Loving You Too Long

“We have successfully located his whereabouts.” The local man pulled out his phone from his pocket and showed the screen to everyone in the room. “Ramon’s gang has a hidden base on a small island. There’s a concealed building behind the forest that they’ve been using as their headquarters. We need to cross the strait to get there, and it will take hours,” the informant continued. “We have agreed to raid the base when we are sure that everyone is there. Forces have been mobilized. The police, along with the navy and ground forces, are working together for this massive capture. Pray that your brother Nathan is in good condition.” The man said, nodded at by several heads in the room.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

They intended to share this information with Haisley so that she could be more at ease, knowing at least they had information about Nathan’s whereabouts. Gilbert went to the room where he knew Haisley was with her two friends. However, after knocking on the door several times and receiving no response, he chose to open it and was quite surprised not to find anyone there.

Still trying to think positively, Gilbert went downstairs and searched for the whereabouts of the three friends. Once again, he didn’t find them. Gilbert went to the other building, not the one they used for the meeting earlier, but another building among the four within the villa’s scope. There he saw the women gathered – Crystal, Abigail, Flavia, Mrs. Gilbert, and Haisley’s mother. However, Haisley was not there.

“Where is Haisley?” he asked, looking at each of the women and girls there one by one.

“She said she wanted to sleep, G. We left her alone not wanting to disturb her rest,” Abigail replied matter-of-factly. Gilbert furrowed his brow.

“She’s not in her room,” Gilbert said with a growl. The women and girls there shook their heads in disbelief. They all then scattered to search for Haisley and eventually discovered that she was nowhere to be found.

“CCTV,” Abigail said to Flavia. The group then hurried to another building located near the employees’ residence. Flavia asked the security guard to check the CCTV and find the whereabouts of the suddenly missing Haisley.

All eyes were fixed on the large square screen in front of them, divided into several small boxes showing every corner where the CCTV was installed. They watched for a while until they finally saw Haisley walking out of the villa on her own and then getting into a vehicle waiting for her at the front door.

“Damn!” The men cursed simultaneously, while the women felt their knees weaken upon realizing that now, two members of their family were in danger.

A few moments earlier.

Haisley lay her head on the bed and chose to close her eyes. In doing so, she hoped that her two friends could leave her alone.

Haisley didn’t dislike the attention from Abigail and Flavia; in fact, she felt happy that both of them were there with her, patiently accompanying her in her worst times. But over time, she felt increasingly suffocated. She was genuinely afraid that something might happen to her husband, the man she loved more than life itself.

Without Flavia and Abigail knowing, Haisley had received a message from an unknown number. In the message, the sender said that Nathan was with them, and Haisley was expected not to tell anyone about the message if she wanted Nathan to be safe. Haisley didn’t need to guess where the message came from.

Haisley had tried to contact that number again, but the call never went through. She tried to reply to the message and ask where Nathan was, but the message was never delivered.

Half an hour after the first message, another message appeared on her phone, from a different number, stating that they would pick up Haisley and reunite her with Nathan, as long as she didn’t inform anyone about the message. Within ten minutes, she would ask Haisley to provide an answer that Haisley had to respond to immediately.

Ten minutes, a time that Haisley felt like hours. Haisley never let go of her phone, holding it tightly until it became wet with her own sweat. And when another message came in, questioning if Haisley was ready to meet Nathan without telling anyone about her departure, Haisley quickly typed Yes. The message sender said they would contact Haisley in twenty minutes. And again, when Haisley tried to contact that new number, it became inactive.

Haisley waited for another twenty minutes. At the same time, people hired by her friend’s father and Nathan’s father arrived. It was then that she received a message that she had to leave the villa within thirty minutes without anyone knowing. And here she is now, pretending to sleep just so Flavia and Abigail would leave her alone.

She knew that there were security guards in front guarding the villa. And she knew it wouldn’t be easy to leave the villa without being observed. But she had to do something. She had to try to leave the villa to find her husband, Nathan, again.

Haisley knew she was foolish. From the first message, she should have told her family, sought a solution together. But she knew, even though her family wouldn’t leak what she said to anyone, even though there would be no spies in Flavia’s villa, her conscience couldn’t lie.

For quite a while, she pretended to be asleep until she heard Abigail and Flavia leave the room with extremely slow steps so as not to disturb her sleep. She looked at her phone again, waiting for another message to come in and provide instructions on what to do.

Haisley waited for quite a while. This time, it wasn’t a message she received, but a call.

“Hel-hello?” she stammered in fear.

“Get out of there in five minutes.” It was a woman’s voice, strangely familiar to Haisley. But she didn’t know how she could speak so fluently and even without a foreign accent in her voice. “I don’t care what excuse you make to leave there. If you don’t leave the villa in five minutes, don’t expect to see Nathan again.” The woman said in a threatening tone. “After you’re out, there will be a car waiting for you. So hurry!” The voice ordered before abruptly ending the call.