Sentenced to Marriage by MadlainQ novel Chapter 98

All those questions

Once I saw the footage Chris had talked about, I realized that his description had been an understatement; that the Asian woman wasn’t pretty-she was beautiful. She was slender and rather petite, with gorgeous shoulder-long black hair, black almond-shaped eyes, and full lips. On the two-second recording, she looked frightened and worried with her watery eyes displaying nothing but sorrow and longing. I had never seen Lanfen, but looking at that woman’s face, I was certain that I was looking at the one who had once broken Aren’s heart. Of course, I needed something that would confirm her identity, but for now, I had to put it on my very long to-do list…

We needed to move Aren back to his private clinic, putting him in the most secure wing. We had to do it not only for his safety but to minimize the potential casualties. The worst part of that night’s attack was not knowing who was behind these brutal killings or what their purpose was. Was it someone who tried to verify Aren’s condition? But if it was Aren’s enemy, then why wasn’t Aren assassinated? All those questions gave me a headache.

“Get ready for your training session tomorrow at six o’clock sharp,” Chris said in a commanding tone. “You will practice with me every other day before work, and on the rest of the days, you will learn how to shoot with Jack.” I didn’t dare argue with Chris. I could see in his eyes that I had given him quite a scare. He would never forgive himself if something happened to me, and now he was determined to at least give me the ability to defend myself. All I could do was accept his and Jack’s offer. I knew that I kept acting recklessly, and until now I had been lucky, but what if I ran out of luck? I knew that I would never be able to escape bullets, but I needed to know at least how to dodge a punch. Strange… If someone had told me a year ago that I would be eager to learn how to fight, I would have burst out laughing. Now, the constant danger and facing death and murder had become my reality; I was living in Aren’s Lan world, and I needed to adapt as soon as possible.

My new daily schedule required that I come back to the penthouse. I started waking up at 4:30 to prepare myself for the training session and another day at the office. All my training was in Chris’s private gym, in the basement of the building he owned. It began with the toughest form of warmup I had ever had. The actual training came after; at the moment I wished that the whole session was over. Chris taught me the proper fighting stance, and how to keep my guard, but my body wasn’t able to handle more. My arms and legs were too weak, my nearly nonexistent, and my whole body unstretched. According to Chris, my body’s ability to move reminded him of his grandma… I decided not to comment on that. In the end, he changed my schedule again, making me get up an hour earlier to add extra time for stretching and strengthening exercises. I already felt sorry for my poor muscles at the thought of it…

Finally, my first training session ended, and I was extremely happy to be still able to walk and move. The boost of dopamine put a bright smile on my face… which lasted until I opened the door of Aren’s office and saw the rest of the boxes of documents I needed to go through. It got even worse when Neil came to the office, giving me another pile of contracts that I needed to review and revise. It was like a pain in the ass, but I had to admit that it became slightly less difficult than when I started dealing with it a week ago. My time management improved, and I even set the timer to remind me that I should eat, just in case. At seven o’clock, I was done with all the work I had planned for myself that day. Satisfied with my newly developed efficiency, I was just about to leave the office when Chris and Jack came, claiming that it was important.

“We have a copy of the autopsy reports of the guards, nurses, and doctor, and preliminary findings of the investigation,” Jack said. “The nurses were executed in the medical staff room at the end of the corridor. The young doctor was shot by the elevator, and, as the blood smudges on the floor indicate, he was later dragged to the medical staff room to temporarily hide his body. The guards were killed by the staircase; they were most likely lured there by something they’d seen or heard.”

“No one from the lower floors heard anything, and the lights were out on the top floor only,” Chris interjected. “The shooter or more likely shooters were pros. The fact that no one heard anything suggests that they used silencers. Since all the kills were done by one shot in the head, the assassins were most likely quite tall, which eliminates the Asian woman as a potential killer… but we could assume that much before anyway.”

My heart rate kept rushing as I heard about the gloomy details. Yet, there was one thing I couldn’t understand. “Why…?” I muttered. “Why did someone kill all those people?”

Chris sighed, his jaw clenching. “Our guess is that someone cleared the way for that woman to visit Aren.”

“This is insane!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet. “So six people died just so that some bitch could have quality time with my unconscious husband?!”