Five years later...
The international airport buzzed with its usual chaos. But several heads turned to follow a young woman striding through the terminal in dark sunglasses, holding the hand of a little girl — about four years old — who wore a miniature denim jacket and a bunny-shaped backpack.
Sienna Anindita was back. She was no longer the terrified nineteen-year-old who'd fled. Now, at twenty-four, her gaze was sharper. Colder.
"Mommy, is this Jakawta? The sun is so hot hewe. Hottew than Aunty Mawia's oven. Wayna feels like melting," the little girl announced in a lisp that was adorable in sound but oddly adult in delivery — like a miniature CEO filing a complaint.
"Be patient, Rayna. We'll crank the AC all the way up once we're in the car," Sienna replied gently, smoothing a hand over her daughter's head.
Rayna. The child born from that illegal procedure five years ago. Sienna had never imagined that the baby she'd conceived as an escape plan would grow into someone fiercely protective of her. Rayna was sharp-tongued, fearless, and brazenly clever — traits that belonged to someone Sienna had never met.
"Mommy, that man ovew thewe keeps stawing at you. His eyes look like they'we about to fall out," Rayna pointed a tiny finger toward a middle-aged man in the distance.
"If he comes any closew, Wayna will give him the dewastating kick, okay Mommy? So his you-know-what cwacks like you taught me!"
Sienna nearly choked on her own saliva. "Rayna! You can't just say things like that in public!"
"But Mommy said it fiwst! Pewverts need to be extewminated befowe they bweed!" Rayna fired back casually, chomping her gum like a pint-sized boss.
"Who's a pervert now?" a voice asked from behind them.
Sienna spun around. Rayna merely offered a suspicious side-eye from beneath her long lashes.
"Harris... I was afraid you'd forgotten about us," Sienna breathed with relief, flashing a warm smile at her brother who'd come to pick them up.
"Uncle, why'd you take so long? Wayna's legs awe about to fall off fwom standing hewe fowevew. Been waiting since fowevew ago. If Wayna's legs come off, awe you gonna take wesponsibility and buy Wayna pwosthetic ones online? Wayna doesn't even have a dwivew's license yet!" Rayna folded her arms and fixed Harris with a withering stare.
Harris's clear eyes locked onto the little girl in front of him.
This kid...
"Sienna... is this the child you had? Just her?" he asked, stunned.
Annoyed at being talked about rather than talked to, Rayna jutted out her lower lip. She did not appreciate being ignored. "Hello? The pewson is wight hewe, Uncle. Don't look at Wayna like she's an alien. Wayna is a wawe antique, not a stowe display."
Harris laughed. Sienna smiled thinly. "Yeah. Just her. She was the only one who made it."
Sienna's mind drifted back to the delivery. She'd been forced into a C-section — something about the umbilical cord being wrapped around the baby. But what she didn't know was that the surgery had been orchestrated by doctors on the Elson payroll to take Rayna's twin brother. Throughout her pregnancy, Sienna had been manipulated into believing she was carrying only one child.
"That's strange... you sent me photos when you were pregnant. Your belly was enormous — like you were carrying twins. You're sure you only delivered her?" Harris pressed, suspicious.
"I'm sure," Sienna said, lowering her gaze to Rayna, who was scanning her surroundings with darting eyes — like a pint-sized intelligence operative assessing the field.
"Harris, thank you for everything you've done for me," Sienna added sincerely.
"Yeah, sure. Come on, let's go home. You two must be exhausted. Rayna... come here, I'll carry you," Harris offered, extending his hand.
Rayna immediately took a step back. Firm refusal. "Don't need to cawwy Wayna. Wayna can walk by hewself. Wayna is a big girl, not some baby who needs to be cwadled."
"You're really something, you know that? Can't even crack a smile for me?" Harris said, half-exasperated, half-charmed.
"Wayna's smile is expensive, Uncle. Not just anybody gets to see Wayna's beautiful smile. If Wayna smiled wight now, Uncle might faint fwom how stunning it is. Then Wayna would be in twouble 'cause who's gonna dwive the caw? Wayna doesn't have a license yet!"
Harris stared.
"The confidence on this kid..."
"But she is gorgeous. Gorgeous like her mother."
In a different, far more exclusive section of the airport, a convoy of black Rolls-Royces waited in formation. Dozens of men in dark suits stood at rigid attention.
A car door opened. Kalendra Elson stepped out, radiating an aura cold enough to freeze the air around him. Beside him, a small boy in a perfectly tailored miniature suit stood with a face utterly devoid of expression.
Rayden Elson. Rayna's twin, separated at birth.
Where Rayna was an explosion, Rayden was Kalendra in miniature. Silent, meticulous, and plagued by an obsessive need for cleanliness.
"Rayden, put your mask on. The air out here isn't as clean as it was inside the jet," Kalendra said flatly.
Rayden didn't answer. He produced a silk handkerchief, dabbed a speck of dust from the tip of his shoe with surgical precision, then put on his mask with an elegant motion.
"Dad, I detect an unpleasant odor," he murmured from behind the mask. His voice was small but carried an unsettlingly adult quality.
"What odor?" Kalendra asked, checking his watch.
"The smell of common people. And... cheap perfume from that direction, Dad." Rayden pointed toward the public arrivals terminal — the same direction where Sienna and Rayna stood, just a few hundred meters away.
Kalendra said nothing. He had no idea that half his soul was standing just a short distance from him.
"Let's go. We have a meeting with Holland tonight," Kalendra ordered.
"Holland? The old man who's drowning in debt at our casino, Dad?" Rayden asked as he climbed into the car.
"Yes. And we're going to take whatever he has left."
***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***
Updated 84 Episodes
Download
Like this story? Download the app to keep your reading history.
Comments