Chapter 103
Discomfort settled heavily over Charlotte as consciousness crept back, slow and reluctant. It wasn’t the sterile, antiseptic kind – the kind that stole your breath and told you something was terribly wrong.
This was a deeper, more suffocating kind of unease, a feeling of being utterly out of place..
Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing an unfamiliar room. White walls, yes, but not the stark, institutional white of a hospital. These walls were adorned with swirling floral patterns, the kind that belonged in a grandma’s guest room, not a medical facility. Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at her throat. Where was she?
She tried to sit up, but a dull ache throbbed in her lower abdomen, anchoring her to the bed. A wave of nausea washed over her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing it to pass. When it did, a horrifying memory jolted back – the fight, the fall, the searing pain that had ripped through her like a fist.
Unease gnawed at her. The fall. Was that all? It felt like more, a dull ache that pulsed with a strange rhythm. But the memories were hazy, fragmented.
A faint scent of lavender oil wafted through the air, cloying and somehow suffocating. She hated lavender. It was Daniel’s favorite scent, the kind he used on his aftershave, the kind that lingered on their sheets after a night together.
The sound of a door creaking open made her head snap towards the source. A woman stood framed in the doorway. It was someone she didn’t recognize.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” the woman spoke, her voice gentle. She moved closer, concern etched on her face. Her name tag read ‘Roni,’ the friendly script a stark contrast to the cold, clinical setting Charlotte had expected..
Roni reached over and carefully fluffed the pillows behind Charlotte’s head. “Here, let me help you sit up a bit.” Her touch was surprisingly light, devoid of the rough urgency she might have encountered in a hospital.
Charlotte leaned back against the pillows, wincing as the ache in her abdomen intensified. Roni held a glass of water to her lips, her expression softening further. “Slow sips,” she murmured.
The cool water eased the dryness in her throat but did little to quench the thirst that seemed to burn from within. As she lowered the glass, Roni lingered beside her.
“I know you’re probably confused,” Roni said, her voice dropping to a hushed tone. “You’re at a private residence. Mrs. Lockhart – “Charlotte’s breath hitched. Teresa.” – insisted you needed a quiet place to recover,” Roni continued, oblivious
to Charlotte’s silent panic. “She’s very concerned about you.”
A humorless scoff escaped Charlotte’s lips. Concerned? Teresa was the reason she was here, wherever ‘here’ was. The throbbing in her abdomen felt… different. It wasn’t like a regular period cramp. But what else could it be?
Roni seemed to misinterpret the sound. “How are you feeling?” she asked, her brow furrowing slightly.
Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Her mind was a tangled mess of confusion and unease. The fall, the pain, Teresa’s unsettling presence – it all combined into a thick fog that obscured her head.
Roni squeezed her hand gently. “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “The doctor will be here soon to check on you. I really apologize for your loss, Miss Lockhart.”
“What loss?” Charlotte frowned. Again, memories of what happened filled her head. The fall. Teresa pushed her and she
Chapter 103
saw…. Blood. Blood… The sound of her scream soon started to fill the room.
“Sir, it seems that you are right. Miss Teresa is indeed hiding Charlotte Lockhart. She’s currently in a small private property near Alaska. According to our sources, she lost the child,” Josef said as he stared at Alexander.
When he heard the news, he immediately recalled the time when Alexander said it was a trap. As for who? Josef doesn’t
know.
At first, he assumed it was a trap for Charlotte. But… what if it was for Teresa?
Josef prided himself on being smart yet for some unknown reason, he could never figure out Alexander’s schemes.
Alexander nodded without saying a word. Then he lifted his gaze away from the documents that he was reading. “Where is Daniel now?” he asked.
“Miss Teresa sent him to a facility just outside of Chicago.”
“Facility?”
“A mental institution. It seems that she’s planning to send him abroad as soon as he calms down.”
Alexander sneered. “Then let us go see him.”
Sterile white walls, devoid of personality, mocked Daniel with their emptiness. A single, barred window offered a sliver of a. view – a scraggly patch of untended grass and a skeletal tree, its branches clawing at the iron–grey sky.
The only furniture was a metal cot, a rickety chair bolted to the floor, and a small table scarred with countless scribbles.
Daniel sat hunched over the table, a sharpened pencil clutched in his hand with a piece of paper. It wasn’t the fanciest instrument, but it was his weapon of choice in this battle against the suffocating silence.
Music, something that he disliked in the past, flowed through him, a desperate attempt to connect with something, anything, beyond these four walls.
“Sofia,” he muttered the name a melody on his lips. He scrawled it across the worn paper, the graphite etching a desperate plea into the sterile surface. The song poured out of him, raw and unrefined. Sofia liked writing songs, Surely, reading what he wrote would at least appease her anger, right?
But is that enough?
The thought of what Sofia showed him in the hospital immediately made him crumple the paper and throw it behind him where a bunch of paper was.
A song wouldn’t be enough, he thought inwardly.
No.
That wouldn’t be enough to make her leave that man.
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+5
The creaking sound of the door caught his attention. He immediately looked at the person who walked inside and smiled. “Nurse Judith… what brings you here?” he asked.
The woman, who was already in her fifties, smiled. “It is time to take your medicine.” She placed a tray in front of Daniel. On it was a bottle of water and some medicine that he needed to take before he ate his lunch.
“Alright…” Daniel nodded. He was not dumb enough to resist them. Daniel believed that the only way for him to leave this place as fast as possible was to do whatever it was that they wanted, to pretend.
Pretending wasn’t something new to Daniel. In fact, he had been pretending all his life. To attract his father’s attention, Daniel had done everything to compete with Alexander. He pretended to know everything that Alexander knew.
He took the medicine without any fuss and finished the bottle of water.
“Thank you…” Judith smiled. “I will go and get your lunch. Please give me a few minutes.”
“Alright,” Daniel nodded. However, the moment Judith left, the smile on his face immediately vanished. Since he was younger, he already had various medicines to keep him at bay.
To get away with it, Daniel used to pretend that everything was fine. Then, he would bury himself in work and other activities to keep busy and get away from the slump that he was in.
It would be the same this time.
After a few minutes, the door once again opened. However, the smile that Daniel prepared vanished when he saw
Alexander standing by the door.
“You- What are you doing here?” Daniel asked, his expression turning ugly.
