Chapter 54
Athena was clutching her phone, feeling like someone was pulling a fast one on her. But she just couldn’t peel her eyes away from the screen.
Who the heck was sending her these messages? Not many people in this world knew she once had two kids.
Athena realized that the same number had called her and sent the text. When she called it back, she was greeted with a chilling voice, “Hello, the number you have dialed is not in service.”
Her heart, which had been up in her throat, plunged down with a thud. How could this be? The number that had just texted her was now disconnected?!
Meanwhile, over at Cozy Retreat.
The man sitting on the sofa hadn’t bothered to change out of his blood–stained white shirt. Between two fingers, he held a cigarette, the orange glow at its tip sending wisps of smoke that blurred his handsome, chiseled features.
Not even the warm, amber light falling from a lamp could chase away the chill in his eyes. In his other hand, he was fiddling with a bracelet, twirling the beads as he smoked.
On the sofa opposite him, there sat a handmade bunny doll. Newman’s gaze was fixed on the bunny, his eyes a murky storm of emotions.
That fool, she didn’t die? Back then, when he rushed to the scene, he saw the overturned car, the blood splattered all over the place. He saw the charred bodies and a newborn baby, buried in the red snow, frozen purple.
The fool’s body had been autopsied, but the DNA was never checked. Newman couldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams that someone would’ve pulled a switcheroo with the ugly fool.
The purple–red centipede–like marks on Anna’s body, and this bunny doll in front of him. All the clues related to the girl pointed toward the Dempsey family. Athena had to be deeply connected to all this!
Newman whipped out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. He made a call and after a few seconds, a cocky male voice came through.
“Well, Newman, what’s up with you hitting me up at this hour? Five years and still no action in the bedroom?”
The voice was full of reckless charm, and amidst his words, there were the sounds of a woman’s breathy moans.
Newman’s face was void of any emotion, his pale skin giving off a frigid aura, “Scour the whole Stardale City for me; help me find a woman.‘
”
“Ha?!” The disbelief in the voice on the other end was palpable.
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Chapter 54
It wasn’t long before Payne returned to Cozy Retreat.
“Shall we head straight upstairs? Mr. Bradshaw’s not in the best of moods tonight.”
Kent wanted to whisk Payne upstairs to their room. As they approached the stairs, Payne glanced toward the living room. Newman sat alone on the sofa, surrounded by swirling smoke. Payne, sensitive to smells, wondered to himself, was his daddy smoking? Since he was frail from a young age and couldn’t stand the smell of smoke, Newman not only quit smoking but also banned his employees from lighting up at work.
Even if he came back from high–end clubs reeking of smoke, Newman would shower and change immediately, making sure there wasn’t a trace of the scent on him before meeting his
son.
Tonight was an anomaly, Newman puffing away in the living room.
“Did something happen to him tonight?” Payne whispered.
“It’s nothing much,” Kent avoided giving Payne the details.
Payne pressed on, “Did anyone from the Dempsey family send something over?”
Kent blinked at Payne, taken aback..
Payne explained, “I heard from Kevin that his gorgeous mommy prepared a gift for me.”
Kent bent down and whispered in the kid’s ear, “Ms. Dempsey did drop by earlier, and after she left, Newman’s mood took a nosedive.”
“Daddy.”
Payne walked into the living room, circling the sofa to see Newman with a cigarette in one hand and the bracelet in the other. On the opposite couch sat the lop–eared bunny doll.
Overcome by the smell of smoke, Payne coughed incessantly as he reached for the bunny.
“Payne, put the doll down,” Newman spoke icily, but Payne, still coughing, clutched the bunny doll tightly.
“This bunny looks just like the one mommy gave me!” Payne knew in his heart, this was the bunny doll Athena had promised to make for him!
Newman’s expression tightened, his face growing frostier by the second. He stood up from the sofa, reaching to take back the bunny from Payne’s hands. Payne turned to run but was caught by the collar by Newman.
“You can’t have this doll.”
“I want it!”
The man furrowed his brows, “If you want a doll, I’ll have Kent buy out all the dolls in Stardale City for you first thing in the morning!”
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“When dd got it broken, you said the same thing! Even if you buy all the bunny dolis in Everglade City, even if you get someone to make an exact replica of dd, it won’t be the one mommy made for me!!”
Payne, choked by the tobacco smoke, was in tears.
The man pressed his lips tightly, stepping back and pinching out the cigarette between his fingers.
Newman spoke in a hoarse voice, “This bunny doll has been tainted with smoke; it’s bad for your health. I’ll have it cleaned up.”
The tobacco smell had Payne’s tears and snot streaming down his face; still, he hugged the bunny doll tightly.
This doll, aside from the color, was identical to the one his mommy had made for him five years
ago.
This time, no matter what, he wasn’t going to let go, not going to hand this hard–won bunny doll over to anyone else.
“Nobody can touch bunny! It’s mine! It’s what mommy left for me!”
Newman took a deep breath; his son had lost his mother at a young age and was exceptionally attached to the bunny doll left by the fool.
With no other options, Newman yielded yet another step to his son, “Daddy will clean this bunny for you, okay?”
Payne finally looked up at him, “It has to be clean tonight; I want to sleep while holding it.”
Newman’s lips twitched ever so slightly, wanting to say how could a boy cuddle with a bunny doll to sleep. But this bunny was the spitting image of the one the fool had made for Payne, and his son was trying to soak up some motherly love from it, something he’d never felt before. At the thought of this, Athena seemed even more wickedly cunning! With a cool response, Newman said, “Alright, I’ll clean it up for you now.”
It was then that Payne reluctantly handed over the bunny doll to Newman, “Daddy, you better keep your word, no hogging bunny!”
Newman was like, “??” Why on earth would he fight his son over a toy like that?
At night, Newman hand–washed Payne’s bunny doll and after drying it, Payne was over the moon, hugging it tight as he went off to sleep.
The next day, Athena took Kevin to kindergarten as usual. While tidying up his backpack, she opened Kevin’s homework book.
Kevin’s handwriting looked different again from the last test, and the accuracy of his homework had plummeted!
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Cape
Athena closed Kevin’s homework book, “Kevin Dempsey, tell me the truth?‘
