Chapter 126
Chapter 126
Two days swiftly passed, and as night fell, Ethan returned home to find Bella eagerly waiting for him.
The table was set, and Bella exuded beauty with a radiant smile.
“Ethan, you didn’t forget tonight was our anniversary, right?” she asked, her smile. unwavering. Ethan,
caught off guard, realized he had indeed forgotten.
“You didn’t forget, did you?” Bella inquired again, a slight frown forming on her face. Ethan silently
studied her, his expression unreadable.
Bella, undeterred, maintained her smile. “I understand; you’ve been busy lately,” she remarked, walking
up to him and assisting him out of his suit. That night held a special significance for her, anticipating
that Ethan would indulge her on their anniversary despite his recent avoidance.
The atmosphere was set for romance, but Ethan’s-watchful eyes bore into Bella with quiet intensity.
“Come, sit,” she invited, pulling out a chair for him. Ethan lowered himself, determined not to partake in
whatever had been arranged.
As they were about to start dining, Ethan’s phone disrupted the ambiance. “Don’t pick; we haven’t
spent time together recently,” Bella pleaded. Ethan, however, retrieved his phone, revealing Hazel’s
name on the caller ID. Bella’s expression shifted instantly.
Don’t answer, Ethan,” Bella urged, her arm reaching out to shield him from the impending
intrusionb.Ethan, unmoved by her touch, briskly swatted away her hand, clutching the phone tightly.
“Ethan, it’s Daisy.” Hazel’s anguished voice, laced with tears, pierced through the phone, summoning
Ethan into immediate action. He sprung to his feet, leaving Bella behind. She chased after him, her
desperate cries echoing in the air.
“On our anniversary? You’re abandoning me?” Bella’s accusatory words reverberated as Ethan slipped
into his car, but Ethan didn’t even spare her a glance. All of his focus was on getting to Hazel.
Bella, bereft and scorned, clutched the fabric of her dress in a tight fist. Tears welled in her eyes as she
watched Ethan speed away.
The night, meticulously prepared for their anniversary, lay in ruins. Today she had dolled up to get his
attention but he had shoved her to the side like she didn’t even matter all because of Hazel. The
sadness that enveloped her morphed into an unbridled rage.
Storming towards the table, she vented her fury, overturning it in a tempest of anger.
“Hazel! I’ll make you’regret this!” she seethed, venom dripping from her words. A sharp
gasp escaped a nearby se rvant, bearing witness to the destruction.
“Ma’am Bella, you’re injured!” the concerned serv ant exclaimed trying to reach Bella and offer
assistance.
“Let me be!” Bella roared, pushing aside a young girl who became an unwitting target of her wrath. A
resounding slap left an imprint on the girl’s face, shock and tears streaming down her reddened check.
Having unleashed her anger, Bella stood in eerie calmness, taking deep breaths. In that moment, the
depth of her hatred to Hazel reached it’s peak. She had never hated Hazel as much as she desperately
did at that moment.
Ethan sped madly to the hospital, his phone incessantly buzzing with Axel’s urgent calls. The road
blurred as he pushed his car to its limits.
“What?!” Ethan bellowed, the tension palpable in his voice, as Axel’s excited tone echoed through the
phone. “Where are you? We need to talk.”
“Meet me at Cleveland,” Ethan instructed, abruptly ending the call.
Upon reaching the hospital, Ethan sprinted inside, desperation etched across his face. He found Hazel
in tears sitting outside Daisy’s ward.
“What happened Hazel?” Ethan asked anxiously.
“I don’t know,” Hazel sobbed, her anguish echoing through the hospital corridors.
An apologetic man bowed deeply before Ethan. “The young lady was injected with the wrong dose,” he
muttered, fear clouding his eyes.
Ethan erupted, seizing the man by his collar. “What did you say?!” he thundered, hands tightening
around the offender’s shirt.
A distressed young nurse ran in interjected, “I didn’t know! I swear it’s the normal dose I gave her!”
Tears streamed down her face as she trembled with fear.
“How could you be that careless?!” Hazel yelled.
“If anything happens to her, I’ll kill you!” Ethan’s threat resonated with a chilling
calmness.
Axel arrived, providing a semblance of order. Daisy’s regular drip had been swapped with a different
one.
How did that even happen?! In a hospital?!” Ethan yelled turning to the Director. The man had been
summoned from home immediately when he heard the news. He met Ethan pacing wildly around the
ward corridor where Daisy was being attended to.
“We’re flushing it out of her system, sir,” the Director stammered, his anxiety matching the escalating
chaos.
“Is it fatal?” Ethan’s voice held a quiver of dread.
“What was injected, is it poisonous?” The urgency in his inquiry pierced the air.
“No, the drug was swapped with Corticosteroids. Although not lethal, it isn’t used for administration in
her case. She’ll be fine.” The Director’s reassurance offered a momentary reprieve.
As Ethan sank down, a weight lifted from his shoulders, though the tension lingered. Hazel, too,
collapsed, her breaths labored.
Hazel found herself thrown into confusion when Daisy abruptly went into shock, and the medical team
began a chaotic and frantic response. Filled with panic and uncertainty, she instinctively reached for
her phone, urgently dialing Ethan for help.
In a secluded corner, Axel and Ethan engaged in a tense conversation.
“Do you think these are merely coincidences?” he pondered. “I don’t think so; it’s more like purposeful
attacks. First Liam, now Daisy,” Ethan muttered, visibly defeated.
“It’s as if someone is trying to send me a message. What if the next attempt is more dangerous?” Ethan
contemplated thoughtfully. Axel, with a deep sigh, added, “Ethan, there’s more.”
Axel dropped a bombshell, revealing, “The DNA of the kids matches with yours.” Ethan, despite the
confirmation he longed for, sighed and buried his face in his hands. “I knew it! But I can’t even feel
excited or happy about this. Someone knows something and is targeting the kids, Axel.”
“Are you going to confront Hazel?” Axel inquired, recognizing this revelation as the moment Ethan had
been waiting for. Despite the confirmation of paternity, Ethan found himself trapped in an unsettling
unease.
“Now’s not the right time. It’s clear me coming into their life would harm them,” Ethan hesitated, his
thoughts weighing heavily on his shoulders.
“Listen Ethan. “Axel attempted to interject, but Ethan cut him off, frustration evident in his voice.
“A lot of things don’t make sense! First Bella, now these attempts on the kids’ lives. The first DNA
sample not being a match. What if I hadn’t insisted on another check? Someone’s purposely trying to
keep me in the dark, and the same person is attempting to harm those kids,” he muttered, the pieces of
the puzzle eluding him.
21*Could it be Bella?” Axel speculated, only to dismiss the idea. “Bella wouldn’t know they were your
kids and remain this calm. She would have raised the roof to the high heavens by now, you know,”
“I know, she’s not a nice person. But there’s no way she would hurt kids in this manner,” Ethan sighed
in exasperation.
“You have a whole lot of enemies. People who want to hurt you,” Axel pointed out, acknowledging the
shadowy threats that lingered from Ethan’s past.
“Yes”, Ethan knew that very well. And frankly, most weren’t his; some were his father’s. His dad had
made so many mistakes in his lifetime,
“But still, whoever it is, the fact is, this was a message. The person who did that could have swapped
that fluid with something really lethal that would kill Daisy instantly. It’s a warning,” Ethan mumbled, his
frown deepening in contemplation.
“I have a whole lot of questions I want to ask Hazel, and the kids. I’m so happy; I want to announce to
the world they’re mine. But, I can’t just make a claim on them, not with the dangers they’re being
exposed to,” Ethan explained, torn between his newfound joy and the lurking threats.
“Would you talk to Hazel?” Axel asked once more.
“I don’t blame Hazel for lying all these while. I’ve been pretty stupi d. I mean, my mate might be a fake;
she’s been abusing my pack members and serv ants for years now. I rejected Hazel without thinking;
I’ve been pretty blind,” Ethan confessed, his frustration turning into self-reflection. His palms contorted
into fists.
“Stup idly blind, Axel. I didn’t realize my kids were right in front of me,” Ethan chuckled in disbelief.
“Liam’s my son, Daisy’s mine too.” He looked up, meeting Axel, his eyes shining brightly. His
excitement was palpable. Axel chuckled lightly.
“I wonder why the first one was all muddled up, but I guess these things happen,” Axel sighed,
acknowledging the complexity of such situations.
“They’re mine.” He said excitedly.
Hazel’s been lying,” Ethan Muttered his features falling instantly, the weight of the truth settling upon
him.
“I understand she doesn’t trust me; she feels threatened by my presence alone. So I won’t step in. I’ll
earn her trust, show her that I can be a good dad to them. Confronting her would send her into panic;
she’ll start thinking I want to lay claim on the kids, take them away from her. That’s most probably why
she has been reluctant all these while, why she’s kept the truth hidden and lied to my face several
times our kids,” Ethan expressed thoughtfully.
–
to protect her kids,
“Hazel. She’s been through a lot. It’s best she doesn’t know I know yet, Ethan concluded.
“And Bella, make sure this doesn’t come out to her, Ethan said decisively. “I’ll break it to her myself.”
“When would you confront Hazel?” Axel inquired.
“Soon, when Hazel gets to trust me enough to tell me the truth. That’s when I know she trusts me, and
I’ll be worthy to be Liam and Daisy’s dad.”
“What if that time never comes?” Axel probed. “I get you’re being optimistic, but what if she never
comes to tell you the truth? She almost gave Nathan the place of being a
father to your kids, Ethan. What if she never forgives you?”
“She will. Look around, Nathan’s not here. Hazel called me first. She’s beginning to trust me. I know
she’ll come to trust me enough to tell me the truth.”
“In the meantime, I want security guards mounted around them twenty-four seven. They shouldn’t be Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g
out of sight, ever. Even for once. Daisy’s food, drugs, and everything else should be well-checked.
Three times if possible,” Ethan instructed.
“It’s a hospital, Ethan; you can’t completely cover all areas. Anything can happen,” Axel expressed
worryingly.
“The permanent solution is to find the culprit,” Axel suggested.
“What if there’s no culprit? What if the nurse made a mistake swapping the drugs while being distracted
or absent-minded?” Axel asked.
“What did the nurse say?” Ethan inquired with a frown.
“The bag was mislabeled or swapped. That was the same item she injected Daisy with most nights, her
usual drugs. So she didn’t know until a few hours later when Daisy started reacting,” Axel clarified.
The two walked back, determined to unravel more details.
“Sir, I’m so sorry. We had the nurse fired immediately,” the director apologized profusely, approaching
Axel and Ethan.
“No,” Ethan responded calmly. “Give her back her job, but she should be nowhere near Daisy,” he
muttered.
“Thank
you. Thank you,
sir. I’m grateful you won’t press charges,” she cried out happily.
“What did you see?” Ethan asked seriously.
“I prepared everything as usual. Then I left it for a minute. That was the mistake I made.
07:28 Wed, 17 Jan Be
I didn’t realize I was going to her ward with the wrong dose, sir.”
“Check the cameras,” Ethan instructed.