Andrew raised his bloodshot eyes to her, appearing tired and worried. In a hoarse voice, he murmured, “Mona told me she wanted a cake from a bakery near the hospital, and I promised to get it for her after the checkup was done. I was only gone only for a few minutes and now, she was in the operating room.”
At this point, Andrew buried his head in his palm again. He couldn’t say anymore and began to whimper. Anna had never seen Andrew be like this before, so she felt worried.
Then a doctor opened the door to the operating room and came out, asking, “Is Mona’s family here?”
Andrew froze, stood up quickly, and said, “I am her husband.”
“We need you to sign the paper. It’s an urgent situation.”
“Okay.”
Andrew paused for a moment before picking up the pen. Anna noticed that his hand was trembling as he signed. As the doctor went back into the operating room, Andrew nearly collapsed on the floor. He had never felt that time could pass so slowly.
About two hours later, when the door to the operating room was reopened, he didn’t even dare to stand up. He only dared to raise his bloodshot eye to see the crowd of doctors and nurses exiting the operating room.
As he approached them, the doctor said to Andrew with a serious expression, “Your wife gave birth to a daughter. But she is too weak and must be admitted to the hospital. Because the baby is also in poor health, we will admit her to the intensive care unit for three days of observation.”
Andrew appeared to have lost all strength after hearing the doctor’s words. Then he sobbed loudly.
Three days later, Andrew’s daughter was moved from the intensive care unit to the general ward. Andrew, a first-time father, no longer had to see his daughter through a glass enclosure.
“Uncle Andrew, relax. Even though she has two children, my mother does not get as agitated as you do,” Tammy said, trying to comfort Andrew.
Anna was sitting beside Mona’s bed, serving chicken soup, when she said, “Tammy, when you were born, you were roughly her size. How do you know I wasn’t agitated?”
“Did you?”
“Not really,” Anna replied, raising her brows in thought.
Mona couldn’t stop coughing after a sip of soup. When she coughed, she felt all of her muscles hurt, as did the surgical incision. She couldn’t drink the soup anymore because she was sweating from the pain.
Seeing that, Andrew was extremely nervous. He hadn’t slept in days, lost a lot of weight, and the dark circles under his eyes were noticeable. He couldn’t bear the pain for Mona, no matter how worried he was. In his panic, he was at a loss for words.
Meanwhile, Mona smiled and said to him, “The doctor has given me a new prescription. Why don’t you go get it for me, darling?”
Andrew was relieved to learn that there was something for him to do, so he immediately exited the ward.
As she watched his figure vanish through the ward’s door, Mona stopped smiling and then said to Anna seriously, “Someone pushed me downstairs.” She gripped the sheet so tightly that her nails irritated her palms. And she couldn’t stop trembling with fear.
Mona remembered seeing a woman in a hat and a black coat in the narrow stairwell. As she was pushed down, the woman whispered, “Go to hell!”
In the last few days, Mona had frequently awoken from that recurring image in her dreams. As she awoke and looked out of the window, she felt a chill running down her spine.
“Anna, she did it on purpose! She pushed me on purpose.” Mona forced herself to remember the scene, which was incredibly painful. After a brief while, she continued, “I was on my way upstairs to the doctor for a medical exam when I ran into her at the stairwell. She and I moved way for each other several times, but she still got in my way. Then, she gave me a hard stare and pushed me down.”
Mona’s words sent shivers down Anna’s spine, and she frowned tightly. She then pulled out her phone and asked, “Why didn’t you call the police?”
Mona snatched her phone away as Anna had just dialed two numbers. She said, “No! Andrew is nervous right now, and I can’t tell him about this. I’m afraid he’ll make an impulsive decision after knowing it.”
Anna thought about Mona’s words and realized she had a point. After that, she left the room, found the hospital’s security guard, and copied the surveillance video that day.
***
Late at night, while Anna was reviewing surveillance video on her computer, Wayne hugged her tightly from behind her.
Anna was briefly distracted by the smell of his fresh body wash, but she quickly recovered. She removed his hand from her dress.
“Let’s go to bed, honey,” Saying that, Wayne continued to rub his head against Anna’s thigh. Anna felt tingling all over, but as she struggled, she accidentally kicked his crouch.
In pain, Wayne fell off the other end of the couch. After a while of struggling, he got up from the floor, clearly upset.
Anna held back a laugh and asked, “Does it hurt? Does it still function properly?”
“I don’t know. You’ll know it later.” He then pounced on the bed and pressed up against Anna.
“Ouch! My hair! Take it slow!”
Andrew was always nervous after that accident happened to Mona. As a result, Anna also granted him a long vacation, allowing him to focus on being at home with his wife and child.
So, Anna had to put more effort into managing Lemon. Every day, she ran back and forth between the hospital and the office and lost some weight.
One day, she organized information in the office as it was almost time to leave work. Then Julia, her new assistant, rushed to the door and exclaimed, “Oh, no! The workers are fighting on the shop floor!”
Hearing that, Anna went there right away.
As soon as she arrived there, she found that the large workshop was crowded, with many people yelling and cursing. A group of people huddled together in the middle of the open space.
More than ten people were wrestling in the center of the crowd, trampling the garment parts scattered everywhere on the ground.
“Who is the director here?” Who?!” Anna screamed.
The crowd came to a halt and stared at her. People who had just wrestled together reluctantly separated as well. Then a middle-aged man in the crowd approached her slowly and said, “I am the director of the workshop.”
What Anna found incredible was that this man had just fought the most viciously in the group fight. He appeared to be strong, but he had been injured during the battle. And he approached Anna with a limp.
Anna asked angrily, “Are you the director here? Andrew told me before that you are hardworking and responsible, which is why he appointed you to this position. He’s on vacation, so you don’t want to work either, right?”
David’s face flushed as he heard Anna’s words. He sighed as if he needed to say something.
“This is not David’s fault! They started it all!” A man in the crowd said, and he sounded pretty young. Anna returned her gaze in that direction and noticed a young man walking out of the crowd. He was slim and had several bruises on his face as if he had just been hit hard.
“Shut up, James!” David exclaimed loudly.
James then stopped and retreated back into the crowd. Anna realized that things weren’t as simple as they appeared. She said, taking a deep breath and waving to James, “I believe Andrew. So, I’m giving you the opportunity to tell me the truth. Didn’t you say David was correct? So who’s to be blamed for the chaos?”
James hesitated whether or not to say anything. He’d been at Lemon for five years but had never met Anna. He said this because he was certain David did nothing wrong.
“Them!” He turned around and pointed at the group of people that had just fought.
“Bullshit! I’ll beat you up again later!” After being accused by James, these people appeared enraged. Some people clenched their fists as if they were about to start fighting again.
James ducked back, knelt to pick up a few broken pieces from the floor, and walked to Anna. “I’m the quality inspector, and this is the collar of the school uniform they made today. We agreed to sew two hems and hide all raw edges. However, these collars have not only one edge sewed, but also a lot of empty stitches. The stitches were crooked and hideous. When I asked them to redo it, they began hitting me.” he explained.
Anna noticed that James had visible bruises on both arms when he handed over the “evidence.” She examined the collars before tossing the ones stomped on with shoe marks into the trash. “Which ones?” she asked, looking around indifferently.
James stood beside her, pointing at those people in the crowd.
As she wiped the dust from her hands, Anna said firmly, “Julia, fire them. Tell the finance department to settle their salaries later, and don’t allow them to come here again!”
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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