"Bella, what’s wrong? Don’t scare Mom."
Chloe’s words pulled her back to reality.
Bella Green suddenly threw her arms around Chloe Johnson, burying herself in that warm embrace, trying to warm her whole body up.
Sensing Bella’s vulnerability, Chloe tightened her arms and held her even closer.
"Don’t be scared, don’t be scared, Mom’s right here. No one can bully our Bella."
When she was little, Chloe used to coax Bella just like this.
She had thought she would never again call herself mother to Bella, never again be called that by her. She hadn’t expected there would still be such a day.
As she spoke, she ended up crying first.
The three of them fell silent for a while, each with a heavy heart.
After a long time, Bella finally came back to herself and wasn’t so worked up anymore.
Pulling away from Chloe’s arms, she wiped the tears off the woman’s face.
"Why did he lock you two up here?"
The two of them froze. Chloe’s lips moved, and in the end she smiled. "You should know, back then I was the one who took you out of the Lawrence Family. He probably... hates us."
There wasn’t anything exactly wrong with what she said, but Bella could hear the guilty note in her words.
"Really?"
Faced with her questioning, Chloe found herself at a loss for words.
After all, confronted with a pair of eyes that seemed to see through everything, she truly couldn’t get the words out.
Chloe averted her gaze, pretending not to know anything. "You child, would Mom lie to you?"
Bella knew that even if she kept asking, she probably wouldn’t get anything more out of them.
Right now, though, what she was more anxious about was how to get out of here.
Even if she couldn’t leave, she had to find a way to contact Mason Bennett.
Thinking of that instant when she fell off the Splendid River bridge, and the way the man’s eyes had gone bloodshot and wild, Bella’s heart clenched with panic and anxiety.
If he doesn’t know she’s safe, will he do something irrational?
"Mom, can you help me? I really have to get in touch with Mason. At least let me let him know I’m safe."
Chloe looked at Michael Green with some difficulty.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, it was that they really couldn’t contact the outside world.
"There has to be a way. If you really can’t contact anyone, then how do you get hold of the doctor? Isn’t he afraid there might be some problem with my body?"
Chloe was stunned, then answered truthfully, "We can only get hold of the butler on Second Master’s side. No one else."
There was only one usable phone in the manor, and it had been set so it could only connect to Matthew Lawrence.
Any other number simply wouldn’t go through.
"Then call him."
Bella’s eyes went cold. Just right; there were plenty of things she wanted to ask him too.
Chloe looked helplessly toward Michael, only to see the man sigh and nod in resignation.
"All right then, I’ll take you."
Chloe spoke as she stood up.
She hadn’t even made it to the door before Bella called her back.
"Mom, there’s one more thing I don’t understand."
The woman turned her head and met the girl’s clear, transparent gaze. She didn’t know why, but a faint unease rose in her heart...
...
The Lawrence Family had been shrouded in low pressure these past few days.
All the employees were so busy their feet barely touched the ground, their nerves taut at every moment, ready to deal with any sudden situation.
Vivian Thornecroft had come to the company with Louis Lawrence.
All along the way, quite a few employees who saw him following behind Louis were very surprised.
They went all the way to Louis’s office.
Once inside, the man casually hung his coat on the rack, then sat down behind his desk, lifted his head with a lazy air, tossed his keys onto the desk, took out a cigarette and lit it.
That slovenly, good-for-nothing posture made Vivian glance over at him despite herself.
"You working like this—does Grandpa know?"