She was just there, speechless, almost running out of her mind, but she had to leave the room first.
"Are you okay? Who called?" Markus asked her for the second time, already scared about her reactions to the call. He knew nothing about the conversation she just had, but he could see the impact on her.
"Lizzy, are you okay?"
"Please, I need some time alone." She told them, avoiding eye contact and just staring into space, walking out of the room and Caleb following her.
Surprisingly for her, she craved sleep at the moment, so she went into her room and laid down, thinking for some minutes about the activities that happened during the day. She left the land of the living to the land of fantasy at 8:40pm, seeing her mother talking to her and encouraging her.
"Lizzy, you have a visitor." She opened her eyes slowly to see Caleb. She then sat up to take in the whole room, wondering when and how she got to sleep even though there were a lot of things happening that should have taken sleep from her eyes.
"Who is that?"
"I really don't know. He said he needs to see you urgently." Caleb came in looking unkempt, his eyes deprived of sleep, which means he didn't sleep throughout the night and this made her feel so bad.
He helped her out of the bed and she went to the restroom to freshen up. She took up her phone and found six calls from Mia and she decided to call her while going downstairs.
"Lizzy, I was so scared that something happened to you. Are you okay?"
"Yes, I am, thank you." She immediately became afraid of the care she got from Mia after a day of meeting up with her. She wondered why she was all mushy and caring towards her just like that.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, are you? Why did you call yesterday?" She decided to forget being concerned and go into full details of the reason she called.
As she got downstairs, she went straight to the door, still on a call with Mia, just to see the face of the person who needed to talk to her. She opened the door to a fresh looking man, with blue eyes and an athletic body, with neatly cut beards, something she also liked about Caleb.
"Uhmm.. Mia, I'll have to call you back in an hour or less." She said and hung up immediately, still staring at the amazing beauty staring back at her with a smile that wasn't genuine.
"Good morning, and who are you?"
"I am Michael, and I believe I have information that you need right now." No one was in the room to see him, so she let him in, not knowing what to expect from this conversation she was about to have with another total stranger.
"I have information concerning your mother and father." He said, after making himself comfortable, and her heart skipped multiple times, knowing she was about to be shocked again.
"What do you know? And how did you know what you know?" She didn't want to look down on anyone. But she couldn't help the questions coming out of her mouth.
"First of all, your mother has been involved in a lot of criminal activities, including child laundering. She was into smuggling of hard drugs from one country to another, and she got away with all of these activities."
She knew about the child laundering accusation, but hard drugs smuggling? What else does she not know about her mother again?
"I'm so sorry about all of these." He felt guilty because of the look on her face.
"No, you can please go on. I need a lot of information right now. What else do you know?" She needed to know more about everything, but the question she didn't ask herself is if she was actually ready to take them in and live with this implicating information about her parents.
"Well, I also feel she has a lot of unfinished business with Evelyn." He said, now trying to be careful of what he said.
"Lucas' mother?"
"Yes, exactly." He said.
She adjusted in her seat, being so affected by what he just said. Her heart seemed to run faster and she tried to distract herself with her phone. Checking her phone, she saw tons of messages she wasn't ready to attend to.
"What kind of business do you think they were into?" She couldn't bring herself to believe that her mother knew Lucas' mother.
"Dirty businesses, I'm sorry to say." He said bluntly, but was careful of what he had to say.
"Look, how am I supposed to believe you? I don't know you from Adam, so why should I believe whatever you have to say?"
"I know you have all the reasons to doubt what I have to say. But how do you think I know the name of your ex-husband?"
"Through the Internet. Their family is so popular of course. You could browse out their family name and her name pops up."
"Okay, then I'll have to show you something." He brought out his phone, and after some loud taps, he stood and went closer to her, showing her something like a picture.
"How sure am I that you also didn't download this online?" Even though the picture didn't look like something that could be seen online, it was the picture of Elena and Evelyn in their younger form, smiling at each other as some bags surrounded them.
"This is a picture of them, negotiating over a deal and closing it. As you can see, those bags contain the substance." He totally ignored the question and talked strictly about the picture.
"This is not enough evidence." She didn't want to believe it, even though that was pure evidence. She could not fathom how they knew each other long before she got married to Lucas.
"I guess I'll have to take my leave, since you don't want to believe everything I have said." He made to stand and follow the door out.
"Hey. Please, wait." She realized she needed to hear more from him and repented from asking questions regarding his identity and the authenticity of his news.
"Before I leave, I'll have to tell you one more thing." His mind was already made up because he already felt less of himself due to the questions she raised about his findings, although he understood her perspective. He was so sad that he was the bearer of this kind of news.
"Your father also has unfinished business with Lucas' mother. I'm sorry, but it has a lot to do with sexual relations."
"What are you saying? Can you come plain please?" She was tired of trying to solve any riddle and all she wanted was for them to come out in the language she would understand.
"Uhmm.. Hello there." She turned back and her eyes landed on her father as she remembered she had not even greeted him that morning.
He smiled a little, staring at his little beauty, and wanted to apologize to her for behaving the way he did yesterday.
Looking at the company she had, his smile went sour, and he couldn't say anything more.
"And who is this? Who are you?" His voice was far from politeness and coolness.
"Please dad, don't repeat what happened yesterday. He's just a friend." She said curtly, not believing she said that to him and at an unfriendly tone, and it made his expression go sour as well.
"I thought we agreed not to take visitors. Why are you so inconsiderate?" He found himself being emotional about the whole situation. She wasn't ready to oblige to his little rules when they were still looking for his wife.
He turned his back to leave, craving being alone once again, and Lizzy didn't bother to call him back.
"I'm so sorry about what happened." She softly turned to Michael, already feeling too embarrassed to reply. He had forgotten what he was saying before the interruption from Markus.
"It's no problem. I think you have a lot of things to attend to, concerning your mum and all other things. I'd like to leave right now." He shined his charming smile again and made to leave the house, shutting the door softly.
She was so livid that her dad embarrassed another person who came to give her a little hint into whatever had been happening.
Picking up her phone, she decided to check the unread messages on her phone. She saw a lot of messages from just one new phone number, and checking two of them, she had to run upstairs, shouting her father's name.
"Your mum is with us, call us." The sender sent the same message four times, and showing it to her father made her notice another set of texts that Mia sent.
"When can I see you? It's urgent." She sent this at 9:36pm the previous day, and it was already getting to noon.
"What do we do? Should we call the number?" He sounded calm, but deep inside, he was so scared of the results of this back and forth. He wondered if his wife was okay.
Even though she had misbehaved a lot of times, he still loved her to the moon and back. He was the only love of his life and he wished nothing bad happened to her.
Lizzy on the other hand had a lot to think about, from Elena's kidnap to several things she had heard about her parents, the newest one being Markus's relationship with Evelyn.
"I'll call him right away." She already had the phone to her ears when she told him. They were both expecting someone to speak at the other end of the call, but after calling three times, no one responded. Instead, a knock informed them of the arrival of one other person in the house.
Caleb came in, scared that he had done something wrong again, because of the way they looked at him.
"Am I safe? Did I do something wrong?" He didn't want to offend her again, since it looked like he had been subconsciously stepping on her toes since the incident happened.
"Caleb, you're still here?" She was flabbergasted at how he was still there for her. He didn't leave since the previous day, he slept in the guest room, the last to sleep and the first to wake up and order cleaners to tidy the whole house.
"Yes, I am." She has never felt so loved in her life. She felt a need to hug him tightly, but she controlled herself and promised to give him that hug later on, with probably a kiss if possible."
"Thank you so much, Caleb. I'm so glad you're here for her." For a moment Lizzy could sense loneliness in her father's eyes and felt bad for him.
"It's nothing. I want to leave right now, I have a meeting." Lizzy wanted to see him outside to thank him properly, so she followed him.
"Thank you, Caleb. I never expected you to be there for me. You left work and training for me. I'm really grateful." She took his hands in hers and immediately felt shivers again.
"You know I'll do anything for you, right?" He responded in the calmest voice ever, making her stare at his amazing lips.
"Permission to leave, ma'am?" He bowed as she threw her head to the side, laughing.
"Permission granted." After some seconds, she watched his Benz drive out of her house and ran inside because she didn't take her phone with her.
Moving to Markus' room, she heard equivocal conversation from her father. She got closer and the words started becoming clearer. She didn't want him to stop, so she stopped very close to the room and wanted to hear the conversation.
He turned back to see if she was close by and continued what he was saying in hushed tunes.
"I know you have her in your custody."
"Please, don't do that. I'll pay you extra."
"Yes, let her remain there for six days."
"I love what you are doing. Keep sending those texts."
"Alright. I'll update you on other things I
need you to do. Bye!" He hurriedly cut the phone, and turned back to see Lizzy staring at him in terror and horror.
"Dad, what did I just hear?"