"K-Kelsie? Kelsie, are you there? You’re not saying anything. Please say something."
Zoe was on the verge of breaking down as she yelled into the walkie-talkie.
Quietly standing behind her, the burly man waited for some seconds before walking toward her.
"What is it? Did anything happen?" He questioned cluelessly.
Zoe didn’t lift her eyes toward him as she murmured uncertainly.
"I can’t reach my team leader. She said they were trying to race her off the cliff then all of a sudden... all of a sudden she stopped talking and I heard something crashing."
"Now she isn’t responding. I know this is the last lap, but shouldn’t you send someone to see if everything is alright?"
The man first stared down at her before he slowly cleared his throat.
"Don’t be in such a hurry. Sometimes, the communication gets cut off. As you already know, what we use isn’t the best."
"So we’ll have to wait a few more minutes and if we don’t hear anything from her, I’ll have someone go find her."
Zoe quickly shook her head in refusal, looking up at him in panic, "No! That’s too far. If she really got into an accident, the few minutes we’ll be waiting would be the time of her death."
The man didn’t spare her a glass as he casually brushed her off, "It’s protocol that we wait a few minutes before doing anything. We wouldn’t want to raise alarm and burn fuel only to see she’s fine and it was merely a communication issue on her end."
Realizing he was right, she bit down nervously on her lower lip and thought of something else.
"Talk to the other racers. Get on the walkie and ask them if anyone’s seen her."
The burly man thought about it for a moment and bobbed his head in agreement.
If he refused to act on the reasonable suggestions she brought up, it’d only leave room for suspicions which was the last thing his boss wanted.
Hence, he picked up the walkies and spoke into the first one.
"Confirm if there’s been an accident."
The racer’s voice came up almost immediately, "I’m not certain know of it, but I did hear a crash."
Zoe gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth as her eyes filled with tears.
The burly man glanced at her briefly before he switched to the next walkie.
"Can you confirm there’s been an accident"
There was a brief silence from their end.
"It must be the woman. I saw her speeding earlier. She must’ve gone down the cliff."
"Wait, I think i see something burning under here. I’m pulling to a halt now."
The racer stopped talking, a faint rustle coming from his end, shortly followed by a soft click and the sound of his door slamming shut.
After a while, his voice came up again.
"It is. It is the yellow car she was in. It’s down the cliff and burning really badly."
Zoe wiped her tears and grabbed the walkie from the burly man, "Don’t just stand there, go down and pull her out."
The racer retorted almost immediately in a lazy voice.
"If the fall down the cliff didn’t kill her, then the crash did. Either way, going down there is a waste of my time."
"Once the race is over, I’ll have some of my guys come pull her out. We’ll give you whatever piece is left of her."
Zoe’s grip on the walkie tightened as she lashed out angrily, "You don’t get to say that! Until you get down there, you don’t get to say if she’s alive or dead. So you’ll get down there and find her!"
"That won’t happen." Said the burly man as he snatched the walkie from her.
She frowned, "What do you mean?"
He tossed the four walkies on the table beside them before responding.
"Before the race started, we told you the new racers aren’t our men. Frankly speaking, they’re not obligated to get down there."
"I also can’t send any of our racers down there as the way down the cliff is rather dangerous."
The words had just rolled off his tongue when she turned and gripped him tightly by the collar.
"And so what? Hearing the stupid excuses coming out your mouth, I can’t help thinking this is a trap."
"No, right from the start, I knew there was something odd. You wanted this to happen. The ploy all these while was to kill her, wasn’t it?"
The man maintained a straight face as he grabbed her hand on his collar.
"Just this once, I’m going to ask you to calm down."
She clenched her jaw tightly, her brows perking up provocatively, "Or what?"
He exhaled lightly and gently peeled her fingers off his collar.
"I understand how you feel, but what happened today isn’t what any of us expected."
"Go take a seat and I’ll personally go down there to find her. Your friend died during a race hosted by our boss, so I have no doubt he’ll personally compensate you."
"Screw your compensation!" She seethed and turned to grab a plank lying around.
Just when she turned around to hit him with it, the person inside the SUV pushed the door open to come down.
Had it been earlier, Zoe would’ve waited with bated breaths for whoever it was. But now, she was barely able to contain her rage when she saw the so-called boss.
So she changed her course of action.
Pointing the plank at him, she sneered, "You’re the big boss? I don’t care if I die today, but I’m taking you scrawny bastard with me!"
Then she dashed towards him.
No one expected her to make such a daring move, so they were startled and didn’t move an inch until three seconds later.
Despite being chased by over a dozen men, Zoe, pumping with adrenaline and seething with unrestrained rage, somehow managed to outrun every one of them, jumped in front of the boss and brought down the plank hard on the side of his head.
The impact of the hit instantly threw him to the ground.
She towered over him, raised the plank again and was about to throw in another hit when the burly man grabbed and pinned her down.
"Let me go! I’ll kill him! I’ll kill everyone of you!" She screamed angrily, desperately wriggling to get out of his grip.
The boss got on his feet, a hard frown on his face when he realized the warm liquid trickling down the side of his head wouldn’t stop.
He was a youthful-looking man in his thirties with a beautifully shaved goatee and mustache.
Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he snarled angrily, "If she loves her friend so much, toss her down the cliff to die with her."
His words had just fallen when a black BMW pulled into the race track.
Zoe’s eyes trembled in relief seeing a familiar face alight from the driver’s seat and she hurriedly pointed at the boss.
"Mr. Adler, this scrawny little bastard killed team leader!"