"Daddy! Please, wake up!" She was already in tears as she shook his body, expecting him to wake up miraculously, but his body didn't revive to her touch.
"Wow. What happened?" Caleb rushed in, trying to trace her voice to the room. He ran to the body, not knowing what to do also.
"Let's take him to the hospital."
"Lucas. Lucas. Lucas." Markus said subtly, slightly going back into unconsciousness again.
"Okay, please, help me." She asked Caleb as she tried to lift him up and hoped to solve one of the most difficult puzzles: the reason he called Lucas before he passed out.
She was happy he wasn't dead, because she met him bleeding and thought the worst had happened. "Gently." Caleb said as they lifted him up and slowly took him to the car which was close to them but looked like it was very far, due to the weight of Markus.
After some minutes, Caleb started the car and zoomed off to the nearest hospital. "If I find out Lucas is behind this, I swear I'll kill him." She said in-between her closed teeth as she fumed, hating herself for being vulnerable with that snake again.
"Lizzy, calm down, please." Caleb said, his eyes fixed on the road.
"Calm down? I'm sorry, but I can't do that. Someone almost took my dad's life, don't you understand?" She tried not to raise her voice. She was too exhausted, a lot had happened for the past few days and it looked like a lot will continue to happen.
"Okay, I'm so sorry. I just want you to be fine." He said back, and she immediately regretted talking back at him that way.
"I'm sorry too. Please, be a little faster, I'm scared we may lose him." All she was after was her father's condition. She was scared she would lose him, and his last words kept ringing in her memory: "Lucas… Lucas…"
Over a few minutes, she has developed a kind of hatred for him. Apart from the embarrassing episode they had, he was too proud to apologize even though he was trying to force himself on her, and then this? She was irritated by just remembering everything that happened.
"Don't worry. He'll be fine. Please, don't be scared." He knew that this wouldn't make her feel any better, but he had to say something. He could only feel a lot of compassion for her and wished he could do more. Was it love? He strongly believes so.
A call came in, and she checked her phone to see the person on the line. It was Mia, as expected. She was supposed to meet her concerning the whereabouts of her mother.
"Hey, Mia. I'm so sorry. There was an emergency."
"Yes, I know. That is why I called." Mia started to become someone who knew all to Lizzy, and she could only feel so pissed about it. Why would someone who is not family have that kind of information?
"How did you know?" She couldn't help but ask, trying to hold herself from asking a lot of questions.
"It looks like your family has become the media's food. It's everywhere on the news."
"What?" Again? Why were they fond of doing it all the time? She kept asking the rhetorical questions, fuming and shaking as she cut the call and went straight to the internet. She saw the same picture the anonymous person sent to her father and another one where he seemed unconscious.
The headline read: "Multimillionaire almost Lifeless in his Mansion."
"Why won't these people mind their business for real?" She felt the need to go online and blast them, but she wouldn't, because it was such a bad idea.
"Lizzy, please, calm down." He was already very close to the hospital, so she dropped her phone in her bag and tried to concentrate on getting her father back to consciousness.
"Wow. Markus is almost dead?" Evelyn said, trying all she could to hide her amusement. What she wanted was beginning to come to pass slowly. Firstly, the disappearance of Elena for days, and the sudden death of Markus.
"You amaze me all the time." Lucas said, looking at her with the worst form of disgust and changing her amusement to something worse, a sudden rush of emotions.
"You want your fellow man to die? You're such a good woman." He still felt bitter about what happened earlier. Her words were still fresh in his heart when she carelessly talked about her relationship with Lizzy's mother.
"Lucas, I said I'm sorry. Please, don't talk like that." She turned out a bit more apologetic than he remembered her to be. She was always too proud to say the 'sorry' word, so she would always avoid the topics that would make her say it. But recently, she had let the words flow out of her, making Rania more surprised than ever.
"Why do you keep apologizing, mum? Is there something I don't know?" She asked with her loudness over the top of the roof. She really didn't know how to talk without raising her voice.
"All of these are none of your business. Just stay where you're supposed to stay." She said again to Rania, making her more concerned, due to the fact that she was in the middle of something she knew nothing about. She had no idea what was happening in the house, and their weird behavior made her ask a lot of questions that she believed there would be no answers to.
"No, you don't have to talk to her like that." Evelyn has a soft spot for her children, and it was something she learnt while they were growing up. While Rania was loud, Lucas was also aggressive, and it looked like they would keep fighting everyday. But later on, adulthood set in and they became more like best friends. Right now though, it looks like they were no longer going along.
"You can't tell me what to do!" He said affirmatively, making her feel less of herself even as a mother.
"Lucas, can I see you for a minute?" He knew what she meant, but he wasn't cut out for a lengthy conversation involving an apology and a story of his life.
"No mum, I have a meeting." He lied, but took out his car keys and wanted to take a walk. He wasn't cut out for the things she wanted to say and he wanted to clear his head.
As he drove round his estate, he remembered the episode in Lizzy's house, thinking about the main reason he had to do that in the first place. It only meant one thing, he still loved her in a way. He still wanted her in every kind of way. This scared him, because she had already become his enemy. He divorced her and did a lot of despicable things to her before they eventually got divorced.
His phone buzzed and he checked the new message that got in.
I'll make sure you pay dearly for getting involved with my father. If he gets worse, you'll pay with your life!
No one had ever sent a threat text to him, so this was new and a little scary. However, it made him livid. Why does she think he was involved in it?
Another message came in two minutes later.
Make sure you're ready for me, because I am ready for you!
This was getting out of hand, he said to himself as he parked somewhere to make sense of what was happening.
"Why would she send these messages to me? Was it a joke or a mistake?" He asked himself as he tried making sense of the whole situation.
"Why are you sending these messages? I don't know what you're talking about."
He knew about the latest trend. Her father should be in the hospital at that time, but she couldn't make sense of the reason he was at the receiving end for that.
He received no answer, and after waiting for a few minutes, he decided to drive back home. Although he didn't want to see their faces, home would always be home to him, a place of rest.
In the hospital, she was standing, pacing up and down, worry all over her face. She didn't want to lose her father this way, so she said a little prayer quite often, not remembering the last time she prayed.
"Babe, please be calm. You'll be fine. This was the third time he called her the name "babe", and she could not react or say anything to address it. When she was done finding her mum and rescuing her dad, she would definitely address it.
"I can't be calm, Caleb. My dad has been in the room and no one wants to update us on what has been happening." She could not resist the tears this time.
"I'm so sorry for what has been happening. But you know that worry cannot solve anything, right?"
"Yes, I know."
She moved forward to lean on his broad and athletic chest as he wrapped her head in his arms. This was more than a consolation to her and she would forever remember his kindness towards her.
Her phone rang, and she remembered immediately that she had an unfinished business with Mia regarding her mother.
"Mia. What's up with you?" she asked as if nothing was wrong with her too.
"I'm so sorry for disturbing you, but I think we have an issue."
She paused for a moment, and Lizzy thought about asking her to not waste any time to give any information.
"Do you know any Lucas?" She asked, and it dawned on her that with all the things Mia knew, she did not know Lucas was her ex-husband.
"That's my ex-husband. Why did you ask?"
"He might have a hand in your mum's kidnap." She knew he would. That guy was such an amazing actor, she realized. She got so pissed with everything going on and she wanted a revenge.
"Please, what's the update on my mother's whereabouts?" She needed new update, not something she had thought about.
"I'm sorry, it seems she wasn't the one I found. When the woman was brought out, she looked a lot like her. But it wasn't her."
"Okay. Thank you." Lizzy hung up and became a little wild, throwing everything that came her way.
"Lizzy. Please, stay calm." He said, rushing to her and holding her before she caused further damages. She looked around and saw the damage she had caused and decided to stay calm even though it was so easy for her to pay for the things she damaged.
"Please, madam, this is a hospital. Remember there are sick people here and you're not the only person here." A neatly dressed doctor said to her, her face looking indifferent.
"We are sorry. We will fix this." Caleb said.
"It's not about fixing it. It's about maintaining decorum." She threw back, and if not for Caleb, Lizzy was ready to say something back to her.
"We are sorry again." He said, and the doctor nodded and went back to her office.
Another doctor strolled in. "Miss Berlin, right?"
"Yes please, how is my father?" She said, running to him.
"I'm happy to announce to you that he has been revived. You are lucky, because what he revived from may have killed him if he was brought later."
"Thank you so much," she said, levitating as she almost hugged the doctor, but tried to maintain herself.
"Can I see him now?"
"I'm afraid not. He's asleep." He said, smiling, giving her the direct opposite of the other doctor's reaction.
"Okay, I'll wait." Not knowing who to channel her joy to, she jumped at Caleb who happily received her with a very long hug.
After the hug and long stare at each other which reignited something in them, she felt the need to tell Mia that her dad was alright, at least through a text.
But unlocking her phone, she saw something that made her cause a scene again in the hospital.