Was he overreacting?
He couldn’t shift the uncertainty and frantically swiveled his head to look for him. It had only been a few minutes, so he could not have gone far. Kai wandered to the door near the booths where the man had been, and when he saw someone coming in, he slid out quickly by them to look around. He wasn’t sure what he was even doing, but he just had to ensure his family was safe and this guy was nothing. Better safe than sorry.
Kai didn’t have to go far and stumbled upon him just around the corner. His back faced his way, and he was on his cell mid-call, concealed by the shrubbery around here in a weirdly dodgy way. It was like he was trying to hide himself from view, which sent off all the alarm bells in Kai’s head. He returned to the door frame and tried listening to what he was saying to better understand this guy’s deal.
Rage pushed through, bubbling up in his veins like a volcano, and he could barely conceal the sudden aggressive energy. Seeing red, he marched up to the back of the man, slamming a hand on his shoulder to spin him with force, and tugged the cell out of his hand, knowing fine well if he was wrong about this, he was pretty much assaulting a stranger and stealing his phone. But the conversation he heard told him otherwise.
The name on the screen sealed the man’s fate, and Kai knew his feelings had been right all along.
Madame Xuchen.
His goddamn mother. He should have fucking known.
The sense of disappointment and utter betrayal shot through him like a spear to the abdomen. Not helping his anger but instead fuelling it. He slammed the still ongoing call to his ear and had to take a steadying breath to calm the raging shakes overtaking his internal organs.
The silence on the other end stretched for a few seconds as his mother hesitated about whether to respond and be outed or to act mute and hope he hung up. She was never going to admit wrongdoing. In her mind, she acted for their family’s good and their son’s future.
“What the fuck do you want videos and pictures of my girls for? What are you going to do with them?…. Blackmail? There is nothing you can use them for. I am not keeping my child a secret, nor am I keeping my past with Meilei that way. I have nothing to be ashamed of except for my own treatment of her and my family’s actions that ruined her life. So your sneaky little observation means absolutely nothing to me.” Kai was on a roll, snarling, rage sweeping over him in hot waves as he worked himself up, restlessly shifting on the spot as he tried to keep it all inside. Hating that even now, she was trying to do this to them while he had been here enjoying his time as a real family unit, taking their baby out together. He was making progress with Meilei, yet his mother was sweeping all over them again. He hated her with a vengeance, and emotion fuelled this confrontation rather than logic.
His mother had used her own leverage to find out exactly what sort of goings on in her company had happened since they had found out about Yuelin. It had not taken long, given how she littered spies throughout Yanhue.
She had been hit with his high-volume verbal outburst when they came out looking for him. She could hardly miss it or exactly what he was saying.
“Kai?” She half mumbled, stuttered, and coughed his name, fear seizing her in a chokehold that someone was trying to harm them again. Hearing enough to know that much was evident. Terror gripped her stomach as she pulled her child closer out of instinct and was immediately on the defensive. She eyed up the man in the black suit with severe suspicion, moving in front of Yue to shield her, and stepped closer to Kai for safety without thinking about it. The man idly standing nearby looked caught and torn between shame for his part and unease about what Kai might do to him. He was just a middle-aged, quiet man who had no choice but to do what he was told.
Kai snapped around, hearing her, and his voice dropped out of his mouth for a second. He internally cursed at himself for her for hearing this. He didn’t want any of this bullshit and drama anywhere near her ever again. She had suffered enough, and she would only worry. This kind of drama could make her push him away again and mistrust his intentions like the hospital mess did.
She didn’t know how to feel about this repeat scenario or seeing how passionate he was about defending her. It felt all too familiar.
Kai covered the cell to muffle his mother’s bitter rant that came out from the earpiece after hearing him refer to that wanton whore as his baby. Enraged that he had gone back there with that life wrecker, she was lost in the venom and hatred of her snobbery. Turning the air blue.
“What’s going on? Who is this?” She eyed up the stranger with deathly intent and obvious mistrust. Meilei was not about to be shifted, and she did not know if she should be scooping Yue up and running far away from the Xuchens again. She nodded towards the man, unaware of his involvement or how this escalated.
Kai wanted to brush it off, but the fear in her eyes, her stiff posture and rapid chest movements, and the way Yuelin was doe-eye staring right through him with a questioning silence, he knew he owed them an answer. Knowing a lack of honesty had been the catalyst for years of misunderstanding, he was not about to make that mistake.
“My mother has had this guy following us. Taking pictures to try and blackmail me. It’s nothing, and she isn’t smart enough to believe she cannot blackmail something I don’t care about keeping secret.” He told a little white lie about the direction his mother’s blackmail was intended because he still needed to make Meilei feel safe. “I love both of you so much, and I will always be with you. There is nothing she can ever do again to tear us apart. I’ll never let my family or my mother hurt you. I promise. I need you to trust me and go sit and calm down.” Kai softened to a smooth and low hum. His eyes locked on Meilei as he saw the slight shock register on her face.
The interference, of course, rattled her, and the trepidation that woman could destroy her a second time, but it was his confession to loving her that completely silenced her and sent her into an internal whirlwind of chaos and confusion. She had never thought, after everything, that he retained any feelings for her. Especially not based on how he had treated her for the first months here.
After five years of hating her for what he thought she had done, how could he?
“I’m sorry, miss. I am just a hired hand. I work for Yanhue Corp.; it was not something personal or weird. I’m not some creep looking to harm you. I was to take pictures and video of you three together doing family things and hand them off, and that was it. You don’t need to fear me.” The suited man finally spoke, apologetic in his deliverance because he could see how the woman was protecting her child like he was some predator. He wanted to leave but could do nothing but wait while Kai held his cell hostage.
Meilei was dumbstruck, her mind racing a million miles an hour as she fell into silent despair and watched Kai return the cell to his ear. She could just about make out the psychotic wailings of his hysterical mother, and it felt like everything inside her paused in some static state while she struggled to digest what was happening here. The black cloud of Xuchen moved into her safe existence once more.
Would she never be free of that constant black cloud of threat that woman created?
Yuelin hid behind her mother’s skirts, rubbing her head against her mother’s thigh. She was oblivious to what was happening but could feel the tension and see her daddy was angry. She didn’t like it and curled up to hide in the shadow of Mommy’s dress. The strange man was ruining their day. She was a good child and didn’t like seeing Mommy sad, so she tried to be brave and stayed quiet, but her little tummy swirly with uneasiness.
Meilei’s throat dried up, and she had to remind herself he was only saying all this to cut his mother down. He probably did not mean any of it.
They were nothing.
She was nothing to him except the mother of his child. All of this was just an empty threat to scare the woman, and he did not mean to destroy his family and jail his mother because of Meilei. She could not believe that he was serious.
After everything she had endured five years ago and needing him so desperately to believe her and protect her in this way, this was doing crazy things to her mind and heart. It was something she had needed so badly back then, and it was being delivered now like a bandaid, causing internal mayhem. She thought she had moved on from this, but hearing him now seemed to open a secret door deep down that held the worst of her scars and seemed to let them free. A wash of overwhelming pain and a choking sensation that ripped the rug out from under her feet.
Choking up, eyes blurring with moisture while an intense pain built up inside of her, and she was sure she might end up in a full sob if she stayed here listening to this. Unable to move, yet unable to stand hearing it for fear he was bluffing. She had not known how much her soul had yearned for this. Real proof of the lengths he was willing to go to for her.
She was unraveling at seeing how fiercely he was willing to defend her. The constant references to love and that she was his were all too much. Her heart was splicing, her head was turning into a chaotic whirlwind, so she felt dizzy because of her rapid breaths, and she had to clutch Yue’s hand to ground herself. It was the despair of something she needed so long ago and being faced with it here smack out of the blue. It felt like an emotional assault.