Chapter 242

---- Chapter 242 "Hello, Don." Tony's voice came through the phone, breathless and a little shaky with excitement. ''The DNA result for that body we found by the river is out. The cops said there's no parent-child relationship between me and the remains!" "What do you mean?" Donovan asked, confused. "It means the body they pulled out of the water wasn't Giselle's. It's possible that whoever was thrown in wasn't her at all!" After hearing that, Donovan felt as if his heart was about to leap out of his chest. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Are you sure?

Could the forensic team have made a mistake? " he asked hoarsely. "I'm positive!" Tony chirped. "I'm a doctor, Don. know how these tests work. The samples were handled with extreme care. There's no way it's wrong!" Donovan drew in a deep breath and felt as if a sliver of light had pierced the darkness around him. Then, he went to the cops again to ask for updates. The cops told him the kidnappers had already fled overseas, anda specialized task force was on their trail.

---- However, the kidnappers were highly skilled in counter- surveillance and had planned everything meticulously in advance. Catching them on foreign soil would be extremely difficult. For now, the authorities had only uncovered a few leads. Getting answers about Giselle's whereabouts from these people would be close to impossible. Giselle had lost track of how many days had passed since she was abducted. She had no idea how many times she'd been traded from one group to another or which remote corner of the world she was in. All she knew was that she'd been taken to yet another destination.

Under the watch of a group of thugs, she was herded into a squat building along with several other young foreign women. They were driven into a sealed room and locked inside. The men who ran the place were all armed and vicious- looking. None of them seemed Valantian -some looked like they were from Indara, others from Malithorn, Sithora, or Luvarra , perhaps even Solmara. There were even a few dark- skinned men. Meanwhile, among the women brought here, only Giselle and a few others were Valantian.

The rest were mostly foreigners -every one of them young and beautiful, many of them ---- barely out of their teens, their eyes wide with fear. Ever since the night she'd been kidnapped back home, Giselle had tried to escape once, only to be caught and savagely beaten. The only thing she could be grateful for was that none of the men had violated her. By the third day, they had drugged her and locked her ina shipping container , smuggling her out of the country. From there, she was handed to another buyer overseas , who sold her to yet another person.

Passed from one set of hands to the next, she remained groggy and disoriented, no longer sure which country the real kidnappers were from or where they planned to take her. It wasn't until that day, during the ride here, that she overheard the men saying this building would be their final stop and that they had to obey them if they wanted to stay alive. After days of darkness and uncertainty, Giselle had grown numb to it all. At this point, staying alive felt like an achievement, so she didn't think too much of it. Then, she watched as a man walked into the room.

His presence was cold and intimidating, as if he were the one running the place. He looked to be in his 30s or 40s, witha lean face anda hard, dangerous gaze. He could have been Malithornian, or maybe Valantian. ---- In fluent, practiced Edevanian, he briefly explained the situation here. That was when Giselle learned that this place was a brothel camp, one that catered to both nearby locals and wealthy outsiders. In other words, she and the other women had been trafficked into prostitution, trapped at the very bottom of the trade.