But before he asked Ingrid, he looked at the school head and motioned to her to go out so that they could talk freely. The woman understood it then she excused herself and nervously went outside.

"Ingrid! I- what made you decide?" Clark suddenly moved in his arms and then settled again.

Ingrid's lips twitch and her eyes blink. "It's like this, uhm.. For all that happened, I become conscious of the fact that I, err, we, Clark and uhm me.. need a protection. From you... I believe it's high time that we should do it. Let's just call off our seven month agreement."

"Really?" Clifford's eyes glint with astonishment.

"But...!"

"But again? Why do you have endless condition for every matter?" He grumbles.

"But of course! What do you expect?" Ingrid rolled her eyes. "..let's do it in secret. The marriage, I mean, should be done in secret. Only you and me and Clark first... I don't wanna complicate things... the details will be discussed later when we're home, I mean my house."

Clifford could not disagree anymore. So he just nodded like an obedient pet, but he needed to make a condition, too.

"I'll agree to whatever you say, however, I also wanted you to do something." He paused while Ingrid waited for him to continue as her brows rise. "...you and Clark have, no, you need to live with me after we get married. As you have said the soonest."

"Is that all? Sure! It's a deal..." she extended her hand to shake hands with him.

"Are you treating everything like a business deal? Won't you even consider putting some... eheem, love in it?" he grinned.

"Silly!" she softly chuckled as she shakes her head in disbelief. "...how can we talk s-such, ahh..." Ingrid looked for a right word but she couldn't think of any, "...such discussion in this messy situation we are in, and mind you we're in a complicated mess and our son and your nephew were almost hurt!"

She could not believe how she is behaving now in the middle of a crisis. If it happened before she would totally freak out and wouldn't be in this composed state.

"The perpetrators are already captured, all we have to do for now is to let the kids identify them and ask them afterwards who sent them."

"But if they'll refuse to confess?"

"My men know what to do."

Later, the owners of the school arrived and were so apologetic of what happened. They feared that the Briggs would sue them because they haven't tightened the security. After their brief encounter, the security team showed the faces of the perpetrators and the kids confirmed that it was them who captured and locked them in the stockroom.

As expected, the men did not answer all of their questions. Mr. Griffith already called and sent the images of the perpetrators to the construction firm to verify if they are employed in their company. But the firm denied although they said that one of their vehicles was stolen few days ago and they were looking for them until now.

After Griffith turned off the camera, he waved his hand to his men and they know the drill. The perpetrators' faces are now black and blue, their blood spurts from their body after almost an hour of physical torture they received from the body guards everytime they wouldn't answer.

"Okay! Okay! I surrender..." the fearful one cried in agony. He could no longer bear the torture he obtained.

"SHUT UP!" his companion angrily shouted despite that he's strength is failing.

"Woah, we're having a lover's quarrel here." Griffith teased. But the fierce one spit on him. His spit is a combination of his saliva and blood but Griffith dodged and just laughed at him.

"You know, I wanna be merciful today, I'll release one of you if you just simply speak out who hired you. Isn't it a great deal? Who knows my boss will spare the one who will sing along the tune. In fact, the melody has long been playing you know..."

"I know who hired us but I haven't seen him..."

"Ahhh.... you're a clever man. What guarantee can you give me that you're telling the truth?"

"W-we c-can call that person. But please, I beg you, spare my life and my daughter she still needs me...she's so young and she doesn't know what kind of work I have. I promise that after this, we will leave and never come back in this country." the fearful man weeps as he thinks of his daughter.

"YOU'RE A TRAITOR, ROBERT!" the other man again spit on his companion.

"Take him to another room." Griffith ordered. The other man yelled and cursed at them, but one of them covered his mouth with a thick rope. He tried to wriggle and struggle but someone hit his head with a gun then he fainted.