Please Come Back, Honey! novel Chapter 125

Chapter 125“I know,” Trever murmured as he held her tightly. He already knew about her hatred and resentment for him. There was a time when he thought she was only playing hard-to-get and that she was still pining for him. It took him a while to realize that she had well and truly moved on from him and that she no longer wanted to have anything to do with him.In fact, who could blame her? It was hardly a mystery that she did not want to hang around somebody whose company was always out to get her.It had started out with Crystal, followed by Trevor’s mother, and now, Arianna. These women had tried to hurt Emma in different but equally vicious ways. If Trevor could not understand why Emma hated him before, he did now, especially after he had witnessed the horrors she was put through earlier, and that wasn’t even half of it.“I hate you. I absolutely hate you!” Emma yelled at him, then began to sob helplessly and uncontrollably in his arms. In all her years, she had never cried so much that she felt hollow. In fact, she started to feel so hollow that her head spun. Darkness came swiftly, and just like that, she collapsed in Trevor’s arms.He panicked as he held onto her limp frame. “Emma!” he gasped.At that moment, a few of the police officers came out of the warehouse with Arianna and the two men shuffling alongside them in handcuffs. Upon seeing Emma and Trevor, an officer hurried over and said, “Come on, we’ll take her to the hospital. I’ll show you the way; I know these parts of town well enough.”Trevor nodded and carried Emma in his arms, then rushed toward his own car. The police got into the passenger’s seat to give him directions, and the other police cruisers followed them to the hospital.Meanwhile, when Arianna saw how her brother had shed his indifferent demeanor and panicked over Emma’s condition, she was so incensed she stomped her foot. She wondered where his pride had gone. She couldn’t believe the man who had once thought so little of Emma was now caring for her. How is he going to live this humiliation down? How can he stand it?However, no one paid any attention to Arianna as she was forced into the police cruiser.The blond man and his buddy, on the other hand, were led into another cruiser, and the former shouted in Arianna’s direction before the police forced him into the car, “Miss Bateson, you’ll take care of this, won’t you?”He and his friend were small-time offenders, and the closest they had come to being imprisoned was when they were locked up in a holding cell at the police station after getting into a street fight, but that was only a short stint. If Arianna had not made a ludicrous upfront payment, they would never have agreed to go through with the kidnapping and whatever subsequent crime she wanted them to do.More importantly, she had given them her word that nothing would happen to them, not while the Bateson Family was backing them up.But from the looks of things just now, Trevor did not look like he would let them get away with this scot-free and seeing as he was the one who had called the police on them, they couldn’t help but fear the punishment that lay waiting for them.The police officer who was forcing the two men into the cruiser heard this and snapped impatiently, “What the hell are you talking about? Get in the car! Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, and you’re dead wrong if you think anyone’s gonna help you get out of this mess.”Indeed, they had no reason to believe Trevor would spare them when he didn’t even stop the police from arresting his own sister. The blond man and his friend were far too naive to have taken Arianna’s word as it was, though in all fairness, neither of them had expected her to be on such rough terms with her brother.Presently, the police officer gave Trevor directions all the way to the hospital. Emma was soon examined by a doctor, who concluded, “She’s fine. She must have collapsed from the shock and high-strung emotions.”Relief washed over Trevor, but it was short-lived, for the doctor went on to say, “That said, being kidnapped and subsequently threatened while in captivity would have caused her significant distress. As her family, you’ll need to keep an eye on her and watch out for any signs of post-traumatic stress on her part, then render her the necessary support to get through it.”Upon hearing this, Trevor felt his heart drop to his stomach. Emma always had a delicate side to her, and he recalled how pale she had looked when he first stormed into the warehouse to rescue her. At the thought of this, he started to worry that she might not be able to pull through the trauma. He also wanted to kill Arianna with his own hands.If Arianna were a man, he would have beaten her up without hesitation. He wished he could do that now as she got off easy with just two slaps in the face.The police officer left after seeing that Emma was in good hands.Shortly after that, Zachary and Cerys walked down the hallway together, with the latter holding a paper bag from a women’s boutique in hand as Trevor had instructed her to buy a blouse for Emma.Emma was still unconscious. Subsequently, Cerys went into the hospital room to guard her while Zachary and Trevor headed out to the hospital gardens. Trevor said nothing as he pulled out a cigarette, lit it, then took long drags of it. When he was done, he took out another one and did the same. The chain of drags was enough to show that he was an anxious wreck.At some point, Zachary winced and broke the silence, asking, “What are you going to do about this?”There was not a single pause as Trevor replied coolly, “Leave it up to the law.”“In that case, your sister will be locked up behind bars for a while,” Zachary pointed out. He knew Arianna was spoiled, but he didn’t think she would feel so entitled as to think she was above the law.Trevor shrugged and said emotionlessly, “Yeah. Well, she asked for it.”Sighing, Zachary looked at him with pity and asked, “What about your parents? Surely they would disagree on this.”Snuffing out the cigarette butt on the top of the trash can, Trevor bit out, “I don’t think they get to have a say in this. Not when one of them failed to discipline Arianna and the other spoiled her beyond reason. At the end of the day, they failed as parents, and their daughter is a manifestation of that failure. They have no right to be interfering now.”After Jared’s cheating scandal had caused an uproar, he packed up his things and left for abroad, effectively walking out of Trevor and Arianna’s lives. Even if he had stayed, he would have been an absent father, a figure that existed solely for the siblings to trace their roots to the Bateson name. Jared was a selfish parent, and they had not once received any affection from him.Alice, on the other hand, had adopted a rather indulgent approach to parenting where Arianna was concerned. Trevor had not tried to put a stop to it in the beginning, thinking that it was only normal for mothers to spoil their daughters. He didn’t think that enabling his mother to carry on spoiling Arianna would result in the girl becoming a criminal.Just then, Zachary pointed out pensively, “Do you think Arianna is capable of coming up with such vicious schemes?” The Arianna he knew was an airhead. Not to mention, unreasonable and demanding. Stupidity and privilege were a dangerous combination, but Arianna did not have it in her to come up with a plan to kidnap Emma, then hire two men for far more wicked intentions.Arianna’s intelligence, or the lack thereof, meant she would only settle for physical violence such as slapping Emma or splashing a beverage at her. She would not even consider recording anything for future leverage.“So what if she isn’t?” Trevor asked. Clearly understanding what Zachary was implying, Trevor continued, ‘”Even if Crystal was the one behind all this, it’s unlikely that she would leave any clues that might indicate it. There’s no way we’ll be able to say she did it. Arianna has only herself to blame for mixing with the wrong crowd and not being smart enough to see that she was being pawned. She’ll have to bear the consequences on her own.” He had no intention of going easy on his own sister this time; she would have to learn her lessons the hard way.It didn’t take him long after calming down to figure out that Arianna was doing someone else’s bidding. She was close friends with Crystal, and surely, she would have told the latter that she was reluctant to go abroad. Following that, Crystal merely had to spin a few lines to aggravate Arianna’s hatred.Knowing Crystal, all she had done was probably give a few nonchalant hints to nudge Arianna into committing a crime. How diabolical, Trevor thought with a self-mocking smile. He had once seen Crystal as a young lady of good breeding—one who was graceful and kind at all times. He then wondered when did he actually start seeing her as a scheming woman.As it turned out, time was all he needed to truly see a person for who they were. It was time that revealed to him all of Crystal’s twisted flaws, and at the same time showed him how irreplaceable and wonderful Emma was.