By the ti Anna stepped out of the bathroom—hair damp, fresh clothes on, face soft from the warm water—Daniel was still on the bed, sulking like a wronged toddler.
Apparently, refusing him his "daily dose" had triggered an entirely new level of silent protest.
He lay dramatically on his side, arms crossed, lower lip jutting out, eyes narrowed at nothing in particular—just pure, theatrical suffering.
Anna sighed.
"Do whatever you want, Daniel. I’m not giving in to your stubbornness."
She walked around the bed and sat beside him, reaching out to check his forehead. Still warm. Still recovering. And still acting like a spoiled prince denied his kingdom.
"I would’ve been quick, wifey," he whined, voice muffled because his cheek was squished on the pillow. "You know I don’t take long."
Anna scoffed so hard she almost choked.
Quick? Please.
She bit down the rest of her thoughts because saying them aloud would only fuel his ego further. Quick was NEVER the reality.
Just the mory of last ti made her legs ache.
"Still, I’d rather spare that for so other day," she said pointedly.
Daniel blinked up at her indignantly, as if she’d just rejected a royal decree.
Anna ignored him completely.
"So now be a good boy and have dinner," she coaxed, using the exact tone soone would use with a stubborn five-year-old refusing vegetables. "You’re sick. Don’t make force feed you."
She turned toward the table and picked up the food tray, setting it right in front of them on the bed.
Daniel sat up slowly, glaring at the bowl like it had personally offended him in a past life.
The mont he saw what it was, his face twisted in disgust.
"This is nasty," he declared. "I’m not drinking that."
Anna almost rolled her eyes into another dinsion.
Porridge soup. The universal sick-person al.
Mild, harmless, perfectly fine. But to Daniel, who skipped als regularly and treated basic healthy foods like they were poison, this bowl might as well have been a cursed potion.
She tapped the spoon against the rim gently.
"It’s good for you," she said flatly.
"It looks like punishnt."
"It is punishnt," she muttered under her breath.
Daniel frowned, clearly hearing it.
"Wifey!"
Anna gave him a stare and he instantly shut up.
With exaggerated misery, he looked between her stern expression and the bowl of porridge. And then he sighed dramatically, shoulders slumping as if he were accepting his tragic fate.
"Fine," he mumbled. "But only because you’re feeding ." Anna froze.
Daniel smirked. "Open your heart, wifey. Feed your poor dying husband."
She pinched the bridge of her nose. This man. This fever. This level of shalessness.
But she picked up the spoon anyway. Because at the end of the day—he was her poor dying husband.
***
Dinner went far more peacefully than Anna expected — mostly because Daniel behaved himself the entire ti.
Or rather... he behaved because she was feeding him.
He ate every spoonful without a fuss, even accepted the dicines the doctor prescribed with surprising obedience. Not a complaint. Not a dramatic argunt.
Just... quiet cooperation.
By the ti she slipped under the covers beside him, Daniel imdiately pulled her into his arms, holding her close, pressing a gentle kiss on top of her head.
For soone who had been running a fever hours ago, he looked suspiciously energetic.
Daniel might have been advised to rest, but with the way he held her—warm, snug, almost too alive—she doubted rest was anywhere in his plans.
"So," Daniel murmured after a mont, voice soft but serious, "can you tell what exactly happened?"
This ti Anna didn’t hesitate.
She told him everything.
Everything Mariam had confessed. Everything they had learned at the police station. The man Kira had been involved with. The timing of her disappearance. The evidence and the fear that Kira was in trouble — or worse.
Anna had assud Daniel wouldn’t care about Kira enough to be involved. After all, she had considered letting him rest instead of burdening him with more worries.
But now that things pointed back to Kira, now that Mariam was falling apart... she couldn’t hide it from him anymore.
Daniel listened silently, brows drawn, jaw tense.
"How is Mariam?" he asked when she finished.
"Not as well as she pretends," Anna answered truthfully.
After leaving the police station, Anna refused to let Mariam go back to her old house. She insisted the old woman stay at the Clafford Mansion for safety. With threats still lurking in the shadows, Anna couldn’t risk Mariam being alone.
But when Anna returned ho and didn’t imdiately see her, she assud Mariam had gone straight to her own quarters to rest.
Daniel didn’t reply.
He just stared at the ceiling, his silence thick with unspoken calculations.
The Bennetts being targeted out of nowhere was alarming on its own... but now that he thought about it — really thought — Daniel realized sothing chilling.
The Bennetts had made many enemies over the years. Not just him, but soone else, soone older with a grudge deep enough to wait this long.
"But why would Kira do that?" Daniel finally asked, looking down to et Anna’s eyes — eyes that held nothing but firmness and truth.
"She wouldn’t," Anna said quietly. "Not like this. Not all of it."
Daniel searched her face carefully.
And for the first ti, he saw it — Anna didn’t believe Kira was the real culprit.
And sothing deep inside him agreed.
His fingers tightened on her waist. "Then who," he murmured, voice low, "is really behind this?"
The room fell into a heavy silence.
"Soone my family must’ve offended," Anna said under her breath.
Her words hung in the air like a storm cloud.
Her gaze drifted away from him as her mind replayed the look on her mother’s face earlier... the fear... the refusal to speak... the secrets she took pride in burying.
Anna had always known Roseline Bennett kept her enemies close and her truths closer. If she was refusing to talk even now, then whoever was behind this wasn’t just a passing threat.
It was personal. Very personal.
anwhile, Daniel’s thoughts drifted sowhere darker. Straight to the na Henry had uttered days ago.
Collin Fort.
Daniel’s jaw tightened, fingers curling slowly into the blanket.
He wanted—truly wanted—to convince himself Collin had nothing to do with this ss. That the man had disappeared after prison. That he wasn’t insane enough to risk coming after the Bennetts again. But he couldn’t.
Sothing didn’t sit well with him. The more he replayed the pieces in his mind, the more the uneasiness dug deeper.
That was when Daniel made up his mind.
I need to find out what actually happened between Collin and the Bennetts... and what drove them to file a criminal case against him.
Because whatever that truth was— it was the key to everything unfolding now.
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