"Do you know whose child he is? You dare to bring him here!" Reprimand came from a room in a dark alley in City Y.
The dim yellow light bulb was hung on the celling. The room was not big. There was a square table with four benches under it and two chairs leaning against the wall. A child, four or five years old, was lying aside. His eyes were covered with cloth, and his mouth was covered with adhesive tape.
There were four men and a woman standing in the room. The woman was dressed in a white down coat. She looked a little like Emma from back. However, when she turned around, she wore a heavy makeup. She was smoking. While hearing this, she sneered.
"His mother killed the three persons of us! Even my brother!" She spat out the smoke, picked up the child by the wall, and removed the cloth from his eyes. She glared at him and said, "Did you hear what I said? Your mother, that crazy woman, killed my brother!"
"Are you crazy? Do you want to get us killed?" said the man who shouted at the very beginning. "Your brother is already dead. You can't save him even if you bring the kid here!"
"I can't save him, but I want this kid to be buried with him." She smiled like a mad woman.
Stony looked at these people standing in front of him with his beautiful big eyes. Apart from fear, there was also vigilance in his eyes. He did not cry like a child of the same age when he encountered this. He only pursed his lips and stared at the woman in front of him.
"Emma has returned to the Albertons. We can't go against the Albertons, but we can do one thing...."
Emma?
It was mom.
Stony hesitated and walked a few steps. The woman did not speak anymore. Instantly, he was stuffed into a car.
He was cheated.
The last thing he was thinking about was whether he would die here and never see his mother again.
"Cover his eyes! You're crazy! He sees our faces!" Someone shouted.
Someone hurriedly covered Stony's face with cloth. The woman in the front laughed. "He has seen us. So what? He's going to die anyway."
"I'm telling you. Merinda already told us not to cause her any trouble! It was you who insisted on provoking them that your brother was killed!"
"If you're afraid of death, then leave! I'll take responsibility for what happens! You don't need to care about it."
"You take responsibility of it? All of us will be in trouble if anything happens! Can you face the consequences?"
"I'm just kidnapping a child. How can all of us be in trouble?" The woman shouted.
"Do you know who he is? You dare to bring him here." The man lowered his voice and roared. "He's an Alberton! Do you know who Deon Alberton is? He's a big shot of the city! If he knew that we had kidnapped this child, all of us would be...." He didn't say the rest, but what he was trying to express was clear.
As long as Deon found out, their lives would be over.
"I know he's from the Alberton family." The woman said in a very disdainful tone, "He's already here. What do you want me to do?"
"Send him back."
"Send him back?" Before the woman could retort, the other three men said, "He saw our faces. How can we send him back?"
"Then what are you planning to do? Do you want to kill him?" The man roared again.
The other three men fell silent.
The woman said, "It was me who kidnapped him. It has nothing to do with you. You guys hurry up and leave if you want. Merinda won't blame you if anything happens."
"You're crazy, so is your brother. You know that woman is not easy to deal with, but you have to offend her!" After saying this, the man who just roared gasped on the wall. "Alright. Send the child back. Then I'll forget any of these ever happened. I won't say anything to Merinda. It's good if nothing happens. If anything happens, all of us shall die."
The woman smiled. "Don't scare me. Since the Albertons took Emma away and this child was left, it proves that he may be an illegitimate child. The Albertons won't admit him as one of them."
"Since you don't want to listen to me, I won't waste time talking nonsense. You handle it yourself." The man opened the door and walked out.
The remaining three men looked at each other and then looked at the woman in the middle. "I think his words make sense. What if Merinda finds out...."
"Merinda won't find out unless you tell her about this. If I know that you tell her about this, I will kill you." This woman sounded ruthless.
The three men couldn't help but shiver when hearing that.
After a moment of silence, someone asked, "What should we do next?"
The woman lit another cigarette and said, "Send him to you-know-where tomorrow and see if anyone wants to buy him. We can sell him or just...." She rubbed her neck, which meant she would kill the child.
The other three looked at each other and asked, "Do we have to do this?"
"What? Are you afraid?" The woman looked at them and showed a mocking smile.
They hesitated for a moment, and didn't tell the truth. They just shook their heads.
Anyway, she was the one who took the consequences when something happened. They were just accomplices, not the main culprits.
After smoking for a while, the woman lit three incenses in the cauldron standing on the big table. In front of the cauldron was a photo of her so-called younger brother.
The other three men looked at each other and didn't say anything.
As for their relationship, they could all be considered as the woman's younger brothers, because they all had slept with her.
She got along well with Merinda and was considered as the second in command. There were so many men who wanted to get a higher position. Those who could be liked by her could get a higher position more easily. They could go you-know-where and do some stress-free tasks.
The three men rushed back when they heard that something had happened. However, they did not expect that the woman wanted them to kidnap a child. And they had to do it on the main road in broad daylight.
Among the three of them, one came from the bottom and was once engaged in kidnapping and selling children. However, the difference between kidnapping and selling was quite big. For selling, he still needed to inveigle the children and treated them gently. However, for kidnapping, he just took the children away roughly. Moreover, the chances of the children surviving were often very slim.
They weren't scared. They were just worried that they would lose their stress-free jobs in you-know-where if Merinda knew about this.
After the woman lit the incenses, she went to rest in the inner room. The other three were hungry after sitting there for a while. So, one of them offered to go out to buy some food, leaving one at the door and one in the room.
The Stony remained silent all the time. The three men walked up to him a few times and checked if the tape on his mouth had sealed his nose.
"It was a little strange." A crack appeared on the door and a man said, "I didn't hear the siren this afternoon."
"Yes. Logically speaking, they should have called the police tonight. Could it be that the woman was right?" He turned to look at the quiet child in the corner. "Is this child really illegitimate? The Albertons don't admit him?"
The man at the door shook his head. "I don't think so. I don't know why, but I feel that something is not right." He loosened his collar and said, "Forget about it. Everything will be over after we send him there. We just hold out till tomorrow."
"Yes."
The whole room fell silent again.
Stony could not see anything and just leaned against the wall. Hearing the breathing of the person beside him, he knew there was someone at the door and someone beside him. He could not escape.
There was nothing he could do to save himself, and there was nothing he could leave as a mark. He also did not know where he would be taken to tomorrow.
He could not see anything. The panic surrounded him, and what these men had said repeated in his mind.
An illegitimate child?
What did they mean?
Were they referring him?
Stony leaned against the wall, cold and hungry. He couldn't help but cry. But soon, he sniffed and told himself that he couldn't cry. His mother had said that a real man would rather shed blood than cry.