My head pounded as I woke up, certain it would crack at the slightest touch. How long have I been out? I looked around the room, filled with the sunset pouring in from the opened curtain and noted it was Sylus's house.
I slipped out of bed, settling my feet on the floor to walk out of the room, but the sudden ringing of the phone tossed on the mini table next to the bed grabbed my attention. I walked over, picked it up, and raised a brow. It was my phone.
The screen lit up, and there was a message… from an unknown number, one I'd never seen before. I opened the message, and what I saw made my brows dip in confusion.
"What the…"
Unknown: Divorce Sylus Jones or else...
Who was it? I was sure I'd never given my number to anyone I didn't know, so who did this and how did they get my contact? And why divorce Sylus? This made no sense. Our marriage hadn't been made public, and no one else except the Jones family and my family were aware of it.
I frowned and quickly turned around, my gaze landing on the window. Was I being watched? My skin crawled, and I quickly dialed the number. Maybe if I heard the voice, I could tell who it was, but who even said they would pick up?
Surprisingly, they did, and with a thumping heart, I brought the cell close to my ear. "Who are you?"
"I'll take it as you saw my message."
Dammit, a voice changer! It was impossible to tell who was on the other side of the phone.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
"Divorce Sylus Jones, it's that simple."
My eyes narrowed. "As much as I'd love to do that, I unfortunately can't."
"Are you sure about that?" they asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm just wondering about your best friend, Jasmine who died in a car crash four years ago?"
"What?" My heart dropped to my stomach, and nausea rose to my throat. "How do you know Jasmine?"
They didn't answer my question. "I know her six-year-old daughter is in that little orphanage now. What a sweet little girl she is."
I shook my head, smiling fearfully at myself in disbelief. No, no, it was impossible. Jasmine had died four years ago in a car crash with her husband, leaving her little daughter behind. The girl was taken to the orphanage, I took her there myself.
No one knew of her, not even my father. No one in my family knew, so who was this? How did they know Jasmine so far back to four years ago? What did they want from me? Why divorce Sylus? Nothing was making sense to me, and I felt like I was losing my mind.
"Who the hell are you?"
They laughed at me. "You have one month at best to divorce him, or she dies. Choose. And oh, I won't just stop at this girl if you don't do as I say. I have so much more that I can take away from you. I know your sick twin brother is in the hospital. I won't bother with him just yet, after all, the poor thing is just a step away from death. It's all in your hands, Harley Eun-Kyung Legan."
"Hey!—"
They hung up, and I stared at the phone.
My Korean name, they knew, they knew me that far! No one called me that, and even I barely remembered I had one. My father, though being American, my mom was Korean, but because of the hatred he had for her, which I still wasn't sure why, I'd never been called Eun-Kyung. It was always Harley.
So how deeply did they know who I was? I've never even been made public before, no one knew I existed. To the media, my father had only two daughters, I DIDN'T EXIST!
Nausea caught in my throat, and without reluctance, I dialed Olive's number and desperately paced back and forth in the room, hoping he'd answer.
"Harley—"
"I need your help, Olive."
"Whoa whoa whoa, what's wrong? You sound like the house is on fire."
I didn't bother responding to his joke and instead directed the message to him. "What's this?" he asked.
"I don't know." Yes, I was panicking. This didn't just involve me, but a little innocent girl who hadn't done anything wrong. "Can you please track the number? Find out the location and please trace the message."
"Harley, I—"
"Olive, please," I begged. "This isn't simple, my life could be on the line, my brother's life could be. Do you want us to die?"
"Of course not. No one's going to hurt you, Harley."
"Then please help me. I need to know who it is."
A sigh resounded from him. "Your father will kill me if he finds out about this. You know you are not meant to contact me or anyone from home."
"Olive, I am aware of that! Please…help me."
He went silent for a moment more before finally agreeing. "Fine. I'll do this for you, and I'll send the information if I find something, though I can't promise anything. Stay safe, Harley."
"Thank you, I owe you one." And I hung up, my arms dropping to my side in exhaustion. My head was banging repeatedly, and I had to drop into the bed on my back, my eyes fixed on the ceiling.
What was going on?
First I got kidnapped, and not even twenty-four hours since I've been back, these threatening messages dropped in. It was almost impossible to be a coincidence as if I were being targeted directly by one person.
Something wasn't adding up. The kidnapper wanted money from Sylus, and this messenger wanted me to divorce Sylus. Two different desires. But both people knew me, that is if they were two different people doing this. That man made it clear his boss knew me closely, and this message also made the same point. It couldn't be two people, it had to be one person doing this. It had to...
And it could be someone working for Sylus. Or not…
God! What had my father gotten me into?
What sort of sick game was this?
To hurt me?
…Well, I'll just have to find out!
The maid who'd brought the family's private doctor to do a checkup on me watched me worriedly. It'd been ten hours since I'd been brought back by Sylus, and of course, he left as soon as he came. Why would he care if his wife was okay or not? Jerk.
I looked at the maid. "Whose room is this?"
"Your room, Mrs. Jones."
"My room?"
"Is there a problem?" the maid asked me. "Is it not to your liking?"
"Where does that grumpy buffoon sleep?"
"Huh?"
I stood up from the bed, taking a step closer to her. "Your boss?"
She blinked at me in shock. "By…grumpy buffoon, do you mean... Mr. Jones?"
"Yes." I felt amused. "Doesn't he fit that description? Be honest with me."
I wasn't sure what it was, but it was akin to fear crossing her eyes. I watched her cower, keeping her mouth shut. Was Sylus that scary? "Tell me, where does he sleep?"
"Mr. Jones's room is downstairs. He is not a fan of second stairs or more."
"So why am I upstairs?"
"Huh? What do you mean?" She looked at me like I shouldn't be asking like it was obvious we had separate rooms.
My lip dipped at the edges as I smiled. "Aren't we supposed to be sharing the same room? Why is my room all the way up here?"
"Ah." She swallowed, wordless. "I…but Mr—"
"Never mind, I'll ask him myself."
I made my way downstairs, each step careful as I crept around the house, searching for Sylus's bedroom. I found it, but even after four knocks, no one answered, and I finally opened the door without so much as a creak. I first poked my head inside and peeked around with cautious eyes before slipping into the bedroom.
There was no one in the room, and like I'd expected, it wasn't exciting in any way. It was toned down, though very luxurious and all too clean; I was sure not even a speck of dust could be found anywhere.
What a neat freak.
I bounced into the bed, smiling immediately at the softness, but it vanished as soon as it came. Right through the door of the bathroom, Sylus Jones walked out, clad in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.
"What are you doing in my bed?" he asked.
I blinked immediately, propping myself up on my elbows. "You mean our bed?" My eyes couldn't help but crawl down his tattoo-covered body, toned and muscled impressively, to halt at his waist, where the V line went to hide in the towel.
Okay. Grumpy but hot.
As stressed out as I was, I had to shove the issue to the back of my mind and wait for any kind of response from Olive.
Sylus glared down at me. "What are you grinning about?"
"Do you really want to know?" I snuggled into the mountain of pillows, making myself comfortable on the bed as if I owned it.
"Get out."
"No." I shook my head at him.
"Mrs. Legan, I will—"
"Jones," I corrected him, feeling irritation rising to my throat. "Aren't I married to you? And my name is Harley, don't act like you don't know that."
He breathed angrily.
"Get out of my room. Do not make me drag you out of here myself."
"Try it."
"Harley—"
I laughed, crossing my ankles. "We are married now, and married couples don't sleep in separate rooms."
"We are not that kind of couple."
"Oh? Why do you say so?"
Sylus's brows knitted, and his frown deepened. "We don't have to sleep in the same room. Are you not smart enough to understand that?"
"Consider me dumb, grumpy."
He took another deep breath to calm his nerves and pointed at me. "You know what you should be doing instead of provoking me?"
"Paint me curious, husband."
"Saying thank you for saving your pathetic life."
My expression immediately fell. "Saving my life? Who said you saved me? I saved myself. I was the one that fought that guy and knocked him out. If there was anything you did, it was hope I died. You seemed pretty disappointed."
He huffed a laugh.
"In case your stupid brain doesn't register this, I'm in a contract with your father. So you dying will be doing me no good."
"Cursing is a sign of weakness, Sylus."
He glared. "I paid twenty million on you little shit."
"What?" My pupils blew wide open. "You did what now?"
"Are you deaf?"
"No, but you're an idiot." I screwed my face at him, finding all these ridiculous. "You actually paid the money? For what? I took that bastard down, you didn't need to. Dammit, now I owe you twenty million."
"Nobody said anything about debt." He frowned.
I arched a brow at him. "Are you trying to be nice to me or what?"
"I am trying to be a gentleman. It's just twenty million, I'd earn that back in a day."
Oh?
I slowly nodded my head. "First of all, you are anything but a gentleman. I am going to pay you that money back. I don't want anything from you, not someone like you."
Sylus's face twisted in irritation. "Fine. How do you plan to pay me back?"
"Well, I didn't think of that." I shrugged. "But I'll figure it out."
"You better do, because you'll pay me back every single dime," he said silkily and turned, leaving for the closet room. "And you also should look at yourself in the mirror and maybe consider fixing that hair and taking off whatever that is you're wearing."
"Oh." I instinctively glanced down at my dress, realizing the maids didn't change me. I chortled, rolling over on my belly, while my feet excitedly kicked back and forth in the air. "I can explain all this. I just didn't want to marry you, so I cut the dress up to get the wedding canceled and fought my father's men too. I actually came so close to escaping, but they knocked me out."
There was a deafening silence between the both of us before he slowly turned to look at me. "You fought?"
My smile grew. "Just like you saw earlier. Impressive huh?"
There was this calculative, dangerous look in his eyes—one that I couldn't read. I'd expected him to say something—to make a certain kind of remark, but he turned, walking into the dressing closet.
"Before I return, make sure you're out of my room." And he slammed the door shut.
My lips cracked into a slow deliberate smile.
"You'll have to make me!"