The Wife He Dumped, The Queen She Returned As novel Chapter 166

His gaze fell on the locked door across the hall.

"What is this place?"

Right on cue, a waiter hurried over, speaking frantically.

"Mr. Hayes, this is just a storage room. It's dusty in there, please step this way!"

Preston frowned, his eyes still glued to the door.

Beside him, Wyatt laughed, completely wasted.

"Haha, man, you've really had too much to drink. I'll call Jenna to come get you."

Preston didn't reply. He dialed Ken's number again.

As he walked away, he asked into the receiver,

"Did you trace the plate?"

For some inexplicable reason, a heavy, suffocating anxiety had been gnawing at his chest all night.

Kicking the box had drained the absolute last of Chloe's strength.

The raw, bleeding wounds on her wrists burned like fire.

She collapsed onto the floor, curling into a tight ball as she listened to the footsteps outside fade into nothingness.

Her body trembled violently from the freezing cold.

"..."

Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

She had been in agony for so long that she couldn't even tell if the sensation was real or just a fading hallucination.

In a hazy blur, she felt hands lifting her body.

"Why wasn't anyone watching her last night? We were just supposed to teach her a lesson, you didn't kill her, did you?"

"How was I supposed to know she was this fragile? It was just a bucket of ice water!"

"No, no, no! We have to get her out of here now! She can't die on our watch!"

She was hauled up.

She felt the swaying motion, the hard thud of hitting a car floorboard, and the relentless speed of a fast drive.

Then, the ropes binding her were snipped away, and she was tossed roughly onto solid, unforgiving dirt.

As the sound of the car engine faded into the distance, Chloe slowly reached up and yanked the blindfold off her face.

She forced herself up on trembling arms.

She was in the middle of nowhere—an abandoned, weed-choked suburb, utterly desolate.

Her voice was trembling uncontrollably.

"Yes... I'm so sorry..."

"I'd like to request a reschedule..."

"Thank you so much, I am incredibly sorry..."

The line went dead, but Chloe remained frozen, holding the phone to her ear as if the last drop of life had been siphoned from her body.

Suddenly, Preston's voice echoed from behind her.

"Chloe?"

Chloe had no idea he was home. The sound of his voice made her body instinctively lock up.

"Chloe! What happened to you?!"

Seeing her battered and broken state, Preston's face lost all color. He crossed the room in three massive strides and gently grabbed her arm.

"What happened? How did you get like this?"

Her back was to him, her clothes a horrifying canvas of caked mud and dried blood.

Wendy quickly chimed in,

"Mr. Hayes, your wife was acting so strange just now. It's like she rushed all the way back here just to answer that call..."