Mr. Chairman’s Devious Wife by Brey Mitchylle
Chapter 103

Chapter 103

Discomfort settled heavily over Charlotte as consciousness crept back, slow and reluctant. It wasn’t thesterile antiseptic kind – the kind that stole your breath and told you something was terribly wrong.

This was a deeper, more suffocating kind of unease, a feeling of being utterly out of place.

Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing an unfamiliar room. White walls, yes, but not the stark, institutionalwhite of a hospital. These walls were adorned with swirling floral patterns, the kind that belonged in agrandma’s guest room, not a medical facility. Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at her throat. Where wasshe?

She tried to sit up, but a dull ache throbbed in her lower abdomen, anchoring her to the bed. A wave ofnausea washed over her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing it to pass. When it did, a horrifyingmemory jolted back – the fight, the fall, the searing pain that had ripped through her like a fist.

Unease gnawed at her. The fall. Was that all? It felt like more, a dull ache that pulsed with a strangerhythm. But the memories were hazy, fragmented.

A faint scent of lavender oil wafted through the air, cloying and somehow suffocating. She hatedlavender. It was Daniel’s favorite scent, the kind he used on his aftershave, the kind that lingered ontheir sheets after a night together.

The sound of a door creaking open made her head snap towards the source. A woman stood framed inthe doorway. It was someone she didn’t recognize.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” the woman spoke, her voice gentle. She moved closer, concern etched on herface. Her name tag read ‘Roni,’ the friendly script a stark contrast to the cold, clinical setting Charlottehad expected.

Roni reached over and carefully fluffed the pillows behind Charlotte’s head. “Here, let me help you situp a bit.” Her touch was surprisingly light, devoid of the rough urgency she might have encountered ina hospital.

Charlotte leaned back against the pillows, wincing as the ache in her

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abdomen intensified. Roni held a glass of water to her lips, her

expression softening further. “Slow sips,” she murmured.

The cool water eased the dryness in her throat but did little to quench the thirst that seemed to burnfrom within. As she lowered the glass, Roni lingered beside her.

“I know you’re probably confused,” Roni said, her voice dropping to a hushed tone. “You’re at a privateresidence. Mrs. Lockhart – “Charlotte’s breath hitched. Teresa.” – insisted you needed a quiet place torecover,” Roni continued, oblivious to Charlotte’s silent panic. “She’s very concerned about you.”

A humorless scoff escaped Charlotte’s lips. Concerned? Teresa was the reason she was here,wherever ‘here’ was. The throbbing in her abdomen felt… different. It wasn’t like a regular periodcramp. But what else could it be?

Roni seemed to misinterpret the sound. “How are you feeling?” she asked, her brow furrowing slightly.

Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Her mind was a tangled mess ofconfusion and unease. The fall, the pain, Teresa’s unsettling presence – it all combined into a thick fogthat obscured her head.

Roni squeezed her hand gently. “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “The will be here soon to check on you. Ireally apologize for your loss, M Lockhart.”

“What loss?” Charlotte frowned. Again, memories of what happened filled her head. The fall. Teresapushed her and she saw…. Blood. Blood… The sound of her scream soon started to fill the room.

“Sir, it seems that you are right. Miss Teresa is indeed hiding Charlotte Lockhart. She’s currently in asmall private property near Alaska. According to our sources, she lost the child,” Josef said as hestared at Alexander.

When he heard the news, he immediately recalled the time when Alexander said it was a trap. As forwho? Josef doesn’t know.

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At first, he assumed it was a trap for Charlotte. But… what if it was for Teresa?

Josef prided himself on being smart yet for some unknown reason, he could never figure outAlexander’s schemes.

Alexander nodded without saying a word. Then he lifted his gaze away from the documents that hewas reading. “Where is Daniel now?” he asked.

“Miss Teresa sent him to a facility just outside of Chicago.”

“Facility?”

“A mental institution. It seems that she’s planning to send him abroad as soon as he calms down.”

Alexander sneered. “Then let us go see him.”

–

Sterile white walls, devoid of personality, mocked Daniel with their emptiness. A single, barred windowoffered a sliver of a view a scraggly patch of untended grass and a skeletal tree, its branches clawingat the iron-grey sky.

The only furniture was a metal cot, a rickety chair bolted to the flo a small table scarred with countlessscribbles.

Daniel sat hunched over the table, a sharpened pencil clutched in his hand with a piece of paper. Itwasn’t the fanciest instrument, but it was his weapon of choice in this battle against the suffocatingsilence.

Music, something that he disliked in the past, flowed through him, a desperate attempt to connect withsomething, anything, beyond these four walls.

“Sofia,” he muttered the name a melody on his lips. He scrawled it across the worn paper, the graphiteetching a desperate plea into the sterile surface. The song poured out of him, raw and unrefined. Sofialiked writing songs. Surely, reading what he wrote would at least appease her anger, right?

But is that enough?

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The thought of what Sofia showed him in the hospital immediately made him crumple the paper andthrow it behind him where a bunch of paper

was.

A song wouldn’t be enough, he thought inwardly.

No.

That wouldn’t be enough to make her leave that man.

The creaking sound of the door caught his attention. He immediately looked at the person who walkedinside and smiled. “Nurse Judith… what brings you here?” he asked.

The woman, who was already in her fifties, smiled. “It is time to take your medicine.” She placed a trayin front of Daniel. On it was a bottle of water and some medicine that he needed to take before he atehis lunch.

“Alright…” Daniel nodded. He was not dumb enough to resist them. Daniel believed that the only wayfor him to leave this place as fast as possible was to do whatever it was that they wanted, to pretend.

Pretending wasn’t something new to Daniel. In fact, he had been pretending all his life. To attract hisfather’s attention, Daniel had done everything to compete with Alexander. He pretended to know thatAlexander knew.

He took the medicine without any fuss and finished the bottle

“Thank you…” Judith smiled. “I will go and get your lunch. Pleas a few minutes.”

erything

“Alright,” Daniel nodded. However, the moment Judith left, the smi his face immediately vanished.Since he was younger, he already had various medicines to keep him at bay.

To get away with it, Daniel used to pretend that everything was fine. Then, he would bury himself inwork and other activities to keep busy and get away from the slump that he was in.

It would be the same this time.

After a few minutes, the door once again opened. However, the smile that Daniel prepared vanishedwhen he saw Alexander standing by the door.

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“You- What are you doing here?” Daniel asked, his expression turning ugly.