The Year She Stopped Being Crazy for Him novel Chapter 90

Natalie grabbed the officer's arm. "Fine, even if you suspect my grandmother right now, I am the victim. I demand you drop the case!"

The officer looked toward Hassan. "He is the one who filed the report and initiated the case. As your husband, he would need to consent to withdrawing it."

Hassan spoke with chilling finality. "I will pursue this to the very end. I will not let anyone who harmed my wife get away with it."

Natalie felt her vision swim; she nearly collapsed on the spot.

Tilda stood in the doorway, her jaw clenched tight. Desperate not to alarm the fragile woman inside, she kept her voice to a whisper, but the pure venom in her words was impossible to miss. "Natalie, I told you long ago to stay away from our family! All you do is bring disaster to my mother, to all of us!"

"No... no, I won't." Natalie shook her head, her throat tight with unshed tears. "Aunt Tilda, you have to believe me. I will fix this. I won't let anything happen to Grandma."

Tears streamed down Tilda's face as she looked at the officers. "My mother's health is already failing. She needs to rest to even survive the surgery. Dragging her out of here now is practically a death sentence."

The officer replied, "Given the circumstances, we can post officers outside her room for now. However, your mother will still need to cooperate with the investigation."

Tilda gritted her teeth. "Fine. Let me go in first and explain it to her gently. If you just barge in, the shock will kill her."

Natalie bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood, her fingernails digging deep crimson crescents into her palms.

Summoning every ounce of self-control she had left, she pulled Tilda back. "No. Grandma cannot handle this kind of shock."

Being accused of kidnapping her own beloved granddaughter—how could her grandmother possibly bear that kind of heartbreak?

Just the thought of it made Natalie shake with uncontrollable rage. She glared directly at Hassan. "Are you seriously going to push my only family into an early grave?"

"Natalie," the man's voice dropped to a glacial temperature. "I am your only family. The Carlson family is your home."

She let out a bitter, mocking laugh. "It hasn't been for a long time."

Natalie turned back to the police. "You want to file a kidnapping case? Fine. I saw the kidnapper." She raised her hand and pointed squarely at Gardenia. "It was her. To clear her own name, she tampered with my grandmother's phone and framed her."

Gardenia took a step back. "What nonsense are you spouting?"

Natalie's voice turned chillingly calm. "I am the victim. No one knows the details of what happened better than I do."

Adrian was brought into the station.

But unlike most children who would be terrified of the police, his gaze was remarkably clear and composed, exuding an eerie replica of Hassan's own commanding aura.

During the questioning, he answered every question methodically and without a single flaw.

As the police wrapped up and prepared to let the child go, Natalie interrupted. "You're asking him the wrong questions. He's not a normal kid. You should be asking him if he tampered with the phone the moment he found it."

She stared a hole through him, noticing the microscopic flutter of Adrian's eyelashes at the word 'tampered' before he quickly lowered his eyes.

Natalie's lips trembled. "You altered it, didn't you!"

The police looked completely exasperated. "Ms. Thornton, please stop being unreasonable! He is a six-year-old child! He probably can't even read half the messages on a phone, let alone hack it! You're being paranoid."

Several of the officers gave the boy sympathetic looks. "Don't be scared, buddy. We aren't going to hurt you."