Chapter 42

The window to Dominic's office was open for some reason and a wind seemed to have blown all his work that he had to do tomorrow around the entire office. He now had a huge mess to clean up and sort out before he could even think of leaving the office. Meanwhile, Scarlett, who was hiding behind the door with a file in hand, quickly slipped out just before Dominic could call her.

"Scarlett. Could you please come help me quickly. Everything's a mess right now."

She made sure to meticulously wait for a few seconds to give the illusion that she was in her office. "What's wrong s- oh."

She immediately kneeled down and started picking up papers. Her acting was so surprising that nothing in her demeanour seemed out of the ordinary at all, she just went along with everything as she usually would.

When all the papers were finally picked up and sorted, Dominic said his farewells and headed off to Lumae. Whereas Scarlett took the file that she quickly hid away behind a flower pot and placed it into her bag before going off. She then headed towards some sort of alleyway not too far from the one Jackson had to go to.

When she entered, the two men at the door didn't even bother to search her, they just let her through to go see the boss. She then slowly approached a steel door. Reaching out to the cold handle, she froze for a second, took a deep breath and entered the room.

She then placed down the file on the table in front of the man with the scar on his face. "There's the information you asked for on the target sir."

The man sighed then leaned forward into his hands. "Come now, there's no need to be so formal with me, daughter."

As Dominic was going home, he kept having this strange feeling that Lumae might be in danger, and he didn't know why. It didn't feel like it was a threat at the moment, but he had the feeling that something bad was coming and he just couldn't shake it.

When he arrived, the first thing he was met with was a loud bang followed by clattering coming from the kitchen. Dominic immediately sprung into action and rushed towards the kitchen, only to find Lumae surrounded with pots and pans spread out all over the floor and the top caninet's rack that gave in.

"Lumae! Are you alright?" He rushed through the pots and pans and immediately grabbed her face to inspect if she was fine.

"Yes, yes, I'm alright. Don't worry. The cabinet, on the other hand, isn't alright. I tried getting to the steam pot to make some soup, but I was too short to reach and accidentally leaned on the rack, I'm sorry."

Dominic sighed, "Don't be, you're alright, that's all that matters."

He then gave her a warm embrace, wrapping his arms completely around her arms. She couldn't even lift her own arms to hug him back.

"Rough day?"

He sighed, "Not entirely, but it could've been better."

She kindly smiled at him, "I know you'll figure it out. Well anyways, I have to start cleaning this mess if I want to start the soup. It is starting to get quite chilly outside so I thought it would be a nice warmer."

Dominic smiled at Lumae's thoughtfulness and gave a sweet kiss on the forehead. "That sounds perfect. I'm just going to get dressed into something more comfortable, then I'll come help you."

Lumae nodded as she bent down to start picking up the pots and pans. When Dominic came back down, the steam pot was already on the stove and Lumae was busy chopping up some vegetables.

"Anything I can help with?"

Without even breaking focus on the veggies, Lumae replied. "Yeah, uhm, could you please chop up the chicken for me? That would really help speed up the process."

Dominic nodded, washed his hands and did exactly so as Lumae threw in a bunch of things into the steam pot. Together, they were busy creating a masterpiece of a soup with a smell that could attract people from miles away.

As Dominic and Lumae were playing chef, a few cars pulled up at Lumae's apartment with streams of armed, masked men pouring out from them. They slowly started to surround the area before silently breaking down the doorknob and entering the apartment. They were clearly expecting Lumae to be there, but to their surprise, she wasn't. One of the men then aggressively took off his mask and threw it to the ground.

The man leading the team then came up to the man and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Jackson, I know you might be frustrated right now, but we need you on a level head, you're one of our best fighters so far, so we can't afford to have you succumb to your feelings. If you know where she might be, that could help as well."

Jackson clenched his fists, "She's with HIM."

The man sighed, "Well that just makes things a lot harder for us."

He then turned towards the rest of the group. "Move out, there's not much we'll be able to do here."

Jackson bent down to pick up his mask, when he noticed a picture sitting on a drawer of Lumae, when she was probably around four years old. She was busy building some sort of garden with a bunch of different flowers. It made him smile and calm down for a while.

"He doesn't deserve her," he whispered.

He then took the photo out of the frame, folded it up and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket, then left the apartment. He was clearly frustrated that someone like Dominic, who's clearly into some shady business, managed to get the attention of a woman so innocent and sweet, a woman that would only get hurt by what Dominic did. It angered Jackson to the core.