Chapter 4

Pierce was on the phone with someone and didn't notice Millie coming out.

"Alright, I'll go shopping with you this weekend. I'm driving now, so I'm hanging up. Okay, I'll do whatever you say."

Pierce gave off the impression that he was a tough guy who spoke his mind in an assertive way. However, he was now speaking gently into the phone with a ghost of a smile on his lips. Suddenly, he didn't look too intimidating anymore.

He was most probably talking to someone he liked on the phone. Since he used to work with the law, he upheld it and didn't drive while talking on the phone.

Millie looked like she'd just seen her savior. She hurriedly knocked on the driver's door.

Pierce frowned and rolled the windows down. "What?" His voice was tinted with suspicion.

"I'm hanging up now. Something just came up. You can do whatever you want to me next time."

Pierce seemed like he was trying to pacify the other person on the line before he hung up. Then, he stayed inside the car while looking at Millie. He didn't unlock the car doors either.

"What's the matter?"

"Can you please take me to a hotel? It's not easy to hail a cab here, and it's not safe for me to go alone."

Millie felt even more unsafe now in her current situation. Her hair and clothes were a mess. She'd even done two of her buttons wrongly, unintentionally showing some skin in the middle of her chest.

However, Millie didn't seem as if she was aware of her clothing situation. She just kept looking back behind her.

"Please," she begged, on the verge of tears. It was only then that Pierce wavered and let her into his car.

After taking her to a hotel, Millie then realized that all the money she had in her pocket belonged to Stefan. She wasn't thick-skinned enough to use it, so she looked back at Pierce once more.

"Um… Can you please pay the room charges for me? I'll return the money as soon as I can!"

Pierce walked up to the counter.

"Three days. Just three days' worth of charges is enough. Thank you," Millie said gratefully.

After making the payment, Millie made sure to exchange contacts with Pierce so that she could return his money afterward.

"Can you come up into the room with me?"

Pierce was just about to leave when Millie called out to him, stopping him in his tracks. He immediately turned back and looked at her with a frown. Displeasure showed in his eyes.

Millie immediately knew that he'd misunderstood her. He thought that she meant something else with what she just said.

She quickly shook her hands at him and said, "It's not what you think. I just… I just want to know about the relationship between Stefan and Wanda. I want to know when they met, why they broke up…"

"I don't talk about other people behind their backs."

With that, Pierce turned and left. His cold demeanor made it hard for anyone to like him.

Millie blushed and then turned pale. She felt guilty when he spoke to her like that.

She made her way to her hotel room in a disgruntled manner. However, she just couldn't fall asleep. Maybe the Leach family would report her to the police. Maybe she'd get arrested in the middle of the night. She just didn't know.

Since she couldn't fall asleep, Millie grabbed her phone and started scrolling. She suddenly caught sight of a tiny, inconspicuous news article header.

It said, "13 Wanted Suspects Nabbed at an Abandoned Port."

Millie tapped on the header with shaky fingers. She saw the photos of the suspects and the boat she had been taken away in at once.

These suspects were repeat criminals who were wanted for smuggling, kidnapping, and human trafficking. They always remained in the open sea and had been insanely hard to nab. However, thanks to the cooperation of the police and navy from many nations, these suspects had finally been caught.

Millie stared unblinkingly at one of the suspects in the photo.

Although she didn't know what the leader of her abductors looked like, she knew what his body felt like. And there was only one person in the photo who had a tall build, nearly six feet tall, and a muscular body.

It had to be him!

Millie thought back about her frightening first experience and shivered all over. She continued scrolling down the news article and saw the photo of a few policemen who were applauded for their work.

There were a few plain-clothes officers who didn't show their faces. So, the photograph only showed a handful of the regular officers from Arbelton. She'd even caught sight of Pierce's face in the photo.

Had this been his final mission before he retired?

The news article did not elaborate on Pierce's position nor the cases he handled in the past, so Millie had no idea at all. She just clicked around on the few highlighted keywords in the article and realized that Pierce had come from quite a sophisticated background after all.

He turned out to be the heir to the Atkinson Group!

He was on par with Stefan's family, if not richer and more powerful than them.

Pierce only had a younger sister in his family. Today was the day that Pierce officially took over the management of Atkinson Group, his family business.

Many people commented that Pierce wasn't fit to take over the group because he had been serving the country for far too long and didn't know anything about managing a business.

Millie felt her head spinning as she took in all of the information. There had been too many things happening to her in the short span of a day.

In the past, her eyes had only been on Stefan. She never paid any attention to the things around her. Yet, today had been the day a storm blew over Arbelton.

The same could also be said about her life.

Millie managed to make it through the night half asleep. She thought that the police would come knocking on her hotel door the next morning, but nothing had happened so far. It was only then that she finally managed to fall into a fitful sleep.

She felt a man's perverted hands roaming all around her body in her dreams. The man then slid his arm around her waist and pistoned deeply into her. He didn't leave any expanse of her skin unkissed.

"Ahh!"

Millie woke up with a scream. She was covered all over in cold sweat.

It had only been a dream. Or a nightmare.

Millie sighed in relief. She then looked at the time on her phone and realized that it was past noon.

There were a few missed calls, all from the sanatorium where she volunteered. She quickly called them back.

"What's wrong, Ms. Hudson?"

Bianca Hudson was the nurse whom Millie worked with.

"Bill refused to eat again today. He kept asking for you. We're all about to lose our minds."

"How's his condition now?"

"He's not taken a bite since noon. He's fast asleep now though because he got tired after making a huge fuss."

"Okay. I'll be there in a while."

"Alright. I'll prepare lunch for him again then. He'll probably get his appetite back when he wakes up and sees you later."

Millie washed up and changed into fresh clothing before hurrying over to the sanatorium.

The sanatorium where she worked was a costly, luxurious one. The old folks who lived here all came from rich families.

Stefan's grandmother, Agnes Brown, used to stay here for a while. Back then, Millie often visited her at the sanatorium on Stefan's behalf. Agnes liked her very much and often told Millie that she would regard Millie as her granddaughter if she couldn't be her granddaughter-in-law.

After staying at the sanatorium for a year, Stefan's uncle finally brought Agnes abroad to live with him. Now, Millie could only talk to Agnes through video calls.

However, Millie had already made it a habit to visit the old folks at the sanatorium every weekend. She liked being with the old folks and spending time with them.

When Millie finally arrived, Bianca was busy entertaining Bill.

"You lied to me! She never came in the morning, so she's not coming in the evening either. I'm not eating anything! I'll starve to death!"

"I didn't lie to you. Look who's here? Didn't I tell you she'd be here?"

Bianca looked at Millie as if she was her savior.

"I'll take it from here."

Bianca handed the plate of food to Millie before hurrying out.

"Why haven't you been eating your meals regularly?"

"Why have you lost so much weight?" Bill asked in response, looking at her with concerned eyes.

Ever since that incident, nobody had ever shown any concern for her or asked her how she was doing. Millie couldn't believe that the first person to console her was Bill, an old man whom she wasn't even the least bit related to.

Millie felt her nose tingling. Her eyes turned red as tears started rolling down her cheeks.

"Who was the one who treated you badly? Tell me. I'll teach them a lesson!"

Millie tried her best to keep her tears under control. "It's nothing. I just finally broke up with a jerk. I'll be fine after a while."

"You've broken up?" Bill's eyes lit up at once. "That's wonderful news! My grandson will finally have a chance!"

Bill immediately grabbed his phone and made a call. Millie couldn't manage to stop him in time.

After he was done with the call, Bill held her hands and said, "My grandson is good at everything. However, his only problem is that he keeps everything bottled up and doesn't express himself well. You just need to be more forgiving about his terrible temper."

While speaking, Bill suddenly felt short of breath. His heart condition was acting up again!