194 How Dare You

"Who...who are you?!" The woman named Eleanor struggled to free herself as both her wrists were grasped as a stranger suddenly pinned her against the cold stone wall of the old church.

"It's not important to know who I am...but if you really know the husband you are keeping at home." The strange man had a mocking smile as he stared down at her.

"O-of course...he's my husband...I...I married him!"

"Oh really? Is that really the man you married? I heard people in town talk about how you picked up a person from the shore then claimed him as your husband..."

"How dare you!" She tried to free herself again, to no avail.

"Don't you know that you could end up in jail for what you're doing? You don't know the man you're living with right now. Keeping him will only bring you trouble."

"Why are you doing this to my family?! My husband had been missing for years! It was only a miracle that he came back! Stop bothering us!"

The man tightened his grip on her. "That man inside your house had only been missing for more than a month. Before that, he had a wife and a son. Aren't you feeling guilty by keeping him away from them?"

Her expression revealed the truth.

"You took advantage of his memory loss and introduced lies to him. Continue this and you and that cute daughter of yours shall pay the price."

"No! No...Louella!" She stared at the direction towards their house.

The man had a sly smile as he released his grip on her.

The woman dashed towards the direction she was staring at after being freed.

_________________

"Verdan Zhou..."

"I said I am not him! My name is Luis de Castro! Leave my family alone!" He glared at the bespectacled good-looking tall man, then anxiously glanced at the little girl being restrained by two men.

"Alright, alright..." he held up his hands as if in surrender. "Mr. De Castro, you should come with us. Otherwise, we cannot guarantee her life." He raised a brow and tilted his head to gesture towards the girl.

"How dare you! She's only a little girl!" He struggled to free himself from two large men clad in black who looked like bodyguards.

"Mr. De Castro, you should just willingly come with us." The man nodded on the man in black who was holding the girl. The latter then took out a handkerchief from his side pocket and covered the girl's mouth and nose until she lost consciousness. After which, the bespectacled man pointed a 9mm pistol with silencer towards her direction.

"You're a monster!"

Lu Shaoting shifted the direction of his gun towards Verdan Zhou. He still held a grudge during the time he was punched when Verdan met Midori again after several years. He was secretly slightly hoping he could elicit fear from this once powerful man.

However, to his dismay, he concluded that the man before him is really Verdan Zhou.

When the gun aimed at him, there was no trace of fear in him. He looked at the bespectacled man as if ordering him to aim towards himself. He might have been stripped off his business suit and oxfords, but the composure and determination is definitely that of a big company CEO.

Lu Shaoting snickered. He slowly walked towards the brave man, still aiming the gun at him.

When the barrel landed on his chest, Lu Shaoting gave him a challenging smirked. "Trying to be tough, huh?"

Before the man who identified himself as Luis could even utter a word, a hard fist landed on his abdomen, and he almost became limp.

"Take him away." Lu Shaoting instructed the men.

"Mr. Lu, what about the girl?" asked another man in black clothes.

"You can leave her here. She's not gonna die anyway."

"I found it!" Romina Ta came out of the small bedroom, holding up a rose gold twisted wedding band.

"Good job! We can leave now."

The woman named Eleanor hurried back home. As she entered the nipa hut, she saw her child unconscious on the old rattan sofa.

"Louella!" She checked up on her. Seeing that her pulse and breathing was regular, she was relieved.

Then she gasped as she remembered something.

"Luis!" she called out, but no one answered.

She dashed into the bedroom, only to find it as if everything was turned upside down.

She went and knelt to open a drawer. She cried to find the clam shell which she had hidden empty.