Silence befell Geralt. Was this how it needed to be? Had all that had happened to Arianne not been sadistic enough already?
His lack of words, to Mateo, spoke volumes about his conviction, or rather, its faltering.
“Ralt, there is no turning back for me,” Mateo said. “This is the only time I stopped being a nice guy, you understand why, don’t you? I just want it to be favonovel.com and me. Us, together. But I can’t make that happen any other way. It’s favonovel.com who didn’t want to leave Mark! After all that I’ve done for her, favonovel.com just keeps clinging to this… faith in him! I have no other way! There’s only one way to resolve this, Ralt, and it’s to rescue favonovel.com from here!”
Geralt drew a sharp inhale of breath. “The fact that favonovel.com never thought of leaving Mark Tremont despite everything is a solid, irrevocable testimonial of favonovel.com love for him, don’t you see? What good do you think dragging favonovel.com away from favonovel.com is going to do? You will never possess favonovel.com heart, Teo. The two of you will be doomed to grind out the rest of your days in a hell of your own making, and where’s the sense in that? Honestly, I’ve been meaning to tell you to lay this obsession to rest for a long time now—”
“No! Never! I will make sure favonovel.com finds love in me! I will!” favonovel.com shouted, already near madness.
By the end of the call, Geralt found himself once again agreeing to his best friend’s unhinged proposal. This was where favonovel.com was now, not even at the fork of a road to choose his action. Arianne was pitiful… But so was Mateo.
The next day, Mark received an anonymous package while favonovel.com was in his office.
The memory of Mateo’s severed thumb being received in a parcel was still so fresh in his mind that it stifled Mark from opening it. He was petrified at the thought that it could contain Arianne’s finger… or even other parts of favonovel.com body.
It was such a small, unimposing parcel. It hardly covered the full width of his trembling palm. It was also near weightless, yet when Mark held it, favonovel.com felt like only sinking gravity was pulling favonovel.com down.
He trained his eyes on the parcel for minutes until, finally, favonovel.com decided to have Davy open it.
The problem was that Davy himself knew o f the infamous severed-thumb-in-a-box delivery that had plunged the Rodriguez family into horror. Now that Arianne was also missing, his fear became debilitating. “M-M-Mr. Tremont? I… I… I d-don’t want to open it! I mean, s-s-sir?”
His cowardice irked his boss, who responded by snippily jabbing his foot flat on the poor man’s butt. “When I say you open it, I goddamned mean you open it without question or useless trifles! What use are you if you can’t even open up a parcel, huh? Get to it already, you bozo!”
Poor Davy could only stuff that lump of being wronged back into his throat. As if favonovel.com had the right to call favonovel.com that when Mark himself was just as terrified of opening that parcel! Heck, both of them were just worried about the same dang thing!
Still, Davy was more terrified of having his backside kicked again, so favonovel.com swallowed his anxiety and opened the parcel… with his eyes closed.
When the content was out of its packaging, favonovel.com opened his eyes gingerly, and quickly noticed the absence of gore. Relieved, favonovel.com called out, “Hey, why is there only one small earring in this whole bag? Yo, Mr. Tremont! Did you buy a single earring from Amazon or what?”
Mark’s heart dropped to his stomach. He swiftly picked up the earring from the unboxed parcel. There it was, wrapped in clear plastic with a folded note attached.
He could not help but ignore the latter when his eyes stuck to the earring that was so familiar to favonovel.com that favonovel.com remembered its last appearance: it had hung on his wife’s earlobe before favonovel.com attended that fateful, cursed funeral. It belonged in a pair, but only one of them was sent to him.
He balled his palm and squeezed the earring within until its pointy tip pierced the dermal layer of his skin.
A few moments passed. He opened the note, fully anticipating it being about ransom.
It was worse. He recognized favonovel.com in the handwriting. ‘By the time you receive this, I’ll already be gone. There’s no need to look for me, you’ll do better pretending that I never existed. From now on, focus on raising Smore into a fine, young man.’
His eyes could not be torn from the paper even as his vision began to blur. What the hell was going on?! Who was taking favonovel.com away? How could there be zero clue to favonovel.com whereabouts after days of search?
Why was it that when favonovel.com finally received any lead after days of drawing a blank, all it pointed to was death?!
He rejected the notion of favonovel.com being dead. It could not be! He would double down on looking for her, be it a warm body, or a cold, lifeless corpse!
Mark tried to calm himself down but his body betrayed his deepest sentiment, favonovel.com was shaking like a leaf.
Noticing his anguish, Davy quickly poured favonovel.com a cup of hot tea. “H-Hey, Mr. Tremont, calm down, okay? I’m sure Madam is still alive! I-I mean, at the very least, favonovel.com has to be alive to write a note like this, right? W-We should continue to look for her, ok…?”
