Blood And Promises Novel by Sabrina Hart Chapter 15

Blood And Promises Novel by Sabrina Hart Chapter 15

In the following days, Richard mobilized all his connections in Junction City, searching frantically for any trace of Samantha.

He was no longer the composed and calculating Richard he used to be, but a man driven to the edge by panic and the premonition of losing something most important.

He found out about Humberto. Humberto came from a distinguished family, had an illustrious military record, was a young and promising ace pilot, and had just been transferred back to Junction City. His background was impeccably clean and so powerful it was intimidating. More importantly, the Murphy family and Lindsay’s family had been close for generations, and Humberto and Samantha were truly childhood sweethearts.

This realization made Richard’s heart sink even further.

However, no matter how hard he tried, he could not find Samantha’s exact address. Humberto protected her with impenetrable thoroughness, as if guarding the most precious treasure. Richard tried to go to Humberto’s workplace and stake out possible locations related to the Murphy family, but all his efforts were in vain.

That man named Humberto, with his power and devotion, had built a solid barrier around Samantha, completely shutting Richard out.

A sense of defeat wrapped around Richard’s heart like vines, tightening with every passing moment.

He checked into a motel, and soon the room was filled with empty liquor bottles. Even the strong alcohol could not numb his nerves; instead, the memories he had tried so hard to ignore and suppress became even clearer.

With trembling hands, he reached into the innermost pocket of his briefcase and pulled out a small velvet pouch. He poured out a few scattered items: a doodle Samantha had casually drawn on the back of a scrap of paper, a half-used lipstick that had already dried out a bit, and a pair of small, round pearl earrings—her favorite pair. Once, while they were playing around, she lost one, and he had crawled on the floor for ages before finding it. She had laughed at how clumsy he was.

Back then, he had only found it troublesome. Now, looking at these old items still carrying her scent, his chest tightened with pain. He remembered the way her brows furrowed slightly when she drew, the way she habitually pressed her lips together after applying lipstick, and how those pearl earrings gently swayed on her fair earlobes.

Why? Why had he never realized how precious these little things were before?

He grabbed the phone and dialed the number of a childhood friend. When the call connected, he could hear loud music and laughter in the background.

“Hello? Richie? What a rare guest! What made you think of calling me?” his friend slurred, clearly quite drunk.

Richard’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his voice painfully dry: “I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead!”

“If… if your wife ran away, divorced you through a newspaper announcement, and found a childhood sweetheart as her fiancé… you…” He could not continue, feeling as if every word was soaked in blood.

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end, then his friend snorted, his voice tinged with drunken disbelief: “Richard, are you talking about yourself? Samantha really divorced you? Even put it in the paper? Wow! That does sound like something she’d do!”

Richard’s fingers tightened around the receiver, his knuckles turning white.

His friend kept rambling on: “But Richie, let me tell you, what were you doing all this time? Samantha is such a great girl, looks like an angel, and you were blind, treating glass as pearls, always tangled up with that sickly Rebecca…”

“I didn’t! Becca is the one I like!” Richard retorted instinctively, but his voice was weak and powerless.

“Oh, come on!” his friend said mercilessly. “Who doesn’t see it? What you feel for her is responsibility, habit, a sense of debt! But for Samantha? Think about it—every time you came back from a mission, who was the first person you wanted to see? When you saw other men looking at her, who made your blood boil? You like her, you just don’t realize it! And you kept up that stupid act, thinking she should revolve around you! Well, look what happened? You drove her away! Serves you right!”

“Liked her without realizing it…” “Serves you right…”

His friend’s words struck Richard’s already crumbling defenses like heavy hammers, one after another. He abruptly hung up, leaving only the busy tone echoing in the dead silent room, sounding especially harsh.

Like her? Did he like Samantha? No, impossible. He had married her because her blood could save Becca. That was all.

But then why did it feel as if an invisible hand was squeezing his heart so tightly he could barely breathe? Why did the thought of her holding another man’s hand, ignoring him completely, fill him with such panic, such anger, such… despair?

He leaned against the cold wall, slowly slid to the floor, and buried his face in his hands.

At that moment, the military phone he had thrown on the bed suddenly rang, sharp and abrupt. The ringtone echoed through the silent room, carrying a sense of ominous urgency.

Richard seemed to wake up from a trance, stumbling as he lunged for the phone. It was Giovanni.

“Major General Cantrell!” Giovanni’s voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement and fear. “We found it! We found it! The night at the crematorium, besides the staff on duty, there was a homeless man warming himself behind the abandoned boiler room! He saw everything!”

Richard’s heart skipped a beat, his voice stretched taut like a string about to snap: “He… what did he see?”

Giovanni took a deep breath, speaking rapidly and with a tremor: “He said… he said Ms. Macias tied herself up with the rope, and the knot was a slipknot! She also called two people to tie up Mrs. Cantrell! Later… later Mrs. Serrano arrived too! They… they whipped Mrs. Cantrell with rattan canes, for a long time, Mrs. Cantrell was covered in blood… then Rebecca… Rebecca took out salt and sprinkled it on Mrs. Cantrell’s wounds! In the end, they threw Mrs. Cantrell on the wasteland behind and drove away!”

Every word was like molten iron poured into Richard’s auditory nerves, sizzling and bringing devastating pain. Rattan canes? Sprinkling salt? His vision went black, his ears buzzed, and he could barely hold onto the phone.

“The homeless man was afraid of trouble and didn’t dare to speak, but his conscience bothered him, so he used a found old camera… secretly took a few photos.” Giovanni’s voice continued, with a cruel calmness. “The photos… I’ve already faxed them to you. Major General Cantrell, please… take a look.”

“Beep, beep, beep—”

The call was disconnected. Richard froze in place. A few seconds later, eyes bloodshot, he lunged toward the old fax machine in the corner of the room.

The machine was working, making a monotonous buzzing sound, as a blurry black-and-white image slowly emerged from the output slot.