Love Began with the First Meeting

The doctor left the manor soon after. Freya looked sad and worried as she stood by Ximena's bed. Aaron said, "I'm afraid that she won't wake up any time soon. You'd better stay here with her. There's something that I need to handle."

Freya nodded without asking any questions. She stared at Aaron's retreating back until he disappeared from her sight. She looked at Ximena's deathly pale face and felt a pang in her heart. She stretched her hand to stroke her daughter's face gently. Due to all the physical labor she had done through the years, her palms were very rough and had calluses. But because of her touch, the frown on her daughter's forehead smoothened a bit.

"Ximena," Freya choked on her sobs. "I don't want you to be like this..." Tears spilled over her eyes uncontrollably. Twenty seven years ago, she had been pregnant with Ximena in a very difficult circumstance. She had been in prison during that time, and that had been where she had given birth to her daughter. After realizing that she was pregnant, she had begun to act according to other people's wishes and learned to play up to the inmates in order to protect herself and her baby from violence. After her baby was born, the inmates felt Ximena's vitality, the aura of a new born baby.

She cried, chuckled and made baby noises in such a vibrant manner, which was completely different from the normal atmosphere in a prison. As a result of that, people in other prison cells had started envying them.

As these memories came back to her, Freya pursed her lips into a straight line, and salty tears rolled to the corners of her mouth, echoing the bitterness in her heart. At that time, she had tried her best to be in her best behavior in hopes of being released earlier because she didn't want her daughter to grow up in prison. Unfortunately, things hadn't worked out as she had hoped.

In the beginning, she had been grateful for what had happened. But when she later found out the truth, she had been furious. And finally, she had just become indifferent towards everything in her life. She figured that perhaps that's how people were supposed to live their lives after losing everything-just plain existence and nothing more.

"Ximena," Freya said softly while stroking her daughter's hand with her rough fingers, "I don't want you to learn anything about the past, even if you end up hating or blaming me for not telling you. If you find out everything that happened in the past, you will feel immense pain and you wouldn't know how to face the truth. Compared to that, I would rather you resent me. At least that way... you might forgive me sooner or later, instead of being immersed and locked by the stories of the past."

*

The abandoned construction site looked gloomy under the cloudy, hazy sky.

Hugo was in an ash black jacket, a pair of black suit pants, and a black trucker cap which concealed more than half his face. Only the lower part of his face was visible. He had a small stubble around his mouth, making him look dispirited.

By his side was a broken mat and a worn out quilt. It was a miserable scene to behold. He was sitting on a large piece of cardboard with his legs crossed. He had a laptop in his hand, which was connected to an unknown power source with a long electric wire. He looked at his laptop screen with a wild arrogant smile in his eyes.

His fingers were busy on the keyboard, creating a sound that echoed throughout the empty building. When he saw the amount of money that had been just added to his account, an evil grin appeared on his lips. Then he closed the laptop and put it on top of the cardboard. He grabbed the plastic bag beside him, which had some bread and water. He took the bread out of the bag and began eating.

The sound of his chewing was especially loud since the rest of the building was empty, but it was exactly because of his loud chewing that the slight ruffling from all sides of the abandoned construction site was covered up perfectly. Shawn signalled Ken, and he immediately understood what he meant. He nodded to Shawn and then gestured to the people behind him. The men dispersed in all directions in order to cover Shawn.

Ken could not help but admire how vigorous and agile Shawn, the man from XK Intelligence Agency, was. Despite his old age, Shawn didn't look weaker than him at all. On the contrary, Ken seemed weaker than Shawn.

Silently, Shawn climbed the building floors by following the electric wire which was inconsistent with the shabby environment. Very soon, he was almost on the floor where Hugo was located. At that moment, Hugo stopped eating all of a sudden. By instinct, he looked through the open window. All was quiet.

Shawn held his breath while looking at the thermal sensor in his hand. He stopped to regain his previous heart rate. Finally, he reached Hugo's hideout. Hugo could not believe what he was seeing. The expressions on his face were complicated beyond description. The members of "Y" were incredibly brilliant, but they were usually not good at combat. However, Hugo was an exception. Because of Manson, he had once trained very hard in the hopes of outweighing his elder brother in an aspect other than appearance sooner or later. But unfortunately for Hugo, his opponent was Shawn, a man who didn't care about rules or morals in a battle. He would win by using any means necessary. And at that moment, he was not interested in a hands-on combat at all, because, well...he had a gun. There were three people in the world who were particularly good at hitting two different targets with just one bullet- Richie, Brian and Shawn. So no matter how hard Hugo struggled, the fight wouldn't end in his favor.

Hugo was soon bound to a chair. His hands were tied behind his back, and his legs were tied to the chair. He looked at the man in front of him- Aaron, as well as Shawn, who was playing with his Swiss army knife aside, and asked furiously, "Do you really believe that you can stop that by doing this to me?" He then continued to sneer at them.

Hearing that, Shawn stopped playing with his knife. With a sly smile on his attractive face, he said, "He is laughing at you."

Obviously, he was trying to stir up trouble. Aaron frowned slightly and looked at him with a helpless expression hidden in his eyes. He respected Shawn not only because he was Brian's man, but also because he had the ability and character that was worthy of admiration. However, his tongue and his beautiful face were something that many would want to tear up, including Aaron at the moment. He knew about Shawn's temper. He didn't want anything unpleasant to happen between him and Shawn at such a critical moment. So, Aaron turned to look at Hugo.

"Why don't you wait and see?" Aaron said in a plain tone. There was still a large 'Y' sign on the laptop screen.

Hugo perceived the indifference in Aaron. He was flustered and it was seen clearly in his eyes. The corners of his mouth quivered slightly before he said, "Fine. Let's wait and see!" Hugo had installed a program in his laptop which would automatically transfer and display the contents of the specific file to all the video devices in QY Island as planned before, unless he manually unlocked his laptop in two hours. And when the files were exposed, everybody in and outside QY Island who knew Aaron would know his woman's past.