after day, burning through fuel and exhausting his crew.
But they found absolutely nothing.
The mountain had swallowed Percy whole.
Finally, on the eighth day, the harsh weather forced their hand. The search was officially called off, leaving Dorian standing alone with a silence that would haunt him for the rest of his life.