Chapter 232 - 232 Ch. 232 Richard’s Plan
Damn it. He shouldn’t have let his wife inject him with that paralytic injection.
“Dad? Daddy!!” Lori immediately got up and hugged her father’s neck while kissing her father’s face making Richard laugh out loud. “Dad, mom is missing. I don’t know where did she go? She…”
“Shhh. I know.” Richard wiped away his daughter’s tears without realizing the presence of someone on the other side.
“You knew your wife was leaving?”
Richard turned to his father and smiled casually as if the news of his wife leaving him had come as no surprise. “I know.”
“And it seems you also know that your wife gave you the paralytic injection.”
“I know. I told her to do it.”
Boom!! It was as if they could hear thunder roaring at Richard’s answer.
.....
“Richie, what are you….”
“Meimei, could you ask Lori out for a bit? I want to talk to this idiot son of mine.”
“He’s my son too.” Meisya’s protest made Stanley look at her gently.
“Our son. Now, go outside for a bit. Lori must be hungry too, considering she ate so little yesterday.”
“Eat a little?” Richard looked at his daughter with a warning look. “Baby girl, why are you only eating a little? Look at you... your cheeks are disappearing from… ouch….” Richard was about to pinch his daughter’s cheek playfully, but his mother slapped his hand.
“You have no right to nag my granddaughter. Come on, Lori, let Opa punish your daddy.”
Lori nodded in agreement and followed her grandmother, leaving Richard in disbelief.
“Explain what happened,” demanded Stanley.
“Actually…”
(Flashback)
“I’m sorry,” Anxia said before injecting the contents of the syringe into Richard’s arm. But when the needle entered her husband’s arm, Anxia didn’t push the contents inside, but she took the syringe back and let out a long, wide breath.
“Why don’t you do it?”
Anxia gasped at her husband’s voice and realized that her husband’s pair of brown eyes were wide open, looking at her lovingly.
How could he still love her after knowing what she was about to do?
“I… it seems I can’t hurt you anymore. No… I don’t want to hurt you.”
Richard got up and sat facing his wife. He came closer and gently took his wife into his arms while stroking Anxia’s back.
“I didn’t think much of it at first, but it looks like something did happen at the park?”
“How?”
“You are my wife, Xia Xia. Even though you may not realize it, my eyes never leave you. Even though you smile and seduce me, I still feel your mood swings. Did something happen?”
Anxia sighed and wrapped her hands around her husband’s back while enjoying the gentle caresses on her back.
Then Anxia told everything that happened—from meeting with a mysterious girl in Birmingham to their second meeting in the toilet, who requested her to leave after she paralyzed Richard with an injection.
“Not only is your mother still alive, but your father too?”
“I don’t remember their faces, but I know the two people in the photo are my parents. My mom looks fine, but she looks lonely, while my dad… I don’t know how he is. I want to go, Richie... to find out… but… I don’t want to go.” Anxia’s embrace of Richard tightened as she didn’t know what to do.
On the one hand, she wants to make sure her parents are okay, but on the other hand, she no longer wants to leave her new life with Richard. Anxia no longer wanted to plunge into the dark world where she had to see blood through the ground—her only wish now was to be Richard’s wife and Lori’s mother.
“Go. I would have saved my parents if I were in your shoes.”
Anxia loosened her embrace to look at her husband. “You’re going to let me go?”
Richard smiled gently at her and stroked her cheek lovingly. “In exchange, I will pick you up within five days from now. It doesn’t matter whether you manage to find your parents or not; you have to come with me as soon as I pick you up.”
“You’re going to pick me up? How did you find me?”
“You forget I have a Cerberus acquaintance, my love. Of course, I will ask for his help.”
Anxia chuckled as Richard rubbed his nose against hers in a playful gesture.
“But, what will we do if I find my parents?”
“We will think of a way to save them. You just need to act there like you’ve been doing. Leave the rest to me.”
‘I want you to rely on me.’ Anxia remembered her husband had asked her this before, and now he was asking her the same thing.
“Okay. This time I will rely on you completely.”
Richard smiled widely upon hearing this, then took the syringe that had fallen from Anxia’s hand.
“What is this thing?”
“A paralytic drug. They don’t want you tracking me the second you notice I’m gone. You won’t be conscious for at least fifty hours once.”
Richard eyed the syringe, and suddenly his clever brain thought of a plan.
“Just inject it with me to show you did what they asked.”
“What?”
“They wouldn’t suspect anything if word got out about Richard Calvin being sick.” Richard doubted there was no spy in this house if that ‘person’ had monitored Lori for five years.
“But…”
“After that, you come to Lori’s room and make her wake up and come here. I will try to hold on as long as possible before the effects of this drug work and ask her to reach Thijs.”
“You want to get Lori involved?”
“No. But I want to involve my father. If I go to pick you up, someone has to look after Lori while I’m gone, don’t you think?”
Long story short, Anxia complied with Richard’s wish and went to Lori’s room. She didn’t know if spies were in this place, so she acted like she was saying goodbye to her daughter but made sure Lori would wake up to look for her in Richard’s room.
Their plan worked out well, as Lori reacted as they expected she would. As Lori climbed into the bed where Richard was lying in his pants, the man greeted his daughter in a weak voice.
“Hi, baby girl. Will you do something for me?”
“What is it, dad?”
“Starting tomorrow, don’t go to school until I wake up. Also, ask Denise to call Uncle Thijs over here.” After saying that, Richard’s eyelids closed, and fifty hours of ‘paralysis’ began.
“Dad? Daddy!” Lori didn’t know her father’s actual plans and thought her father was going to leave her, so she cried and refused to go to school ever since.
(Flashback end)