Page 80 of Deadline for Love

Her eyes widened, and she seemed to realize the gravity of the situation.

I sighed for a long time and before I got us up off the floor.

She still held me tight, then her eyes wandered over my body, and she started crying again.

“What happened to you? You look terrible!”

“Thanks...” I mumbled sarcastically and then flopped down on the hard bed. “Before I start talking. I want to make sure again. So you went to my place yesterday to see if you could see whoever had been sending the letters, but when you were there, you saw and heard Julian—the guy who works in the bakery—threatening Janette, but then someone came up behind you, and you can’t remember anything else, right?”

She nodded.

“And why did you go there?”

She started playing with her fingers, and finally, her head lowered. “I thought he was coming back; I wanted to take pictures and follow him.”

“So, you didn’t have any new clues; you just wanted to play detective?” My statement embarrassed her, but I squeezed her hand tightly.

“We all wanted to wrap this up as quickly as possible, but we only put ourselves in danger. And as you can see, things can happen very quickly,” I confessed and then started to tell everything.

Nia was just as shocked as I was when I mentioned Fernando, and her face went dull when I told her about Nathan.

“What a load of shit.”

I could only nod silently to her statement.

“Yeah... at least there are no new victims, and the perpetrators have been caught. God, we’d both be dead. I can’t seem to digest that somehow.”

“Yes, Nia. We really had luck on our side... thanks to Nathan, who was smart enough to build a tracker in my ring—and then came to the rescue.”

The silence was good, but it was disturbed when the door to the room opened with a howling Amara and her fiancé dashing toward us.

The two of them jumped into our arms, and Amara kept repeating that she thanked God we were okay.

When we had all calmed down, Amara explained to us that she had called the police, and Janette informed them that she had been threatened and that her niece, Jessica Rue, had been kidnapped and Julian had used her as leverage. He thought she recognized him, and he wanted to make sure she didn’t call the police. He tried to use her to get to me. Which he somehow managed to do.

“And how did the police find us?”

Justin spoke up, “Nathan called them with your location.”

I swallowed hard when I heard his name. He had planned everything perfectly, and he was obviously prepared to kill his sister’s murderers and confess to the crime—and I had ruined his plan. And now... he hated me for it…

“It’s good that we finally have the killers. The families can finally find some peace,” Justin said to which Nia and Amara agreed.

I, however, was not content. I was utterly devastated.

Chapter 31

Nia was discharged after an examination, and we left the hospital together. We stopped briefly at Janette and Jessica’s to check on them. They were both doing well, and Janette smiled again at last.

They expressed their gratitude, but I didn’t feel like I could accept it. I hadn’t done anything. If Nathan hadn’t come, we would probably all be dead...

Nia was picked up by her mother, and Amara asked me to sleep over, but I had to do something first: see Enzo and Maria.

Amara and Justin took me to their house. I asked them to wait in the car while I summoned all my courage.

My heart grew heavier with every step I took to the door. And when I rang the bell and the front door opened, I stared into eyes that were already full of tears.

Enzo and Maria looked pale and very, very old. Their faces were full of sadness and bewilderment. At that moment, I knew the police had probably already informed them.

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