“Where did she go?”
He can’t believe she’d stab him with a needle and then just run away. Though, she does seem to have gotten very good at disappearing lately.
“Dr. Walter said Mrs. Bamford went back to her room to take a cold bath after she took his medicine. I’ve asked a maid to keep an eye on her.”
Waylen gets out of bed and hurries to Leilani’s room. He rushes into her room while Robert stands guard outside the door.
“Where the hell is she?” Waylen roars.
Robert runs into the room and finds it empty. Leilani isn’t in the bathroom either. The men hear something rustling in the dressing room and Robert promptly slides the door open to investigate. Inside, a maid is kneeling on the ground; her hands are tied behind her back and a blanket has been wrapped around her n.a.k.e.d body. A pair of white underpants have been shoved into her mouth.
Waylen recognizes the underwear as his own. The maid mumbles something against the cloth in her mouth. Robert swiftly removes the underwear.
“Mrs. Bamford took my clothes away, tied me up, and left me here,” she says.
“Damn her!” Waylen thunders.
Leilani has disobeyed him again and again. Now she’s gone so far as to disguise herself as a maid to sneak out.
Robert grabs his tablet and tries to track Leilani using the chip Waylen had installed on her phone, but he can’t find her. She has turned her phone off. Robert rushes away to begin the search for Leilani, leaving Waylen brooding in her room.
Over half an hour later, Robert returns.
“Mr. Bamford, the head nurse of the hospital just called. She saw Mrs. Bamford with—” he pauses nervously, and his voice grows fainter, “Dr. Meyer.”
Waylen fumes, “How dare Leilani to meet with Charles again?
Robert stares at the ground, worried that somehow Waylen will find a way to blame him for Leilani’s disobedience. For years, Leilani has been contacting Dr. Meyer in spite of the Bamford family’s rules and reputation. It doesn’t look good for Robert that he took such a long time to find the identity of the mysterious man she often called and met.
“Tell the nurse to give a message to Leilani,” Waylen says, “Tell her that if she doesn’t answer her phone when I call her, I will think of a hundred different, painful ways to pull out her nanny’s breathing tube.”
The taxi takes Leilani to the hospital. She looks tired and ill as she emerges from the backseat.
Charles looks her up and down, “Are you unwell?”
“I’m much better after taking some medicine, but I guess I feel a little cold in this wind,” she replies.
The wind catches the fluffy skirt of the maid uniform and her entire body shakes.
“You look like you need to rest,” Charles says, “If I knew you were unwell, I wouldn’t have asked you to come.”
“Didn’t say I need to sign something for Nanny?”
“It could have waited a few days.”
“It doesn’t matter. I needed to get out of that house,” Leilani says, “Besides I might as well do this now.”
Charles hands her the papers and she scans them briefly. There are some notes about new medications and their potential side-effects and risks. She signs the forms and returns them to him. They begin to walk toward the hospital but are stopped when the head nurse bursts out of the doors waving a cellphone above her head.
She runs towards them shouting, “Mrs. Bamford, it’s for you.”
In her haste, the nurse slips on the stairs and falls to the ground. Charles strides forward to help her up. She blushes and looks at him gratefully.
“Mr. Bamford said that if you refuse to speak to him, he will pull out your nanny’s breathing tube,” she says.
Leilani grimaces and grinds her teeth. The devil has awoken.
“Why couldn’t he have just died?” she thinks bitterly.
Reluctantly she takes the phone and sees Waylen’s perfect, chiseled face on the screen. Even though the phone, he looks menacing.
“Who are you going to serve in this maid outfit?” he asks mockingly.
He’s standing in front of a huge rectangular fish tank filled with rare species of fish. An oxygen machine blows small bubbles, aerating the water. Wordlessly, Waylen fingers the oxygen machine’s long, transparent tube and then yanked it away. The fish in the tank are fine without the tube, but Leilani knows her nanny won’t be. Waylen’s cruel message is clear: obey me or else.
“I’ll hang up if this is what you won’t tell me,” she says.
“You can try that,” he responds, “But my men are in your nanny’s ward.”
“You wouldn’t dare she screams!”
“There is nothing I wouldn’t dare to do,” he threatens, “You can wait and see if you want.”
She recalls that he stabbed himself in the chest with her needle, and she trembles.
“Leilani, are you OK?”Charles sees how pale she’s become and he worries about her condition. He can’t hear her conversation with Waylen. Leilani nods her head slightly, encouraging him not to worry about her. Waylen frowns upon hearing Charles’ voice.
“What are you doing in the hospital?” he sneers.
“I’m here to see a doctor, obviously,” she answers, “What else would I be doing?”
“Dr. Charles Meyer?”
“What of it!”
“I want you to be here in less than twenty minutes,” Waylen says.
On the screen, she sees him casually throwing fish food into the tank. The fish swim to the surface and gobbled the food. She can hear the threat in his tone: just wait and see what I’ll do to you. Leilani ends the video call; she can’t bear to hear his voice.
She returns the phone to the nurse as dozens of black sports cars pull up in front of the hospital. She pretends to be unconcerned, but she knows she’ll have to leave immediately.
“Are they here to pick you up?” Charles asks.
She nods and Charles can feel his heartbreak for her. He spent the whole morning worrying about her and finally felt at ease when she arrived looking pale but okay. He knows Waylen subjects her do unspeakable things, but he feels powerless to help her. He tries to swallow his emotions. She turns to leave.
“Leilani,” he calls her ina low, hoarse voice.
She turns around. Charles stands tall and straight on the hospital steps. His hair is messy and his white lab coat flutters in the wind.
“I forgot to tell you that I like spaghetti,” he says.
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.
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