“Something urgent came up and I had to go out of town. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up. How are you feeling now?” Benne asked, feeling even more worried about her now that he could hear the tiredness in her voice.
Celsie’s heart squeezed in her chest, and she closed her eyes against the tears that had gathered in her eyes, “I don’t know. I’m just tired,” she confessed in a shaky voice which broke Benne’s heart.
Benne remained silent for a while as he tried to come up with a reasonable and helpful response, “Do you want to tell me about it?” Benne asked.
“I… I only want to see you,” Celsie said as she raised a hand to her face to wipe the tears which had slipped from her eyes.
Hearing her request, Benne’s heart fluttered in his chest. How was he going to be able to stay away from her when she say words like this? He couldn’t. “How about you rest for today, and then I can send someone to pick you up tomorrow so that we could meet somewhere?” Benne suggested.
“You won’t be back home tomorrow?” Celsie asked with a worried frown.
Benne raised his hand to scratch the back of his head, “Uhm… I quit working as your driver today. And I’m moving out of the apartment too,” Benne said, and her heart skipped a beat.
“Wait, what? Why? You said you were only going to quit after getting the lady you want. Have you talked to her already?” Celsie asked, hoping he hadn’t done so yet, as she still needed him.
Benne cleared his throat. Maybe it was time to start clearing up the lies one after the other. She was going to get angry with each lie he confessed to, but it was better than her being confronted by them all at the same time, “I lied.”
“You lied? About what?” Celsie asked with a confused frown, her heart beating really fast in her chest. Although he had told her he hadn’t been completely honest with her on some things, she felt nervous hearing this.
“There is no lady. I only said that so you would relax and stop putting up your defenses so much around me,” Benne confessed.
“I’m not sure I understand what you are saying,” Celsie said, feeling even more confused now.
“I’m not interested in any lady,” apart from you, he silently added to himself.
“Then why did you get the driving job at the company? You said you wanted the job just to get close to her. Why did you quit without talking to me first? And now you want to move out all of a sudden? Are you doing all of this because of what I told you? Are you scared of me and trying to avoid me?” Celsie asked the last question in a very small voice, wiping the tears that were rolling down her cheeks.
She didn’t know what else to think about it, as that was the only reasonable conclusion she could come to. Things had been going smoothly between them, and all of a sudden he wanted to move out of her life after she told him about her past. What else could be the reason?
“Scared of you? That is far from it, Celsie. I promise, I’m not avoiding you. It’s just that I have feelings for you, and I’m afraid that my feelings for you might scare you away from me, especially after all what you’ve been through,” Benne explained, and paused to let his words sink in.
“And you couldn’t talk to me about it before deciding to move away?” Celsie asked, and then paused when the meaning of what he had just dawned on her. Benne had feelings for her?
The private investigator opened his eyes and moaned when he felt a piercing pain on the right side of his head. He shut his eyes to block the pain as he tried to remember what had happened. The last thing he remembered was talking to Mrs. Miller on the phone, and then going to check who was knocking on his door.
His eyes snapped open, and he gasped in surprise when someone poured water on his face, “You weren’t brought here to sleep,” A cold deep male voice growled at him.
“Who are you? What do you want from me? Who sent you to me?” The private investigator asked, looking around the warehouse which was filled with various cartons nervously before returning his gaze to the huge man who was standing next to him with an empty bottle of water in one hand.
“You don’t need to know who sent me. Your service is required. We have a job for you,” the man with the deep voice said.
“A job? And you couldn’t talk things through? You had to harass me this way?” The private investigator asked, feeling annoyed as he looked down at his leg which was tied to a chair, as well as his hands which were also tied to his upper torso and the chair.
“This is a warning to let you know that you can disappear from the face of the earth if you so much as cross us or do a bad job,” he warned.
“What do you want?”
“Your reputation precedes you. We have learned that you are the best there is around here when it comes to digging up information and finding people who do not want to be found. We need you to find someone.”
“We?” The private investigator asked, wondering why he kept saying ‘We’ when he was the only one in the room.
“That’s to let you know that there are many of us out there. You don’t need to bother about who the others are. This file contains the details and pictures of the person we need you to find,” he said dropping a flash drive in the front pocket of the investigator’s shirt before taking out a dagger from his boot to cut off the ropes which were holding the private investigator.
“We expect you to find her in three days.”
The private investigator who had just been cut loose, and who was stretching out his hands and legs which were feeling cramped, paused to look at him, “Three days?”
“As I said, your reputation precedes you. We know you work fast, so do a good job.”
The private investigator straightened his back and squared his shoulders before giving his captor a nod, “How do I get the information to you when I’m done?” He asked, sensing that the man before him was very dangerous and it would be a risk to ask him to make any sort of payment for the job.
“I will come for it myself. And if I don’t, someone else will. You are free to leave now. Someone will be waiting outside to take you back,” the man said, jerking his head to the door for the private investigator to leave.
Two hours later the private investigator walked into his apartment and almost died of shock when he saw a man in a black suit seated on the single couch in his tiny studio apartment. What was it this time?
He took a step back, and bumped into the door which had just been pushed open by another man in a black suit, “Who are you?” He asked nervously. It seemed like it was time for him to finally quit this line of business.
“Go in!” The one standing behind him ordered as he pushed him further into the apartment and shut the door behind him.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.