The smell of meat made Heather a little hungry, but she remained silent as she watched Matthias flip the rabbit meat with an indifferent expression.The bag of potato chips she had before this was her dinner. She wasn’t going to eat the rabbit meat Matthias was grilling, so she pretended not to be hungry at all.“Heather, are you hungry? The food Matthias is grilling smells so good that I can hardly resist it.” Leon gulped. The food in front of him was making his stomach feel increasingly empty.Heather had no desire to respond to Leon, as certain sensitive topics shouldn’t be brought up. Meanwhile, Matthias continued working quietly on the task at hand.Seeing that Heather wasn’t going to answer at all, Leon had no choice but to talk to himself while drooling over the rabbit meat. “I’m so hungry. I can’t wait.”“Just a short while more and you can eat it,” Matthias said from beside him. He was getting a little hungry too.The three of them exchanged short chatter, so the atmosphere w
When they got back to Bradfort City, it was already late, so Heather sent Leon back to his hotel first.After he left, only Heather and Matthias were left in the car, so the atmosphere was somewhat awkward.“I’ll send you back,” Heather said to Matthias.“Go straight to the Langston Residence. You don’t have to send me.” Matthias refused Heather’s offer, because he wanted to accompany her home. What kind of man would need a woman to send him back?“Okay.” Heather scoffed. “Well, in that case, you can get out of the car now!” Matthias said himself that he didn’t need her to send him back, which meant that they could go their separate ways now.“I want to see you get home safely.” Matthias didn’t have any intention of getting off whatsoever. It wasn’t easy for them to be alone together, so he certainly wouldn’t let go of this opportunity.“No, you don’t have to.” Heather refused. He had refused her kindness, so why couldn’t she do the same?Matthias noticed the resolution on her face, w
A minute had passed since the call was answered, but no matter what Heather said, there was no response on Myra’s side. Heather suspected that Myra’s phone was having some issues, so she ended the call. After pondering for a bit, she decided to video-call Myra on Messenger.Even after a while, however, Myra still did not pick up; perhaps she wasn’t even online. Feeling that something fishy was going on, Heather tried calling Myra’s number again.This time, no one answered. Heather started to have a bad feeling about this. What is going on? She knitted her brows together. Someone answered the phone earlier, but why is there no answer now?When she tried to call Myra again, the line was apparently busy. Heather stared at her phone in disbelief. The whole situation was rather unusual; she didn’t think it wasn’t just a simple phone bug anymore. Where on earth is Myra right now?Heather put down her phone and fell into deep thought. I haven’t seen Myra for a few days. She hasn’t been activ
annoyance at the car in front of her. The more upset someone was, the more likely they would be to run into negative situations. She was reminded of Murphy’s Law—life wasn’t a TV show, where the next turn would bring about a change for the better.In reality, the next turn would often bring about even more troubling matters. She didn’t have much luck today and had a feeling of misfortune in her gut. The car in front of me is definitely a new driver. Despite wanting to overtake the car, she failed to do so over several attempts. It felt as though the car in front of her was against her. In a moment of anger, she wanted to confront the person ahead. I’d never seen someone drive like this before. For her personal safety, however, she just followed slowly behind the car. Driving in the city center was always frustrating; all the cars were jam-packed together on the road with sounds of car horns blaring one after the other.Suddenly, a thought struck Heather—she didn’t want to go home anym
Myra had woken up early in the morning. She remembered her meeting with Heather that day, so she didn’t go back to sleep and got up to get ready instead. She was up earlier than Tony this time. When Tony opened his eyes groggily, he saw Myra sitting in front of the vanity table.“Morning.” He was fully awake now. Myra also turned to look in his direction.When Myra woke up, she moved quietly so she wouldn’t disturb him. To her surprise, he was still woken up. She felt sorry that he had worked overtime last night, yet he didn’t manage to sleep in in the morning.“You’re spacing out,” he remarked when she didn’t respond.“Why do you wake up at the slightest noise?” It sounded like she was talking to herself.It was warm inside their room. This house was built with a constant-temperature system, so the temperature inside the house was pleasant over the four seasons throughout the year. They only had to wear light clothing inside the house.This warm temperature in the middle of winter wo
On the road, Myra kept thinking about the name ‘Matt’. It sounded very familiar, but she couldn’t remember where she had heard it before.“Matt? Matthias Locke?” she mumbled to herself, as though she had thought of someone, but she felt like she was spewing nonsense.At the time, she did not think that going to the cemetery was a wrong decision. She preferred to hear some things from the relevant person themselves and not someone else’s retelling of it, especially since she couldn’t be certain whether that person was telling the truth or not.The suburbs were a bit colder than the city center, especially at the cemetery, where the spooky dampness in the air was a lot heavier. Getting out of the car, Myra made sure to put on a thick coat. Tony was right in telling her to put on more layers earlier.She first went to her mother’s grave, where that person would be meeting her. Even though Tony exhorted to her that the driver must follow her, she still did not let the driver follow her to
There was light rain outside. This year’s winter was particularly rainy—even more so than summer.Heather only liked to watch the snow during winter, as opposed to feeling the heavy rain.Opening the window, Heather was still thinking about the strange things that happened yesterday. Up till now, Myra hadn’t called her yet.She didn’t even reply to Heather’s message on Messenger. Resting her cheek on her hands, Heather recalled Myra’s tone on the phone yesterday.Occasionally, the rain would splash onto Heather’s face, freezing her to the bones, so she closed the window. This kind of weather wasn’t suitable to have the window open.The raindrops slid down Heather’s cheeks, but she didn’t care at all and appeared dispirited.Previously, she had vowed to Leon to postpone the opening time to a later date in order to investigate the explosion.A few days had passed, yet Heather hadn’t started the investigation. Deep down, she feared that she had already agreed with Leon’s statement.She o
The more people said that, the more untrustworthy they were. Nikolai narrowed his eyes at Matthias, as if the latter had dug a trap and was just waiting for him to jump in.“Nikolai, I’ll never put you in a difficult situation.” Matthias gave him an affectionate smile. This was truly an old-fashioned approach.“Sir, please cut to the chase.” Nikolai didn’t want to continue going around in circles, so he took the risk despite knowing the dangers.Seeing that Nikolai had such awareness, Matthias smiled with satisfaction and began to explain what he wanted him to investigate.Nikolai’s expression turned unpleasant. So, this is what he meant by simple? He felt that he had been scammed by his cousin once again.Matthias solemnly patted Nikolai on the shoulder. “You don’t have to come to the office these few days. Just take care of the things I told you to do.”Having left no room for Nikolai to escape, Matthias curled his lips slightly when he saw how annoyed and amused the former looked.
(Final Chapter)However, before Myra could digest the incidents, a knock on the door emerged again. Zayne’s eyes lit up at once as he reckoned it was most probably Jason this time.Sure enough, Jason appeared in front of them with injuries. Leon found Jason rather unfamiliar as it was natural for one to not remember a driver’s appearance.“You’re finally here, Jason!” Heather exclaimed in surprise upon seeing him as she had waited for him for a long time.“Zayne Lee.” With a cold look, Jason walked up to Zayne and tilted his head to look at him. “Stop acting. I know you’re not injured.”Zayne stared at Jason awkwardly as he had not expected to be seen through by Jason so easily. Meanwhile, the others glanced toward Zayne in shock.“Congratulations. Your plan to lure the enemy out has succeeded. Now, I can tell you with certainty that the mastermind behind all these is Caleb Moriarty.” It was very rare for Jason to spit out such a long sentence.The others were not surprised upon heari
Since the situation had escalated to this point, they could only fight to their death, and Matthias was prepared for the battle. Even though the opponent was one of the top killers in the world, it was not an issue at all for Matthias to protect himself. However, it would be an arduous task to protect Zayne, the patient, at the same time.Matthias decided to be the vanguard and asked Leon to stay by Zayne’s side while he guarded the door vigilantly. They didn’t know when the killer would discover them, so Matthias had to guard the door well.Meanwhile, Heather kept increasing the fare’s price to the driver, hoping that she would be able to find Jason as soon as possible. Looking at the GPS, she became more flustered when they got closer to the destination. She was perturbed as the truth was about to be revealed, and she was all the more anxious at the thought of the critical situation in the hospital. Even if she successfully found Jason now, there was not enough time to rush back to
Since when has Leon become this caring? Lying on the bed, Zayne really wished to turn to lie on his side. Due to the anesthetics, he didn’t feel much pain; he just felt uncomfortable because he couldn’t stretch his body. Nevertheless, he wasn’t hoping for anyone to understand his feelings at this moment. He attempted to move his body as he was worried if he had actually become handicapped.Leon glanced at Zayne in puzzlement, wondering what he was struggling about. Zayne didn’t seem to be in a good situation, but Leon had no idea how to help him. The two of them faced each other while Leon stared at Zayne with an inquiring look, but he still couldn’t understand what was on Zayne’s mind.It was only until Matthias came into the ward did the standstill between the two come to an end. Leon stood up and stared at Matthias. At that moment, all three of them were at a loss for words as an awkward atmosphere arose in the ward.Alas, Leon spoke up and broke the ice. “I’m going to buy oranges
The atmosphere surrounding the two men was extremely intense. Matthias didn’t want to cause more trouble at this moment, so he took a few steps back and attempted to keep a distance away from Leon.Leon understood Matthias’ intention. He smirked and said in a sarcastic manner, “President Locke, I heard you’ve been keeping a woman recently.”Matthias freaked out upon hearing his words. So Leon’s actually mad because of this. Matthias couldn’t think of an appropriate explanation. Staring at Leon’s eyes, he knew Leon might not buy his words even if he explained them to him.“You actually believed those rumors?” Matthias said justly. He didn’t intend to explain the details to Leon, nor did he want to be maligned.“I’ve seen you and the woman together with my own eyes.” If it wasn’t that Leon had seen it himself, he wouldn’t be this suspicious of Matthias.Matthias looked at Leon in resignation. It seems like he’s really concerned about Heather’s matters—he’s still bothered about these thi
Heather walked toward the main road while pondering. Judging by the traffic of the cars that were passing by on the busy road, she had a feeling it would be very hard for her to get a cab at this moment. Hence, she was starting to get a headache just by staring at the noisy street.She reckoned no drivers would be willing to accept a booking at times like these but she still decided to give it a try—only now did she suddenly realize the importance of owning a car.But alas, the fastest way she could think of was to increase the offer price. She believed there would definitely be drivers who were willing to accept her booking as long as she offered a price that was high enough. However, she worried that the cabs were too far away.True enough, when Heather opened the ride-hailing app, there were no drivers around the area. She wished she could get a driver by offering a huge stack of money, but sometimes, there were situations that even money couldn’t solve.When a driver finally accep
Ever since he stepped foot in Bradfort City, Zayne had nothing but problem after problem piled on his plate. This time, he looked for trouble himself. Matthias’ situation was already far beyond what Zayne could handle, and Jason knew that the latter was barely holding on.After Matthias had left, Jason descended into worry. He looked at Zayne, his face a little on the pale side. Neither brother had managed to reach an agreement. Jason completely did not approve of what Zayne was doing, and the conflict between them could blow up at any moment.The atmosphere was loaded like a powder keg. Both men’s expressions were tense, and it seemed as though things would break down the next second. Jason moved and took a step forward, whereas Zayne curled his hands into fists. The situation was both awkward and tense.Jason continued to march forward. Zayne could find no reason to make him stay, so he helplessly watched as Jason left the room. He looked at his younger brother, his lips faintly qui
Anger was still anger in the end, and Heather wasn’t someone who would cling to someone unreasonably either. She knew that Leon wouldn’t have hung up on her so easily, and it seemed that he was extremely tired.After her call with Leon ended, Zayne texted her. She played the video clip that he had sent to her, but she wasn’t sure how to react to it. Not only that, Heather didn’t know how he had managed to get his hands on this firsthand information—the venue in the clip was where the Locke Group’s board of directors were currently at.Heather took notice of Matthias in an instant. When she saw him there all by himself, she suddenly felt that he needed to be protected as well. Sometimes, she really couldn’t get a handle on him as her heart ached for Matthias.However, Heather couldn’t bring herself to examine her conscience even though she could sense that Matthias was under a lot of pressure. She had only watched a few seconds of the video clip, but her heartstrings were already being
At that moment, any further exchange would simply be pointless. The day had barely started, yet it was already so disastrous. The next hours would be even more so.The more Zayne wanted her to admit it, the more resistant she was to do so. With a stiff face, she responded, “It’s his personal affairs. Why should I care?”When he heard her bold words, Zayne had a hard time holding back his laugh, for he was astounded by how persistent she was. Heather was so reluctant to admit it, so he didn’t want to pursue the matter any further. Since she felt that way, he shall have it her way.“What’s your plan today?” As he went off on a tangent, Zayne started to chatter casually. Heather felt that there had to be an underlying meaning behind his words, so she shot him a deadly glare.On the other hand, Zayne stared at her calmly, and he thought her petite look was extremely adorable. She must be dwelling on nonsense again!“Other than locking myself in here, what else can I possibly plan for? I l
In the freezing night, Matthias stared at the mansion in front of him with not a trace of anger. Since it belonged to the Lockes, it will no longer mean anything to him from now on. Should I say goodbye?Ever since Evan left, the residence had been especially quiet at night. Having lost his attachment to the mansion, he coldly gazed at the building as if the entire area only had one residence.Despite his desire to walk in, he stopped himself outside the home. After all, he was now truly alone after pushing everyone else away.At this moment, he sensed a fragrance of blossoms wafting in the air. He tried to locate the source but to no avail. Surprisingly, such a subtle aroma somehow matched the winter so well. As he took in the scent, he was reminded of the countless incidents, wondering when they would finally end.What surprised him was the fact that the family head had yet to look for him since he left the Locke Group, and that made him feel rather peaceful as the head seemed to ha