Painful Love

Chapter Four (Part III)

She heard a knock on the door and realized that she had fallen asleep. "Are you okay?" Ha-Neul shouted what may seem from outside the bedroom. She replied with a loud "yeah" before drying off. She went back to the bedroom and opened the door to find him sitting down. "You think you will be able to fall asleep? I want to stay till you fall asleep," he spoke as he got off the floor. She wanted to tell him that he looked tired and he should go, but she knew him better than that that he was actually going to listen to her. She went and lay on the bed, and he came sitting beside her, and he let her head rest on his lap as her hands wrapped around his waist. He smiled as he played with her hair. Her hair was curly and soft. His smile widened when he realized that that was the first time he had touched her hair, and she never let anyone touch her hair. She viewed her hair as her prized possession, and nobody allowed just anybody to touch their possession. He was a bit worried, though, for someone who he would consider her to be talented at flirting, she sure backed away very quickly. He wondered if it was something that Alexei did, but then again, if he had ever harmed her, she wouldn't have been as friendly as she was around him. He didn't notice that she was never at ease around him. Her shoulders were always up whenever he came into the room, but that was to be expected. The only question he had was why did she keep him around? Alexei seemed like a very persistent guy; however, her being friendly allowed him to stay longer. He hated the two men. He really did, and although he doesn't entirely scratch that, he can't even wrap her head around why Zarah kept them around after the damage they have caused in her life. He thought that she was insane for doing so, but the Zarah he met in Korea always had her reasons for everything that she did. No matter how absurd it may look from the outside world, she could care less because she made sure to go after what she wanted. So despite his hate towards the two men, he had learned to get along with them for her sake. When she was absolute out, he tucked her in and left the apartment since she had a meeting with Marce the next day.

When the meeting finished with Enrique, Marce and Zarah walked out of the café, it was renovated and looked exactly the same. "Have you heard from Alexei?" Zarah asked when they stood by Marce's car. Marce shook his head no. It had already been three days since she heard from him, and he never went that long without a call or trying to see her, and when Marce shook his head no, her heart sank. She had a feeling that something terrible had happened to him. Marce opened the door for her to get in, but she refused and said she had something to take care of.

Alexei had activated a tracker on her phone to his just in case something terrible happened, and when she opened it, it showed that he was three hours away from where she was. Looking it up on the map, it looked like a deserted land, she went back to the tracker app, but it was gone. Her thoughts started running wild, and her heart started beating fast. She called a ride, and the entire ride there, she was fidgeting. She asked the driver to drop her a distance from the location because she didn't know exactly what she was getting herself into. As she walked, she came across an abandoned building. Walking toward it and inside, it seemed that there was no one in the building, she walked around, and past a door, she heard a man talking, and without thinking twice, she opened the door, and she gasped. Alexei was hanging upside down. His face was barely recognizable, and his chest was full of bruises. A man was standing opposite him, and there were two more standing at the corner of the tiny room, one smoking and the other seemed to be on his phone. The man standing near Alexei turned around and smiled genuinely smiled, and Zarah just found herself smiling back. "It's a surprise to see you here, I was actually going to come and get you, but this is even better." He spoke. The man with a cigarette in his hand walked up to her and pushed her inside the room before shutting the door behind him. He tied her hands behind her back and forced her to her knees.

"What the f**k are you doing here?" Alexei barked. Zarah flinched for a second when blood came out of his mouth.

"I don't know," she said with a shrug. She was trying her best to stay calm, but she was shaking inside, her stomach was hurting, and she was starting to sweat.

"The f**k you mean you don't know?!" Zarah could tell that Alexei was beyond angry.

"Well, what if they kill you?" She asked.

"They can't," Alexei replied, looking at the guy that gave him a beating. "And get your f*****g filthy hands off her," he directed the statement to the guy that was standing behind Zarah. Upon hearing this, the guy knelt to Zarah's height from behind her and snaked his hand on her chest, but before he could grab her breast, she pulled her head forward, and with as much force as she could muster, she pulled back, which resulted in the guy to tumble backward and hit his head on the ground. When he got off the floor, he walked up to her and punched her in the face.

"You motherfucker...!!!!" Alexei went to shout, but Zarah stopped him by saying, "what do they want?" The man beating Alexei smiled, "you are smarter than you look." he said with a smile.

"Information," he finished.

"Is the information worth 50 million dollars?" Zarah asked, and the room went silent.

"What the f**k are you doing?!" Alexei asked. He knew about the money. He was there after all, but the money wasn't only hers, it was Marce's as well, and Marce would never, ever spend a million, let alone 50 million, on him. "It's not just your f*****g money." "50 million should do," the guy that was on the phone spoke up this time.

"What about the boss?" the guy that punched Zarah spoke.

"Have you ever seen a million dollar in your life before?" the guy that was beating up Alexei asked him. They looked at each other. "While you are thinking about it, could you please untie him?" Zarah asked as she motioned with her head toward Alexei. When he was down on the floor, he let out a low groan. Apart from his face, you could clearly tell that some of his ribs were broken, every single finger on his right hand was bent backward, and his left knee seemed out of place. How is he still alive? It was beyond her. The man even had one stab wound just below his ribs. Looking at the frown on his face, she knew that he was in so much pain. She had no idea how she would have spent 50 million dollars, but it definitely wasn't on the man that could've killed her.