‘I’m not sure,’ Clara said, moisture gathering in her eyes. ‘She called out my old name… Why don’t you go ahead and see what happened? I’ll be outside the bathroom, listening.’
It was not the way Clara planned this revelation. She wanted to do it slowly, but she did not count on her mom recognizing her, and this brought tears to her eyes. Her mom knew who she was. She stood outside the bathroom door, sniffling as she listened in on their conversation. Sebastian had his arms around her.
‘Mom, are you okay? What happened?’ Celine asked as she left the door ajar, so Clara could hear.
Emelia was inconsolable, ‘Carmen... oh Carmen, it’s my baby... oh Carmen, I know it’s her. Tell me it’s my baby.’
‘Shh… Honey, it’s going to be okay,’ Nathan said as he rubbed his wife’s ba
Clara introduced Sebastian to her parents, told them they were together and her dad’s protective instinct kicked in. ‘Young man, I hope your intentions for my daughter are honorable. We should have lunch one of these days,’ he said. She smiled when Sebastian nodded and kissed her cheek, and her dad frowned. It was how she imagined it was like to have a dad. It made her feel warm and fuzzy inside that he was meddling with her relationship already. But she probably won’t appreciate it later when he tries to step in between them. Next, she introduced her brothers Jeremy and Max, and she saw her dad’s eyes narrow when Max said hi. ‘Uh oh,’ she thought, ‘my dad does not like Max either?’ They thanked John and Samantha for graciousl
Boss and Spike have been together since they were kids. Living in the unsavory parts of the city, where kids get born to teenage, drug-addled parents out of wedlock. They usually get taken away by social services to get stuck in a system that doesn’t care about them. If they do survive, then they fall back to where their parents originated from, continuing the never-ending cycle of drugs and violence. They start out as drug runners, lookouts for unsavory characters, and sources of information for their kind. They do not know any other way of life other than being a thug and a criminal. But that one million dollar windfall 20 years ago was the break they needed to start their business. They built a casino as a front for their drug business, and until recently, they had been successful. Their sources got busted by the cops. Millions of dollars went down the drain when their items were confiscated. All becau
On one side of the rooftop garden, Clara had wound herself into a ball, hiding under one of the tables, in between the chairs. She was invisible to anybody who was not aware of her presence. Sebastian was currently in a meeting, and she had come out to the roof because she needed to think. Figure out how she would broach the subject of the kidnapping to her parents. The clues she needed could only come from them, but every time they would meet, her mom teared up, and she did not have the heart to remind her of the past. She planned to ask her dad to come up to the roof so nobody would overhear them. They would see anybody who came up the stairs or the elevator. She was not worried about the recording since she had nothing to hide from Sebastian, anyway. But when she was about to call her father, she heard v
The search for Nicholas Jacobs, Clara’s uncle, got issued as soon as Sebastian learned what happened. He wanted to make sure that the man responsible for Clara’s abduction years ago would be behind bars before she even woke up to face the nightmare all over again. When they couldn’t find him, Sebastian told Anthony, the head of security, to fetch Nathan Jacobs, Clara’s father, and bring him to his office. He needed to know what happened all those years ago, and though he did not know how to broach that subject yet, his future father-in-law deserved the truth. And that is where they found Nicholas confessing his sins to his brother. Nathan had his brother’s suit jacket tightly clasped between his hands. The intention to kill his brother was evident in his murderous glare. ‘You son of a bitch! How could you do that to us? Those girls thought the world of
A week later. ‘Clara, there is no contest here. I am coming home with you, and we should stay together until we capture these men.’ ‘No, Sebastian! You are not guarding me and halting the operation of your multi-billion dollar shipping business on the off chance they might take me, again. They don’t even know I exist. They thought they killed me 20 years ago. If someone is in danger, it’s my sister, and I hired men to guard her already. Max will be with her all the time to make sure she doesn’t go anywhere. He’s on paid vacation until we’re on the clear.’ Clara wanted to take everyone back with her to San Jose, where they could hide out until they caught the evil men. But the FBI told them they should act like everything was normal. Not to take unplanned vacations because it would be harder to track t
‘Sebastian Colfer, call these men off, or I swear I will sneak out of here and never tell you where I am,’ she threatened over the phone. She had 6 security guards all the time, 3 trailing behind her, and 3 scoping out the places she wanted to visit. In the beginning, it made her laugh that Sebastian assigned that many people to guard her at her own office, so she gave them the slip several times to show them who’s boss. But because of what she did, they became more resilient while watching her, almost breathing down her neck, so they won’t get fired for losing her. ‘It’s your fault, my love. If you stop hiding from them, maybe they won’t feel as threatened to lose you. I told them to guard you with their life. But if it makes you mad, then I will tell them to be inconspicuous and stop crowding you.’ He promised.
They were not out of the woods yet. The kidnappers were still out there, but there was time to celebrate small victories. Clara just wanted to keep on punching somebody, her blood was pumping adrenalin into her system, and she was so fired up that she could not sit still while they dressed the bruises on her face and the wounds on her hands. Clara, Celine, and Max, together with their bodyguards gathered at Sebastian’s house to discuss what happened that afternoon. Celine still felt shaken, so everybody concentrated on making her feel better. She did not know whether to hug her sister or Max, not willing to let anyone go. ‘It’s going to be okay, Celine. We can hope they won’t try it again. But now they know they can’t just take you away. They’ll be mad, which means no more activities outside the office and your home,’ Sebastian looked at Clara pointedly
Even before Sebastian had the chance to meet Clara’s parents and before she revealed her identity to them, he already had one thing on his mind. Something he had been longing for and was missing from his life. It was that Clara would have to be in his life forever and that his love for her was everlasting. He had been planning this day ever since she told him she loved him, and in light of the current events, it had propelled his decision forward because he couldn’t wait anymore. He wanted Clara to be his wife. Clara and Sebastian decided to visit his family for the weekend to steer clear of her well-meaning parents. Samantha and John were old-fashioned, but they were not as blunt and direct as her parents, probably because having daughters made her parents more protective. His parents never even broached the subject of marriage because Sebastian had already