21 Miles Away From Her
"Fool!" the sound of her words coincide with the strength of the slap she had given her. She's too frustrated to even think about letting this woman live. If she knew that this woman is nothing but words, she shouldn't have given this task to her.
"Just how incompetent could you be? Didn't I gave you a hefty sum of money? You clearly told me you would be able to provoke her but I didn't know you were this fool."
"I'm so sorry, Ma'am." she pleads as her tears were streaming down her face.
"Get the hell out of my sight!" she shouted and pointed her gun towards her. She's too close to killing this woman, another minute and she would have pulled the trigger.
The woman who was as white as paper immediately stormed out of the room without second thoughts, she still love her life. If this is a survival movie, then she would be the next target to be killed and she knows she need to escape as much as possible.
She is a gossip reporter, her main line of work is exposing dirty secrets of celebrities and prominent figures and she's quite known for it. Unfortunately, this popularity made her life turn to worst. The woman she was talking to a minute ago suddenly barged inside her apartment and threatened her to do what she did.
As much as she doesn't want to provoke Xi Ana, she doesn't have any choice because the woman threatened to kill her daughter who's not living in the city and she doesn't have any idea how this woman found her daughter.
She had no choice. When she was asked by the woman if she knew something that could destroy her she was only given two choices: to answer with a yes, or to die with a no.
On the other hand, when the woman strode off her room her phone suddenly rang and she knew immediately that it's the call she's been waiting for. She answered the phone and greeted the person on the other line with great enthusiasm.
"Qi Lu!" she said cheerily.
"What do you think you're doing, Han Tu Mo?" there was a threat in his voice that she hadn't heard for a long time, if bothering Xi Ana is the only way for him to call her then she'd be more than willing to do so.
"Qi Lu! Why didn't you call me Mo Mo like you used to before?" she's purposely dodging the issue here.
"That was before you betrayed us. I know about that woman you hired, though it might not be a big deal for now but I'm warning you, once you do something to Ana I will never forgive you!" the woman laughed sarcastically.
"Come on Qi Lu, I'm just starting. I will never stop until you come back to me."
"Stop being delusional Han Tu Mo. I've never been on your side, and you know that." this woman is beyond saving, he thought. If they knew she would end up like this, they wouldn't have saved her.
"Why does it always have to be Nana? Why do you always have to be by her side? Why can't it be me? Why can't you become mine?" Han Tu Mo can't help but feel anger, ever since she laid her eyes on Xi Ana what she sees has always been hatred and nothing else.
"Because she's my life, I don't think I've ever hidden that to anyone. To me, without her I would be nothing." upon hearing this her face darkened with anger.
"Let's see who can last longer, then." she ended the call without waiting for his response. She's too sick with that damsel in distress, that is what's running inside her head right now. She wanted to crush her, she wanted her gone, she wanted Xi Ana gone forever.
Han Tu Mo opened her computer and searched for the folder where she kept the photos of An Qi Lu and Xi Ana together, she knew these would come in handy someday. She made sure to select the photos where only the back of the man can be seen, she only wanted to ruin Xi Ana and not him.
After carefully selecting everything, she finally sent it to Lim Yi Sheng through her own methods, after all she's not known for being an excellent hacker if she can't do something as small as this. She deleted her tracks so that they won't be able to know who sent it.
She knows that their relationship might be for business only but it doesn't really hurt her if she sends those pictures to him, if she can at least stir them up then it would be perfect. After all, she has plenty of time to plan the downfall of Xi Ana.
- - -
"It was probably Mo Mo, right?" she heard the sigh from the other line and she knew that she got it right. There was no other person she could think of who is daring enough to do something so stupid.
"I just don't know what happened to her."
When they were in Country X, they met Mo Mo. They found her covered in blood, she was only 14 years old back then and the two of them just turned 18. When they found her, she was practically as good as nothing. On top of being covered in blood, she was also very skinny, and her hair was a total mess as if she never had taken a bath her entire life.
When they picked her up, they made a thorough research about her and the life she had lived and they found out that she was a very problematic kid, she always gets into different troubles and her family is no better. Her father was a thief and was on the run at that time while her mother was a heavy drinker, she used to hit her until she is already beaten into pulp.
The night they found her, she accidentally grazed her mother with a kitchen knife because she was about to get hit again. Though her mother didn't suffer any major injuries, she refused to take her back in.
So in the end, they decided to help her, they literally bathed and clothed her. They gave her shelter and food. They practically gave her life, but she eventually turned her back on them.
When she was 18 years old, she took millions of money from them. Xi Ana and An Qi Lu owns a secret trading business under dummy names and was operated by people who doesn't know them. Not that it was open to the knowledge of Han Tu Mo but what she did was to hack some of their accounts and took all the money. Not that the security was easy to breach, it wasn't easy to breakthrough, it was just that she was gifted with talents in hacking, it was actually one of their reason of keeping her but eventually, she did bite the hand of the person that feeds her.
"We can't do anything about her anymore." she wanted to help her but she's the one who refused their help, they can't force her to accept their help if she really didn't want to.
"Ana, please be careful. I don't want you to get hurt, we'll never how far Mo Mo can go. If only I can stay by your side all the time, I would and you know that." she can clearly hear the pain in his words. The mere fact that he used to call her by her name and not 'Nana' means he's really serious.
He was there in her darkest times, and she knows without him she will never be able to get to where she is now. When she refused the whole world, there was only him that stayed beside her.
"Don't worry, I'll be careful." and with that the call ended.
Since there isn't much to do left in the office she decided to go home already. She made Hannah attend a business trip somewhere outside the city so she drove home alone.
Upon reaching their driveway, she was surprised when she saw the car that her husband uses already parked inside their garage. They have quite a lot of cars and each one has a specific place for parking.
It's still 8:00 in the evening and both them usually reaches home at 9:00 as the earliest so them being here early today was something really unexpected. She made her way straight to their bedroom, when she saw that his office room was slightly opened she decided to take a peak.
Lim Yi Sheng has been looking at the photos that was anonymously sent to him again. He's been staring at it when he received it earlier today. Her tried so much to trace to whom it came from but it was cleanly done.
The photos were all Xi Ana with a certain man and as if it was deliberately done, the man's face was never shown. Either only the back was shown, or it was covered by something like a tree branch or a balloon. Lim Yi Sheng could easily tell that those pictures were taken from different countries and cities and she looked younger on most of the photos, maybe around 18 years old.
If the man's face can't be seen, Xi Ana's expressions were all visible. There was a pang of pain and jealousy building up inside him because he had never seen these expressions of her before. Happy, sad, amazed,bewildered, scared, childlike, and a lot more. It pains him to know that she can do those expressions freely, but, in front of someone else. He knows that all of these were real, because it was too real to be faked.
He almost thought he was the closest to her, only to know that he was actually miles away from her. The realization that he's not the only man that she could rely to is killing him. Maybe, it was the person she always talks to on the phone, maybe it was the person she was laughing with the other day. The bottom line is, it's not him.
He was shocked when he heard Xi Ana's voice from the doorway, he instinctively closed the notebook and raised his gaze on the woman who had a crease on her forehead.
"Why do you look so serious staring at your notebook. You didn't even hear me calling your name for three times." he immediately stood and hugged his wife.
"I was just looking at some documents." she hugged him back.
While her arms are still circled around his waist she looked at her husband's face and asked, "Have you eaten dinner?"
"Not yet, I was waiting for you. Don't worry about cooking, I already ordered from Imperial." Xi Ana smiled at her husband, their social standing really gives them leeway to a lot of things. At times like this, it's really not a bad thing.
Imperial's Restaurant is one of the most famous restaurant in the city. You can only eat there if you manage to book a schedule with them six months before the you dine in. Yes, they already have reservations for six months and for the record, Imperial's Restaurant don't do deliveries.
"Since this is Imperial's Restaurant we're talking about I don't think I have the audacity to refuse, right?" she said playfully which made her husband smile.
"Go on and take a shower, I'll be downstairs." he kissed the crown of her head before finally letting go.
