Chapter 268
Chapter 268
Mia put down her phone, pledging her loyalty to Andre, "Babe, you know me, I love you the most. I’m
absolutely loyal to you. There's no way I’d sneak out behind your back."
Andre glanced at Mia, who clearly wasn't being honest. He was so frustrated he was beyond anger.
But then, as if on cue, the universe decided to play a joke on them. At the parking lot of the barbecue
restaurant, the four of them ran into each other by chance.
Molly was looking at Mia, and Chad was looking at Andre. All four of them, staring at each other.
"Why didn’t you tell me over the phone that you were coming to this barbecue restaurant?" Mia asked.
"I didn’t think we'd bump into each other like this," Molly replied.
"With the world being so big and us being best friends for nearly ten years, and you suddenly becoming
my family, you still think this isn't a coincidence?" Mia retorted.
"Why didn’t you tell me that you guys were coming to this barbecue restaurant?" Molly asked.
Mia was silent for a moment, then said, "I didn’t expect it to be such a coincidence either."
What was supposed to be a dinner for two turned into a table for four. The girls ordered food, while the
guys chatted.
Mia and Molly wanted to sit outside so they could make their own dipping sauce, but the boys pushed
them inside to keep them in their seats.
"Molly, add this one, I like it. And get a potato, Leo loves it." Mia pointed at the menu on their tablet.
Molly suddenly remembered her nephew wasn't there and looked at Mia, "You forgot, Leo’s probably
asleep by now."
Mia replied, "No problem, Andre can eat it."
Molly agreed, "Just order whatever, the guys can eat whatever's left."
The girls ordered a bunch of food and successfully placed the order.
Andre and Chad were deep in conversation and didn’t notice what was being ordered.
"Andre, move over, I need to make some dipping sauce."
"Chad, you too. I’m going with Mia."
Both men moved aside to let them through.
Chad told Andre, "There's someone protecting Officer Rubin from behind the scenes. I've tried to arrest
him twice but got called off each time. Once we even had him at the police station, but then someone
from higher ups got him out."
Andre asked, "Are the higher-ups investigating it themselves?"
Chad replied, "Not sure. The Marshal family has been busy raising investments recently, so they
haven't had time for Officer Rubin."
Andre warned, "Watch out for his wife and kids leaving the country."
"Yep, they're under surveillance," Chad responded.
Soon, Mia and Molly returned with their homemade dipping sauces and placed them in front of their
men. "Babe, this is for you. I’m going to make more for myself."
Andre looked at the sauce in front of him, feeling a sudden surge of happiness.
Molly knew Chad's taste, and without him saying a word, she put his favorite dip in front of him. Chad
felt that Molly had grown up. In the past, when they had barbecue, he would make the dipping sauce
and she would just sit and eat.
Soon, the girls returned. Andre and Chad moved aside to let them in.
The barbecue was ready, and various dishes started to arrive.
Andre was still chatting with Chad. But soon, they realized that the girls had ordered so much food that
there was no more room to put it. The side shelves were full of plates, the table was piled high with
food, and the waiter kept bringing more.
"How much food did you guys order?" Andre asked.
Mia replied, "We ordered everything except what we couldn’t."
Andre frowned, "What couldn’t you order?"
Mia stayed silent.
Andre immediately understood: they had ordered almost everything.
Sure enough, they couldn’t finish it all. When they left the restaurant, Andre went to pay the bill. He was
shocked to find that a barbecue meal had cost over a thousand dollars.
Mia rubbed her stomach; she was too full.
Molly listened as Chad scolded her for not considering the practical situation when ordering. "Chad, my
stomach hurts from being so full," Molly whined.
Chad held her hand, "Let's walk home. It'll help with digestion."
Andre's home was further away, so they had to drive. On the way, he stopped at a pharmacy to buy a
box of digestion medicine for his wife, who was so full she couldn't even bend her waist.
Mia cried, "Babe, I’m so full I can’t even swallow any medicine."
Andre looked at his pitiful wife. What could he do?
This wasn't like when she couldn’t do her homework and he could do it for her. This was about eating,
and he couldn't take the medicine for her.
Andre pulled over by the roadside and took her for a walk on a quiet street to help her digest.
"If a bad guy showed up right now and I beat him up, I bet I wouldn’t feel so full anymore."
Andre replied, "We already had a fight today."
"Right, I remember."
Andre was curious about his wife's childhood, "Mia, while other kids were learning dance to improve
their poise, why were you learning taekwondo, sanda, and self-defense?"
Mia replied, "When I was little, I used to watch TV shows where the heroes could fly in the sky, and
some could even fly over water. I also wanted to learn how to fly.
“I told my parents and they thought it was more important for a girl to learn self-defense than anything
else. If I knew how to defend myself, I wouldn’t get bullied at school or be taken advantage of in
society. Even after I got married, my husband's family wouldn’t dare to offend me. So they sent me to
learn these things.
“I met an old man who was good at a special kind of self-defense, but I never mastered it. He told me a
lot of secret things, and I thought then that that was the life I desired.
“That old man also told me that having a special Black Pass was like being an ancient emperor.
Whoever had the Black Pass was the most powerful person. It was a recognition of his identity and
abilities."
So she'd always wanted that Black Pass. She felt a bit silly because she had desired a Black Pass just
because a drunken old man had told her about it. If anyone found out, they'd surely laugh at her,
thinking she didn’t have the intelligence of a 20-year-old.
So she didn’t tell her parents, only her two best friends. Unexpectedly, neither of them laughed. Nôvel/Dr(a)ma.Org - Content owner.
Molly said, "I wanna be a fairy, wearing pretty dresses, flying around freely as a bird every day. I
wouldn't need to catch the bus to school, I can simply use a kind of magic to get there, which allows me
to sleep a little longer."
Leo thought they were both a bit off their rockers, one into martial arts, the other into whimsical
fantasies.
But he chimed in, "I'd like to be a pirate, my idol is Captain Jack from Pirates of the Caribbean."
These three people filled with childlike wonder became good friends. None of them found each other's
ideas too peculiar. They all thoroughly enjoyed it and kept it a secret from outsiders.
Now, Mia had found her lover and openly shared one of her childhood dreams. Andre didn't laugh at
her, he took her hand and they strolled through the streets on a winter's night.
If Black Pass was equivalent to the most powerful person, did that make him, the man who was pulling
the strings behind-the-scenes equivalent to the world in his wife's heart?
Mia asked her husband, "Honey, why don't you share some of your childhood memories? I'd love to
hear."
Andre reminisced about his own childhood, "Eating, sleeping, studying, roughhousing with Leo,
hugging Molly, rinse and repeat every day."