Boom! The penetrating thunderclap shocked Heather awake. Hearing the wind howling, she immediately got out of bed to close the windows as the thunderstorm neared.
The peace of yesterday had now turned into a heavy downpour. How spontaneous of the weather! Seeing that winter came early and how it rained more than usual, Heather couldn’t tell if it was her fault for getting too comfortable with the climate overseas or it was the weather which was being rather unpredictable.
All at once, Heather, who disliked rain and abhorred thunderstorms, closed the window, effectively blocking the piercing thunder outside. The thunder went on for quite some time but it still hadn’t rained, and only a massive billow of grey clouds was seen filling up the sky.
Upon seeing that, Heather thought to herself, This rain’s going to take years. Seems like I’m not going out today. Suddenly, she had an epiphany and dialed Leon’s number.
Missing the first call, Leon reluctantly accepted the second. Hearing Heather’s voice, Leon, who was feeling rather lethargic, mumbled, “Do you know what time it is, Heather?” After a long night of forcing himself into sleep, he felt as if he had only closed his eyes for a few minutes only for his slumber to be interrupted by her call.
“I wish to start the business in the New Year,” Heather announced, getting straight to the point.
Hearing her out-of-the-blue desire to postpone their business startup, Leon got curious about her plans. He was wide awake now as he curiously questioned, “Why do you want to delay the startup?”
“I have my plans.” Unwilling to sit back and relax, Heather intended to investigate the bombing, thus the business postponement.
“It’s not a good time to be mindless, Heather,” he muttered helplessly while wondering what she had gone through yesterday to make such a decision.
Since she had already settled on that, there was no way to change her mind. Instantly, she hung up on Leon, not wanting to hear any debates from Leon. While Leon was easy to win over, Paige’s parents were no easy feat to take on. After having set a startup date, Heather thought a spontaneous change to the schedule was rather hard to profess to them.
All of a sudden, Leon sent a text over, ‘I’m heading to your place now.’ Much to her surprise, Leon actually cared about the business. It has only been a night. How can he be so headstrong?
When the thunder struck once again, Heather was reminded of the awful weather and thus phoned Leon to reject his visit.
“It’s not a good weather to come out, Leon. Just stay put in the hotel.” The reasons she defied his visit were firstly because accidents were prone to happen to Leon if he were to go out under such hazardous weather and secondly, she simply didn’t want him to show up at the Langston Residence.
The storm beat down heavily and Leon stared out the window at the rainstorm—one that would give a hard time to the city’s drainage system. Consequently, he walked back to his bed and curled up in it. Since it was indeed inconvenient to go out, he decided to properly talk it out with Heather through the phone.
“Tell me—why are we postponing the launch?” Leon enunciated clearly as he was thoroughly clueless when it came to her self-willed actions.
“I thought it’ll be more meaningful to commence business on New Year’s Day,” she replied casually, though not entirely insincere.
Hearing her blurting the perfunctory answer, Leon didn’t know what to feel and unable to accept such a baseless excuse, he scowled.
“I feel obliged to find out the reasons behind the explosion yesterday. If I can’t ensure my own safety, how am I supposed to concentrate on the business?” Bothered sick by the messy things happening around her, she tossed everything about entrepreneurship aside.
Especially after the disaster occurred the night before, she couldn’t bring herself to pretend as if nothing had happened, so she was determined to find out the mastermind behind all that.
Lately, she felt like she was constantly being attacked from all angles and it was as if someone was manipulating her life in the dark. By no means was it the plans of God but the doings of men.
“Yesterday was a warning to me. You’re not the target.” Leon was confident that apart from his own family, no one was bold enough to perform such a daring act so openly, thus it must have been their doing.
“If so, can you explain the text message to me?” Heather queried as she was unable to completely trust what Leon said. After hearing Matthias’ discovery, Heather, who had been skeptical since the very start, grew even suspicious of her own relevance in the case.
Already bearing a suspect in mind as he couldn’t think of another, Leon responded, “People love making stuff up—it’s just one of their things, so don’t worry about it.”
“We both have our doubts and there’s no way to convince each other.” Since the truth was still an enigma, any explanation was nothing but empty inferences; thus, Heather was unable to take his words entirely.
Once again, she hung up on Leon, who wanted to give her a rational clarification but instead gradually found more loopholes in his words.
Being rudely hung up on, Leon vexedly gazed at the phone as if he was giving Heather, who was right in front of him, the death stare. Looking at the atrocious weather, he decided not to go to the Langston Residence after all. With that, what was more fulfilling than snuggling under the bed sheets?
Based on his understanding of her, he knew that she must have been racking her brains on how to propose the postponement to Paige. Although Heather was always upfront with Leon, that wasn’t always the case with Paige.
After deciding to forget Heather and her triggering attitude, Leon turned the heat up by two degrees since the rain would cool down the room anyway.
Unlike in Europe, Bradfort City’s chilly climate was quite a challenge for Leon—who loved himself a warm space—to get used to. It was only fall, yet it was already freezing like in the middle of winter, as if autumn quickly skipped to winter in mere days.
Resting her arms on the window frame, Heather blankly stared at the downpour on the other side of the window. When the rain eventually ended, the weather would become freezing. At this rate, it wouldn’t take long to snow.
Unexpectedly, the winter in the South was as cold while snow was already falling in the North. After a long period of not seeing any snow, Bradfort City would get snowy very soon.
Suddenly, there were taps on her door. Turning around, she ordered at the door, “Come in.” Since she had forgotten to lock her door, it was accessible from the other side.
When the butler showed his face after opening the door, Heather, who was still in her pajamas, covered her chest. Unlike any other person, she had forgotten to change into her winter sleepwear after having gotten distracted by many happenings.
“Miss Heather, the Old Master wishes to see you in the study.” Judging by the butler’s look, Heather intuitively knew it wasn’t going to be anything good.
“Let me get changed first,” she responded.
Upon hearing that, the butler, who didn’t dare to enter her bedroom, immediately withdrew the revealed half of his body and shut the door without delay.
After watching the butler taking his seemingly guilty leave, Heather took off her pajamas and changed into a set of casual homewear before heading to the study room.
As she had the most excellent reaction speed among the Langstons, she didn’t mind the door being unlocked. Besides, nobody was bold enough to charge through her door without permission.
Swiftly, she put on her clothes and had a quick wash up, exposing her delicate bare face. When she pulled the door open, she saw Everly who was just walking down the stairs. Despite having eye contact, none of them initiated a greeting.
Seeing how Everly had put some effort into her makeup so early in the morning, seemingly heading out under such weather, Heather couldn’t help but feel that something was off, but she didn’t put too much mind into it.
Nonetheless, when Everly walked away, Heather was stunned by her figure, unable to determine whether it was her misconception that Everly’s womanly charms seemed to have overflowed lately.
The once little girl had turned into such a fine woman so rapidly. However, Heather suppressed that thought as that wasn’t the time for her to dwell on that.
Then, she continued heading toward the study located on the other side of the hallway while imagining the possible reasons she had been summoned for. The first possibility she could think of was that Robert now knew about the explosion.
He must have found out about it from the newspaper… But the serious news would not be highlighting me, so perhaps it is the entertainment section? Since entertainment journalists loved forging stories as they liked, Heather shivered at the thought of the photos taken from the previous night.
She gently knocked on the study room door and she could hear Robert’s voice from inside the room. “Come in.”
She pushed the door open and there was only Robert alone in the room with a newspaper laid down on the table in front of him, just as she predicted.
In the end, Robert started with words that made Heather’s heart skip a beat. “You made the headlines again.”
“I can explain,” she told him to avoid a misunderstanding. Since there was nothing to hide, she might as well lay everything out. “The news is a mess. Let me explain it to you myself.”
“Save it. I trust you, but…” Robert took a pause as he gave Heather a sharp gaze. “I’m telling you that if anyone messes with you or our family, I will personally see to the matter.”
At once, Heather let out a sigh of relief after knowing he didn’t call her over to lecture her but rather, to show her his love and support. At such a moment, Robert understood that Heather could use some assistance from her family and decided not to leave his granddaughter alone.
“Thank you, Grandpa.” Feeling a little tingle in her nose and some moisture in her eyes, Heather held back the urge to cry as she wouldn’t allow herself to do so in front of others.
“Silly girl, you don’t have to thank me for anything. Well, do you have any suspects in mind?” In an instant, he fluidly switched from a benign grandfather to an objective one.
“I suspect that it was the Moriartys.” Heather directly expressed her suspicion as she couldn’t think of any other.
Hearing that, Robert lowered his head and stared at the newspaper. After a while, he showed his face and muttered, “I don’t think so.” Although the Moriartys had their reasons to make a move on the Langstons, they wouldn’t have taken such extreme measures to prove their point.
“Why not?” Even Robert had spared the benefit of the doubt toward the Moriartys, so perhaps the incident wasn’t actually targeted at her but instead, at Leon.
“Needless to say, our relationship with the Moriarty Family isn’t bad enough to threaten the people around you, let alone bomb threats. Besides, they never stray far from the purpose, so it isn’t their habit to involve irrelevant parties,” Robert claimed, knowing the Moriartys wouldn’t have taken such severe, shameless actions.
“Last night, Leon told me that he was the target and it was a warning from his family,” Heather revealed to Robert. In the end, it seemed that Leon was indeed telling the truth.
“That’s very likely. Leon isn’t a simple one, is he? His family background is complicated and there wasn’t much I could dig up about him.” Even after having his men run a background check on Leon, Robert hadn’t gotten any useful information. Other than the basics, all other information seemed to have been erased on purpose.
