As the old adage says, always return to your own root.
Although A City was not my homeland, it was much better compared to Western Europe and Venria.
That night, I slept better than ever. It was a dreamless sleep.
The next day.
I was awakened by the sound of knocking on my door. When I opened the door, I was struck dumb by the sight of a man in grey pyjamas standing outside my door. “Morning, Mr. Murphy.”
He raised his brow and looked at the watch on his wrist. “You’ll start work from today. From now on, you’ll stay here. For the time being, there’s no helper at home, so you’ll need to prepare breakfast. We start work at nine, and it’s seven now. In order not to be late for work, you’ll have to go downstairs to make breakfast now.”
Having said that, the man sauntered off. I was a little confused at first but recovered after a while. I quickly went back to my room and changed my clothes. After a quick wash-up, I went downstairs to the kitchen.
Fortunately, there was some food in the refrigerator. So I made a quick breakfast.
After breakfast, I was caught in a difficult situation. When I saw him holding the car keys in his hand as he was about to leave the house, I mustered up my courage and asked, “Mr. Murphy, can I trouble you to give me a ride?”
He nodded wordlessly.
After getting into the car, I put on a thick skin and asked, “Mr. Murphy, can I request one month’s salary in advance?”
I had no choice because I lost all of my belongings. My bank card had to be reissued. Even my mobile phone was lost. The most important thing right now was to get myself a phone.
When I saw him looking at me, I quickly explained, “All of my belongings were taken by the policewoman. I’ve nothing left with me. That’s why I want to get myself a phone first.”
He nodded in silence. Then, he took out a white box from a bag and handed it to me. “Consider this as your salary for this month. It’s new, take it. I don’t like this design very much.”
I took it and was a little surprised when I opened the box.
It was a new mobile phone, and it seemed to be worth more than five thousand.
After being without a phone for two months, I felt so out of touch. I unboxed the mobile phone excitedly and found that I just needed to get a SIM card.
The Murphys business in A City was still oil and jade. It was undoubtedly their business as the import and export centre in Southeast Asia.
Hence, the Murphys’ company was situated in twin towers right in the heart of a busy city centre in A City.
In the twin towers, there were two other companies other than the Murphys’ company. One was an IT company, and the other was an energy resources company.
The luxurious office building consisted of hundreds of floors, and it was owned exclusively by these three companies.
I spent the entire morning being briefed about my new job as Armond’s secretary. And by noon, I took the advantage of break time to get myself a SIM card.
With a phone in hand, the first thing I did was to call the police.
Although I did not know if the so-called policewomen were real or fake, they convicted others in private and expelled others from the country, and the act itself was already an illegal act.
After obtaining the SIM card, I managed to log in to my google account. Fortunately, the account was linked to my google pay, thus it made things a lot easier for me.
Ever since I left K City, I had not responded to anyone’s message from K City, nor had I posted anything on Instagram.
Countless messages kept popping up on my phone, and they were all messages from K City over the past two months.
Most of the messages were from Ashton. I clicked into it and quickly read the messages. There were mostly photos of him and Summer, and the rest were daily greetings and checking in on me.
I read the messages carefully, and by the time I read the last message, it seemed that the message was sent recently and he seemed to be doing fine.
I pondered for a moment before replying to his message.
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” Other than that, I didn’t know what else to say.
After that, I sent messages to both Emery and Hannah to tell them that I was safe and sound.
The police arrived not long after I made the call. They were here to take statements from me.
Savini at Animus was surprised to see that I was back. He was even more surprised that I had led the police to him.
The moment he saw me, he was so shocked that he dropped the papers that were in his hands. He looked at me with utter astonishment and stuttered, “Scarlett, you…you…”
I smiled faintly and said, “Thanks to you, I’m still alive.”
The police stepped forward and arrested him after they read him his rights. As for the group of policewomen, they were gone by the time the police arrived.
It appeared that they had left earlier.
Just as I was leaving the police station, Ashton called.
I memorized his phone number by heart and knew that it was him by just a glance at the numbers.
I was in a dilemma, to answer or not to answer the call.
After a moment, I answered the call.
Without many words, he asked in a low voice, and it sounded as familiar as ever.
“Where are you?”
I was distracted for a moment as I looked up at the August sky in A City. Suddenly I realized that time seemed to have passed for a long time.
“I’m back in the country.” When we met in Venria, there were no words spoken. He must have been worried.
There was a moment of silence on the other side of the phone before he asked, “Shall I come and find you?”
