Mafia Lord's Mute Sweetheart

Chapter 182: Chapter 182 Colardo Bridge?

Rafael’s grin became even wider when he noticed Alessio’s fingers pause over the keyboard. That tiny reaction was all the confirmation he needed.

"Oh, come on, bro," Rafael said, stretching the words deliberately. "You don’t even have to answer. Your face already answered for you."

Alessio slowly lifted his eyes from the laptop.

Rafael immediately smiled innocently. "What?"

Alessio said nothing. Instead, he reached for the pen lying beside his laptop and soon the pen flew across the room. It hit Rafael lightly on the shoulder.

"Ouchhh!" Rafael dramatically dropped his apple onto the couch and grabbed his shoulder as though he had just been shot. "Violence! In my own company!"

Alessio calmly returned his attention to the laptop. "Then stop talking."

Rafael stared at him in disbelief before slowly picking up the pen. "You threw a pen at me because I mentioned her."

"I threw it because you were irritating me."

"Same thing."

"It isn’t."

Rafael’s grin returned. "So there is a her."

Alessio’s jaw tightened.

Rafael immediately raised both hands. "Okay, okay. I’m silent."

He lasted approximately three seconds. "Does she know you’re coming here because of her?"

Alessio picked up another pen.

Rafael instantly ducked behind the couch. "ALRIGHT! I’m silent!"

A faint smirk finally appeared at the corner of Alessio’s lips. The expression was small, barely noticeable.

Rafael peeked over the back of the couch. "Oh, you’re smiling now."

The smirk disappeared immediately.

Rafael laughed, his voice echoing through the office. "Too late, bro. I saw it."

❀┈┈┈┈❀

For the next two days, Daisy quietly kept her distance from Cedric.

She wasn’t deliberately being rude to him, nor did she completely ignore him but she stopped giving him the extra attention she had been giving him at the hospital. She would speak to him through gestures when necessary, answer his questions politely and then return to whatever she was doing.

Cedric, however, was behaving weirdly.

Every now and then, she would catch him looking at her with an unreadable expression, as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite decide how to begin.

It made Daisy feel strangely uncomfortable.

She couldn’t understand what he wanted. After everything that had happened between them, she didn’t want to interpret every little look he gave her. She had already made her decision about their marriage, and she didn’t want herself to become emotionally confused again simply because Cedric had started behaving differently after his accident.

So whenever she caught him looking at her, she simply shook the thought away and focused on something else.

Her work, at least, was much easier to understand.

Daisy became increasingly busy at the laboratory, spending most of her time refining the formula she had been working on. She carefully checked her calculations, rewrote several sections of her report and added notes wherever she thought she needed stronger evidence before presenting the idea to the manager. She wanted everything to be perfect before she took the proposal forward.

At the same time, another little project occupied her thoughts whenever she wasn’t working.

Grandpa James’s birthday was getting closer.

Daisy had started preparing his gift. She wanted to make it personal, something that would remind him of her rather than something that simply looked expensive. Every evening, she would spend a little time working on it, carefully choosing the details and making small adjustments until everything felt right. She had gathered supplies, sketched out ideas and refined her plan until it felt just right.

Sometimes, while preparing it, she would smile to herself as she imagined Grandpa James’s reaction. She knew he would probably become emotional.

And that alone made all the effort worth it.

Between the laboratory, her unfinished formula, and Grandpa James’s birthday gift, Daisy had enough to keep herself occupied. Her days were full, her mind busy and her hands never idle.

Still, despite all her efforts to keep her mind focused, there was one particular person who occasionally slipped into her thoughts without permission.

A certain tall man with green eyes and a permanently composed expression.

Daisy would immediately shake her head and return to her work.

❀┈┈┈┈❀

"Did you find anything more about that dubbing artist?"

Alessio’s voice was calm but the temperature in the room seemed to drop the moment he spoke. He sat at the head of the table in the private investigation room, one hand resting against the armrest while his other hand remained loosely folded over his knee. His green eyes were cold and intensely focused on the men standing before him. The dim lighting cast sharp shadows across his face, making his expression even more unreadable.

One of his personal investigators opened the file in his hand. "Yes, boss. We dug further."

He placed several photographs and documents on the table. "That artist was last seen near Colardo Bridge."

Alessio’s eyes immediately narrowed. "Colardo Bridge?"

"Yes." The investigator nodded. "But there’s a problem. Nobody actually saw her face clearly. The footage we managed to recover only shows her from a distance and the quality is too poor to identify her."

Alessio leaned forward slightly. "When was this?"

"About three and a half years ago."

"And the bridge?"

"It was blocked shortly afterward."

Alessio frowned. "Blocked?"

"Yes. It was officially closed because of some incident around that period, and as far as we can determine, it was never properly reopened or repaired."

After five seconds of silence, Alessio’s fingers tapped once against the armrest. "So the bridge was abandoned?"

"More or less."

"Why?"

The investigator hesitated. "That part is difficult."

Alessio’s eyes lifted toward him. "Difficult?"

"There are rumors that the incident was connected to the son of a very powerful political figure. Nothing was officially reported and most of the records surrounding it are either incomplete or strangely difficult to access."

Alessio’s expression hardened. "A political figure’s son?"

"Yes. We couldn’t confirm exactly who was involved. The people who knew something aren’t willing to talk and some of the older records disappeared."

Alessio leaned back, his expression becoming even more thoughtful. "So someone went to considerable effort to bury whatever happened there."

"That seems to be the case."

Alessio looked at the old blurry photographs again. The figures were indistinct, little more than shadows in the grainy footage. But something about the scene nagged at him, a feeling he couldn’t quite name.

"Keep digging," he said.

The investigators nodded. "Yes, boss."

One of them hesitated before speaking again. "Boss..."