Chapter 498 – His Second Chance Love: The Freezing Silence

Chapter 498 – His Second Chance Love: The Freezing Silence

I nodded and went to my seat. Nora was still a concern, but the most important thing was to leave right away, and the helicopter took off.

Halfway through, Nora clutched her stomach, and her face contorted in pain, and she kept sweating. I was getting worried for her, and I was going to help her, but someone stopped me. “We’ll handle this, Ms. Stanhope. Please sit down and don’t hinder them.”

The staff took Nora into the cockpit, and I couldn’t do anything but watch. We landed on an airport after a few hours. I had no idea where we were because of the long hours of flight.

“Change of chopper. Chop, chop, people. Tempus fugit.” We went to board one of the planes without even going through a security check.

Alright, that was weird. Did Armond plan all this? I reflexively looked back at Tabitha and the girls, who were taken into the plane. They hadn’t been talking over the past few days, and the escape had exhausted them.

They were deathly pale, and I knew they would have fallen if it weren’t for the people around them. I noticed that they were clutching their stomachs, and I frowned. Something’s off. But I didn’t take the chance to ask, since we were urged to board the flight.

Nora felt better once we boarded, so she was let back into the passenger cabin, and there were other strangers with us too. I scanned the place and thought something was definitely wrong, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. No point thinking about it then. I buckled myself and waited for the flight to take off.

It took more than half a day to fly from Aploth to Western Europe, and I was still confused even after we landed. We settled some paperwork in the airport, and then we were taken to a villa.

Everyone was exhausted from the long journey, and Nora and the girls had fallen asleep. I tried to stay awake on pure will alone, and I tried to call Anthony, but someone stopped me.

The man who took us to the villa was a burly one, and he never seemed to smile. He had this perpetually cold look on him. When he stopped me, he said, “You need to rest, miss.”

I tried to negotiate, “I want to call my family, sir.”

He threw me a cold look and answered stiffly, “You are forbidden from contacting anyone without Mr. Murphy’s permission.” He gazed at me, trying to force me back into the room.

It’d be bad to face it head on if Armond was making the orders, so I nodded and went into the room. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep after the long journey, but the jetlag was stopping me from getting any rest.

I had the feeling something was off the moment Armond said he wanted to bring me to Western Europe, but I couldn’t figure it out.

I finally drifted to sleep at midnight, but then someone knocked on the door early next morning, waking me up.

I opened the door only to see Tessa before me, looking deathly pale. Since they spent all their time in the glass room, it took a great toll on their bodies. I never talked to them either, since they never said anything.

I was surprised to see her, and she came into my room and locked the door. Tessa was glowering at me. She said nothing, but I could feel her enmity toward me.

Confused, I asked, “What’s wrong, Tessa?”

She sneered at me for a while and pulled her clothes up, revealing her bandaged torso, much to my shock. “When did this happen? Who hurt you?” Who was I kidding? Of course I knew who hurt them. Her wound was on the belly, after all, but still, the fact made me shudder.

I saw the rows of operating theatres in Abe’s villa, and I saw how they stuffed women’s stomachs with kyanine. The scar on Tessa’s torso told me that Abe’s men had stuffed kyanine in them.

And then I was reminded of how deathly pale they were over the past few days. And they’d clutch their stomach, holding in their pain. This isn’t the glass room’s side effect. Their body’s rejecting the kyanine. It’s an alien object. No wonder they’re looking like this.

I asked, “Are the other girls like this too?” I felt a lump in my throat.

Tessa looked at me, her lips pursed, her eyes filled with hatred. She didn’t answer my question, and I thought she hated me. I couldn’t say anything else, so I stared back into her eyes. Anything I had to say would sound like hindsight, and that would make her hate me more.

All I could do was meet up with Armond as soon as possible so I could ask him to get someone to extract the kyanine from their bodies.

I said hoarsely, “Listen to me, Tessa. I’ll meet up with Armond. I know he can get someone to take that thing out of you guys.” Then I went out. The lobby was guarded by the man who brought us in the day before.

He noticed me and said, “Please go back to your room, Ms. Stanhope.”

“I want to see Armond.”

“Mr. Murphy will be here shortly. Please go back to your room.”

“Can I call him then?” I knew he’d come sooner or later, but I needed someone to take the kyanine out of the girls immediately.

The man looked at me coolly and frowned. “It can wait until Mr. Murphy is here. Please do not get in the way of my work, Ms. Stanhope.”

Dammit. Now I have to wait for him. Armond only arrived that afternoon, and I quickly stopped him. “Mr. Murphy, my friends got kyanine stuffed in them. They need a doctor to take it out. That, or they have to go to the hospital.”

Getting a hospital overseas was hard, and anyone would get suspicious if they found kyanine in the girls’ bodies. It’d be bad if they looked into it.

Armond nodded and called a doctor, then he looked at me. “We don’t have an operating theatre here, and I can’t take them to a proper hospital, so I’m getting a private doctor for this.

I knew that much, and I nodded. “I know.”

Nora and the girls went into the cars with Armond’s men’s help, and I followed them, but Armond stopped me. “Stay here. It won’t be easy to get away from Abe and his men. Better safe than sorry.”

I nodded, then I realized he smelled of blood. Armond went to talk to his men who were going to send the girls to the hospital, then he came back to me. “Rest up. We’ll go back once I settle things here.”

I nodded and saw him off, then I realized his suit was darker around his waist. That’s probably blood. “Armond,” I called him.

He stopped in his tracks and looked at me, his face pale. “Anything else?”

“Did you call a doctor? For yourself, I mean.” He didn’t show his wound after he came back, but I knew he was hurt.

He froze up. “This is nothing.” He smiled at me and went to his bedroom upstairs, leaving me alone.

I stood there for a few moments, then I went up to his bedroom and knocked on his door. He opened the door a few minutes later, though he had changed into a white shirt.

I would have thought he was perfectly fine, but he was too pale to be okay. “What is it?” he asked coolly.

I hesitated for a moment before going into his bedroom and noticed the bandage and the haemostatic drug on his table. I turned back, and he coughed. “Just a small injury. Just need to be cleaned up.”

I pursed my lips. “I’ll help you.” I dragged him to the sofa before he could refuse, and then I tried to take his shirt off, but he held my hand down.

I frowned at him. “I need to tend to your wound.”

He froze for a moment, then he smiled and let my hand go. I took his clothes off, revealing the ugly gash on his waist, and blood was still oozing out. My frown turned deeper. This guy has a high level of tolerance toward pain. Looks like something slashed him. Wait, no.

When I looked closer, I realized he was stabbed by a stake, and I frowned again. “How did this happen?”

“I crashed into something during the fight,” he said nonchalantly. “Nothing to be worried about. It missed the vital organs.”

Barely. God, it’s just a few millimetres from his kidney. He had a lot of wounds, but they were minor, just like what he said, but the one on his waist ran deep.

I cleaned his wound for him. Since there was no anaesthetic for him, he felt all the pain from the cleaning up. Lodophor wasn’t as painful as alcohol, but the cotton swab was still going to irritate the wound.

Even so, all he did was frown. He didn’t even flinch, so I asked, “Does it hurt?”

He smiled at me. “No.”

As if. His wound was finger deep. I knew he must be in pain, since he was just human after all. I sighed. “You don’t have to lie. The wound’s too big not to hurt. You aren’t Superman, you know.”

The blood was still flowing out, and I crushed some haemostatic drugs before spreading it on his wound. Even so, the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding. I had to do it a few times before the drugs took effect.

I heaved a sigh of relief. That was an intense session, and I was even starting to sweat. Luckily, the wound didn’t seem to cause any more complications. After I bandaged it, I felt something warm on my forehead, much to my surprise. I looked up and stared into Armond’s eyes. Awkward.

“It shouldn’t be infected as long as you stay clear of water.” I looked away.

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