Standing before Love

The sky gradually darkened. Heather and Leon walked together, but they still couldn’t see any sign of the car. A rather worried Leon then asked, “Are you sure the car is really parked at a conspicuous spot, Heather?” He even suspected that the car might have been stolen.

“I’m sure of that.” Heather felt they would probably see the car if they walked a little further.

“It can’t possibly have been stolen, can it?” asked Leon, discouraged. As such, he couldn’t stop himself from voicing his doubts.

“That’s not possible,” Heather replied categorically. The car had a superb anti-theft function, so how could it be stolen that easily?

Leon continued to follow Heather. It’s so normal for a luxury car parked in desolate countryside to be made off with, he thought to himself. Instantly, he lost all his vigor like a deflated balloon, and they walked around while looking fruitlessly for a long time.

Eventually, Heather took her cell phone out of her pocket. At this moment, it seemed that they could only rely on the positioning system to find the car. Leon didn’t realize what Heather was trying to do until he saw what she was doing, and he realized that they had totally forgotten about this earlier. “Have you detected the car’s location, Heather?” He leaned closer to her as he was in desperate need of a car right now. After all, they were on a barren and desolate mountain where the vehicles passing by were mostly trucks. If they wanted to leave here sooner, they could only find their car. In an instant, he was well motivated again, dying to see the car at once.

Heather looked at the location displayed on her cell phone. The car was nearby, but why couldn’t they find it no matter how hard they searched? She was somewhat perplexed, and Leon also found this rather strange. Hence, they looked at each other in puzzlement. “What should we do now, Heather?” Leon became even more convinced that the car must have been stolen, and it seemed that thieves’ skills nowadays had become better and better.

“I think they probably camouflaged the car a bit.” Heather looked at one particular spot with a false smile. Earlier on, I told them to park the car at a conspicuous place. Why can’t they understand human language? she thought to herself.

Leon followed Heather’s gaze and saw the car as expected. He then said to Heather with a sullen expression, “This place does seem conspicuous, huh.”

As soon as he finished his sentence, he walked forward directly. Had Heather not checked the car’s location, they probably would’ve searched for the car until the second half of the night without any success. Leon walked toward the vehicle with an unhappy expression, whereas Heather followed leisurely behind him. However, just as he was about to approach the car, she suddenly felt a sense of danger. In fact, Leon was ready to remove the branches from the car himself when she suddenly shouted, “Stop, Leon! Something’s wrong.”

Leon’s outstretched hand paused in midair as he turned around and looked at Heather with a puzzled look. “What’s wrong, Heather?”

She quickly stepped toward Leon and dragged him behind her directly. Then, she picked up a stone from the ground and threw it right at the car.

Just like that, the stone produced a sound as it hit the vehicle. Heather’s hunch told her that this car had been tampered with, but nothing happened at all. Hence, Leon looked at her in confusion. “Don’t prank me at a time like this, Heather.” Thinking that the woman was merely teasing him, he shook her hand off directly and walked straight over to the car.

As a loud boom ensued just then, Leon was knocked over directly as a result of the heatwave produced by an explosion. He was fortunate to be strong and vigorous, or else he would’ve died here today. As the raging flames burned, he got up from the ground and looked at Heather with a trace of panic and confusion. He looked very ghastly, for another explosion had happened. He was f*cking out of luck this year.

“The car has been tampered with.” Heather’s features were almost contorted. For the time being, she didn’t know who was the culprit behind this.

“What’s wrong with this, Heather?” Leon wondered in his mind whether this was the work of the bunch of perverse guys. There had been an endless stream of assassination attempts on his family since the Middle Ages, so it had to be said that he was lucky to be safe and alive until now. At the thought of this, he wished he could return to his family and come to a standoff with those who had the face of a human but the heart of a beast.

“We’re being stalked.” Heather believed that someone must be peeping at them in secret.

“What should we do now, Heather?” Leon knew nothing about Solaria’s rules, and this place wasn’t his turf.

“Call the police. This is the crime scene, so we should try our best not to disturb anything here,” Heather replied as she took out her cell phone and began calling the police. After making the phone call, she stayed where she was and silently watched as the fire grew in intensity across from her. It probably wouldn’t take long before the forest would be burned down as well. At the same time, she also called the fire brigade. Since this incident was too abominable in nature, she had to calm down and sort out the whole matter.

“I’m sorry, Heather. I’m probably the one who’s caused this trouble.” Leon looked at the woman apologetically. He surmised it was probably that bunch of people who did this—they loved creating explosions the most because evidence of the crime would rarely be left behind by doing so. Then, he looked bitterly at the growing fire in front of him.

“No head or tail can be made of this incident yet, so don’t blame yourself for this. I’m the one who probably brought you into trouble.” Heather didn’t know what on earth was going on, but she suspected that she was the cause of this trouble.

“Are we going to wait here, Heather?” Leon watched how the fire grew in intensity and was worried that their safety might be endangered.

However, Heather refused to leave this place as she wanted to wait until the police arrived. “Yeah. We’re on a clearing, so the fire won’t reach us.”

Seeing how stubborn she was, Leon felt that he couldn’t chicken out either. After all, there was some distance between them and the fire anyway. On the other hand, Heather suddenly felt a bit tired, and she crouched down on her own. Leon crouched down as well and looked at her with his eyes full of care and sympathy.

Shortly after that, she received a phone call from Zayne. “Where are you right now, Heather? Hurry back to Bradfort City. You’re in grave danger right now, and I heard that someone wants to have you assassinated.” He learned of this rumor somewhere.

Heather didn’t expect Zayne to learn the news so quickly. Her eyes flickered, and one couldn’t fathom her innermost thoughts. “I can’t go back right now. I have something important to finish.” She couldn’t go back since she wasn’t someone who cravenly clung to life instead of braving death.

“Stop fooling around. What else is more important than your life?” Zayne was almost pissed off by Heather as he knew how stubborn the latter was.

“Grandpa is going to die at any time, so I must find a renowned doctor to cure him.” Heather had wanted to hide this from Zayne earlier, but what kind of a person was he? He would uncover this sooner or later, so she decided to confess to him instead.

“You really don’t care about your life. All right then, don’t do anything rash and send me your location. I’ll go to you right away.” Zayne couldn’t leave someone in the lurch, especially when the person was Heather as she tugged at his heartstrings.

“Don’t come over here. I can hardly protect myself right now, and I’m afraid of dragging you into trouble if you come over right now.” Heather had already brought Leon into this mess, so she didn’t want to do the same to Zayne.

“Those who want to kill me are more than I can count on my fingers. I’m the dangerous person here,” Zayne replied in a bantering tone. At any rate, he needed to rush to Heather’s side immediately since he couldn’t allow anything wrong to happen to her. “I can find out where you are even if you don’t send me your location,” he added specifically, not wanting to waste time because of her soft-heartedness.

Upon hearing Zayne’s words, Heather could only tell him her location. Either way, he wouldn’t be able to come to her in such a short period of time unless he came by private jet. “Keep in constant touch with me, and don’t trust anyone else,” he said before hanging up the phone.

When the call ended, Heather looked at Leon with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry, but I’m the target of this explosion.”

Leon had heard most of Heather’s conversation with Zayne while she was talking over the phone. He looked at her with heartache, unable to imagine who on earth would plot a murderous scene against her. “In that case, are we going to wait for Zayne here?” he asked in a tender voice. He wished he could take Heather into his arms right now, but he suppressed this urge instead.

“I don’t know that. Let’s wait for the police to arrive first.” Heather shook her head. Zayne wasn’t superman, so the police would probably turn up before him.

“Didn’t Zayne tell us not to trust anyone easily? Can we trust the police later?” Leon asked worriedly. Would it be a mistake if we wait for the cops? he thought to himself.

“I trust the police,” Heather replied assertively out of a sense of justice. “Even if the person who’s trying to have me assassinated bribes the police, I don’t believe that he can bribe the entire police department. We’ll definitely go to the police station later, and I believe that place will be very safe.”

When he saw the look on Heather’s face, Leon decided to believe her judgment, so he gave her a heavy nod. “We must be together all the time later, Heather. If anything happens, we can look after each other.” He demonstrated unusual courage in the face of such a thing. Since he had experienced this before, he could think calmly and comfort her at the same time.

“Okay.” They still had a long night ahead of them, and no one knew what else would happen later.

Perhaps because she had experienced an explosion before, Heather seemed quite indifferent this time. Still, the previous explosion happened a distance away from her, whereas this time’s explosion almost killed her. As she narrowly escaped the jaws of death, she suddenly felt lucky to be still alive. How wonderful this feeling was! Suddenly, she came around to some ideas that she had been unable to come around to. For instance, Matthias popped up in her mind right at that moment. She still couldn’t get over him, and she wanted to share her thoughts with someone at this moment. “Are you willing to help me, Leon?” she asked quietly like a ghost.

“Yes, I am,” Leon replied without hesitation. He would try his best to satisfy or help Heather as long as he was needed. Sometimes, she was like a member of his family. Apart from love, they had established a kind of familial affection between them that went beyond blood relationships.

“I want to have the aid of your family’s influence, so we must get engaged.” Heather had to take advantage of Leon’s family this time since she knew that his family had extraordinary international influence.

“You have my word,” he responded without the slightest hesitation.

“But the one I love is Matthias, so we will break off our engagement when the crisis is over.” Heather was particularly frank this time, but she knew that Leon would definitely agree to her request as long as she made one. Even though doing so would be unfair to him, she really couldn’t make do with the situation. Now that the one she loved had shown up, she couldn’t marry someone she didn’t love.

Leon’s face turned very ghastly. He couldn’t stop himself from feeling desolate as Heather’s words could be interpreted to mean that she wanted to exploit him. He looked at her as she looked at him, and they glanced straight into each other’s eyes.