My Billionaire Husband

Kate was under strange tortures. She was tortured more mentally than physically.

Tristan's palm was dry and slightly hot. This unfamiliar contact made her breathe irregularly. Kate felt his hand move down to below her waist. When it passed by her groin, she shivered all over and had to bite her lips not to cry out.

And gradually, the shame was replaced by horror.

She spread her fingers and saw through the seam. He was holding her left ankle and playing with it like he was playing with her cell phone earlier. Because he was looking down, she could not see his eyes.

But based on her experience of being harassed, she felt that he didn't have the d.e.s.i.r.e in his eyes.

This discovery gave her goose flesh.

She felt as if she was lying on a metal table, and Tristan was the surgeon. One of his hands was examining her body, and the other was holding a scalpel. The scalpel could come down at any minute and cut through her ruthlessly.

When Kate woke up, she found herself alone in the bed. If she weren't lying in an absolutely strange place, she would have thought this had all been a weird and horrible dream.

She was sore all over her body, and her limbs felt weak. Last night when her nerves were pulled to the extreme, Tristan had finished his thorough and detailed examination on her body and then got up and switched off the light.

"Sleep." He said.

He meant it literally.

However, her highly tense nerves could not recover, and Kate lay there curled up in a ball. In addition, she was not used to this bed and sheets, it was not until the later part of the night that she fell asleep from exhaustion.

After she recalled what happened last night in the bed, Kate got out of the bed. She checked the place where her cell phone was dropped, but nothing was there. She searched around the room but couldn't find it.

She pushed the door open and tripped on something. She looked down and met a pair of green eyes. A fatty thing-she couldn't tell if it was a cat or a pig. She was surprised. There was such a thing here too?

The fat cat was not afraid of her. It even stuck out its tongue to lick her feet. It was itchy, so Kate dodged it and went to the bathroom to clean up.

When she got out, the cat was squatting at the door and looking up at her. Its eyes stared into hers for a while, and it jumped up, boldly into her arms.

The cat was not disgusting. It was all white, and not a single hair on its body was another color. It reminded her of the snow in her hometown.

Kate bent down to touch its back. It meowed comfortably and rubbed its head in her palm.

She liked small animals, indeed. When she was a child, she once brought a homeless yellow cat home. Her mother said it was dirty and sent it away the next day.

Her mother said they could not afford to feed a cat. They had enough trouble feeding their own family members. Kate wanted to argue that she would eat less and share her portion with the cat, but she gave up because she thought her portion was already deemed an extra burden.

As she was in her meditation, the cat reached out for a yard after taking an inch. It was already lying on Kate's slippers.

The middle-aged woman from last night came to ask Kate to have breakfast. She was surprised to see the cat on her feet. "It looks like it likes you. It ignores everyone except Mr. Fox."

Kate was speechless. Should she feel honored?

***

After breakfast, Kate changed her clothes and wanted to go out. Laura, the middle-aged housekeeper, said awkwardly, "Mr. Fox said you were not well and had to stay home for rest."

Not well? That was his conclusion after last night's examination?

Kate felt a lot of spite toward him. Recalling the details of last night, her face went red and white for a while.

She caught a chance when nobody was looking and snuck to the door, but as soon as she opened it, she saw an expressionless face. It was that of Buzz-cut.

He just cut his hair not long ago, and his scalp was almost visible. His dark face had a further deterrent effect.

Kate's heart sank to the bottom of the ocean. So she was under house arrest?

"Can I make a call?" She asked.

"To whom?"

"The supermarket."

"You don't have to go to work. They have been told."

"Then…"

Before she finished, Buzz-cut's dark face interrupted her coldly. "You cannot call anybody else."

Kate was anxious. "I need to keep in touch with my family."

"Boss said this was punishment."

"You cannot make calls for three days. And if you don't behave yourself, it will be extended." Sam spoke this like a recital. And then he closed the door.

She was shut from the outside world.

Kate stood there blankly and could not accept this as a fact.

Laura said with some sympathy, "There are still a lot of things to do. You can watch TV, read books, and see the sea from the windows upstairs…"

Kate curled her lips and said, "I got it." And she walked upstairs.

The cat followed her heels. Kate was upset and lifted her feet, pretending to kick it. It stepped back a little but soon followed her again, looking pathetic.

Kate felt sorry for the cat. In some ways, it was just like her, imprisoned here. Tristan Fox didn't look like a person fond of little animals. She bent down to carry it but wasn't ready for its weight and almost dropped it.

The cat was scared, and with a meow, it clung to her arms. Kate was amused by it and pushed it closer to her arms and said in a low voice, "Too heavy. You should lose weight."

Jimmy hadn't gotten his hands on any big cases, but he didn't stay idle.

He looked through the missing person cases of the past year but couldn't find a woman named Caroline or any other similar person.

Jimmy checked the files of all female bodies found in that period, the pictures, forensic identification, and related materials, but no one was even close to Kate's description.

That was to say, even if Caroline had been killed, her body had not been found yet.

Jimmy checked the phone company's records and got the number of Caroline's house. He called, and Caroline's father answered it. He was scared to death when he heard the call was from the police. He asked if Caroline did something wrong and said they had not seen Caroline for over a half year, which corroborated what Kate had told Jimmy.

Next, Jimmy went to the place Caroline worked, the recreation center of the hotel Kate had told him about. The chief and staff told him that Caroline resigned a year and a half ago, and nobody had seen her ever since.

It was not easy to find someone whose permanent address was not in the city. For a person with a career like Caroline's, it was even more difficult.

After inquiring and exploring for some time, Jimmy finally found the place where Caroline was known to have lived.

When Jimmy contacted the landlord, he said that Caroline moved away over six months ago. As for which day exactly, it couldn't be known, as she didn't give the landlord any notice. He told Jimmy that their things were tossed all around the house.

"Their?" Jimmy asked, surprised.

"Right. The couple." The landlord said.

But the landlord elaborated, explaining to Jimmy that Caroline had signed the lease contract and that her husband was not present.

Jimmy thought this could be another clue. So his next step was to talk with the neighbors to get some more information.

But the block was filled with some quite dilapidated buildings. Most of the people living here were tenants who rented the houses temporarily and stayed no more than a few months.

There was only one woman, who was fumbling in the garbage bin, who said that she had seen Caroline. When Jimmy asked about Caroline's husband or boyfriend, the woman became confused and sometimes said he was square-faced and sometimes round-faced, sometimes with glasses and sometimes without.

Jimmy was disappointed. Looking at her dazed condition and ragged clothes, he worried she might have mental health issues.