After finding out that her elder brother seemed to have an excessively violent streak in the past, enough to put someone in the hospital at just the tender age of ten, Nita realized that her mother might have been right about her deduction.
'So Brother really did something he was guilty about...' She wondered if there had been another violent episode that he had hidden from the family this time.
Detrim had always been jovial with his peers and kind to those younger than him.
At least, this was the elder brother she had known and seen throughout her life.
Therefore, she wished to know what that cousin had done to make him react in such a violent manner.
'And did something similar happen once again?' Another question popped up in her mind, one for which she had no answer.
"Do you recall why that fight happened back then?" She questioned her mother, who simply shook her head.
Despite numerous tries and even threats from their father, Detrim had remained silent and refused to reveal why the quarrel had erupted between the two youngsters.
After the cousin had recovered from his injury, the adults had tried asking him for his side of the story but he too had refrained from speaking up about it.
Therefore, until now, no one had a clue about the incident that had shocked the family in the past.
Nodding her head in understanding, Nita chose to look into this matter herself at a later time.
For now, she had gathered enough information to start her own investigation into her brother's disappearance.
With this thought in mind, she hugged her mother one more time, relishing the warmth it gave her before she headed back to the den where her father and Cousin Jodie would be waiting for her.
As she entered the home office, she glanced at the figures seated on the same couch as before.
"Your Cousin Rowan wanted to tag along." Uri, her father, reminded her when he noticed Nita standing at the door instead of entering the office.
Cousin Rowan was the same individual who had been seated next to Jodie during their earlier interaction, who had laughed out loud when she had called Jodie a drunk and questioned his skills as a tracker.
Rowan and Jodie were siblings from the Tuskar family, a branch of the Valkens, and the two were around the same age as Detrim and Nita, which resulted in the two pairs of siblings being forced to play together as children.
This was also one of the reasons why she did not seem to like Cousin Jodie, as she had grown up with him and hence knew a lot more about him than the other elders of the family.
'Almost everything about him... From how he skipped school to mess around with delinquents or hit up bars with them...' She scowled at the younger brother who was the same age as her.
Tossing these thoughts of the past out of her head, Nita nodded at her father as she truly had forgotten about Rowan's earlier announcement of joining them to visit the accident site.
Once she came back from her thoughts, Nita turned her attention to the siblings, scanning their appearances.
Rowan was the taller of the pair, dressed in a simple collared white shirt and black trousers with neatly trimmed blonde hair, making him look like an ordinary number-crunching office man who was tired of his monotonous daily routine.
However, his striking facial features and his muscular body reminded her that her assumptions based on his attire and hairstyle had nothing to do with his real self.
On the contrary, Jodie, the younger sibling, had long dirty blonde hair that he tied up in a man-bun which complemented his outfit for the day, consisting of torn blue jeans with a white tee and a black leather jacket draped over it.
Unlike Rowan, who had a depth of character that reflected through his eyes, Jodie had close to no redeeming features apart from his bad-boy appearance.
Though many might not agree with Nita's biased opinion about this cousin, whom she had a bad impression of since Jodie too had an appearance that attracted way too much attention no matter where he went.
"Are you sure you do not want to rest for a while before you head out?" Uri inquired, breaking the awkward silence that enveloped the room.
After all, Nita had just returned to the city and after such a short stay at home, she was already planning to head out.
Not to mention that ever since she had entered the room, all she had done was alternate her gaze between the two siblings as she gauged them from top to bottom, making even the older gentleman concerned about her current behavior.
Therefore, he had inquired if she would rather take a short break at home before she headed out.
Being dragged out of her thoughts once again, Nita turned to face her father and shook her head in response.
While she had been tired after the long flight, that one hug from her mother had energized her and hence she did not wish to waste any more time.
'I'm already late...' She frowned as her brother had been missing for three days now and she knew that she could not afford to delay her investigation any further.
"Take me to the accident site." She turned to her cousins and ordered Jodie, who simply scoffed in reply.
"You need to stop ordering me around and treat me like an equal if you want my help!" Jodie burst out, annoyed at her lack of respect toward him from their very first interaction today.
These words not only brought a frown to Uri's face but also made Rowan stiffen his back.
After all, though Nita and Jodie were of the same age, their positions in the Valken family were not the same.
Detrim might be the heir to the Valken family but Nita was the heiress, which meant that she was just one step lower than her elder brother in the family tree.
With his disappearance now, she had grown one step closer to the position of the head of the family.
Whereas Jodie, a youngster from the side branch, someone who did not have any important position in the family business, surely was in no place to be looking down on her and speaking to her in the tone that he had just used.
If Obadiah Trenant, the elder who had been here earlier, was present in the room at this moment, he would have chided Jodie and asked him to know his place before speaking so rudely to Nita.
Even he, as an elder, would not raise his voice at someone who was a direct descendant of the Valken family's head.
So Jodie's behavior right now was utterly unacceptable, as he was displaying blatant disrespect to someone from the main branch of the Valken family.
Unfortunately, the older man had already left and hence there was no one to discipline this unruly youngster who seemed to have forgotten Nita's position in the family thanks to her prolonged absence from their family gatherings.
Therefore, right now, the room was once again engulfed in silence as Nita simply stared at the young man who was now glaring at her without realizing the situation he was in at this very moment.