Back at the mansion, Miguel waited impatiently. His hand clenched the spot where Senorita had accidentally hit him with a vase during her desperate escape.
Time seemed to drag on as he anticipated her return, firmly believing that she would eventually come back to him.
However, as the hours passed, Miguel's patience dwindled. Frustration boiled within him, and he glanced at his watch in annoyance.
"That foolish woman! Where does she think she can escape to? She'd better return before midnight or face the consequences..." Miguel muttered under his breath.
He decided to take a break from his restlessness and fetched a glass of wine from his collection.
Returning to his plush couch, he sank into it and sipped the wine slowly. Memories of their earlier confrontation danced in his mind.
He couldn't forget the disgust he had seen in Senorita's eyes, a look he had never encountered before. It rattled him to his core.
He couldn't comprehend why she had chosen to run away when, in the past, she had never dared to resist his advances.
Had she grown bold enough to escape her marital obligations?
"That foolish woman! Where does she think she could run to tonight?" he muttered once more, taking another drag of his cigarette.
After some time, realising that Senorita hadn't returned, Miguel decided it was time to take action.
Retrieving his phone from his pocket, he scrolled through his contacts and dialled a particular number.
"Hello."
"Good day, Mr. Li."
"My wife has fled my house. Find her and bring her back."
"Right away!" The voice on the other end responded before Miguel hung up the call.
Miguel relaxed back into his couch, eyes closed, drawing in a deep breath of his cigarette and puffing out a small cloud of smoke.
Meanwhile, three of Miguel's men took to the streets in the quiet night, showing Senorita's picture to anyone they encountered, asking if they had seen her.
One of Miguel's men approached a woman who trembled as he walked past her.
He returned to the woman, a hint of recognition in his eyes.
This woman was the wife of one of Miguel's debtors, someone Miguel had instructed them to intimidate into paying their overdue debt.
"Hey, you!" the man called out to her, raising his phone's screen to show Senorita's picture. "You know her, right? Mr. Li's wife, have you seen her?"
"I..." The woman stammered, tears glistening in her eyes as she nodded hesitantly. "I...saw her two hours ago. She... she entered the bar," she pointed toward a nearby bar.
The man nodded and gave the woman a knowing smile before hurrying in the direction she had indicated.
He left the trembling woman behind, clutching the hem of her gown, as tears streamed down her face.
After a while, Miguel's phone rang.
"Boss, she is no where to be found at the moment."
"And what do you mean by nowhere?!" Miguel gritted his teeth, running his hand through his hair in annoyance.
"We found out that she walked into a bar, however, someone said she walked out of the bar with a stronger who spelt rich."
"And who is he?"
"That we could not find out. They said he had not come around before and they could not recognise him."
The idea that she might have sought refuge or companionship with another man gnawed at him.
As the night wore on, Miguel's frustration grew into simmering anger. He couldn't fathom why Senorita had dared to escape his clutches, and the revelation that she had been seen at a bar only intensified his anger.
He believed that she had been disloyal and unfaithful, a betrayal he couldn't tolerate.
He wasn't that surprised because he had long speculated that she was a whore.
Being a stay-at-home wife, then there was nothing she couldn't have done with men in his own mansion!
In Miguel's mind, she was tarnishing his honor and reputation by engaging in questionable activities instead of returning to him.
He was determined to make her pay for her perceived disobedience once she returned.
She was his responsibility after all!
Fueled by anger and frustration, Miguel instructed his men to find a replacement for Senorita, someone to fill the void she had left behind.
He believed that taking another woman into his bed would help him regain control and satisfy his desires while Senorita remained missing.
"Send a woman to my place now and retreat for the night. After spending the night with the man, she'll return here. She has nowhere else to go, and no man would want to keep a woman like her, especially after she's just had a miscarriage."
"Understood, sir."
Miguel's men withdrew from their search, sending the requested woman to the mansion.
Miguel waited, anticipation building as he heard the doorbell ring, signalling the arrival of the replacement he had requested.