Meanwhile, her useless brother was indolently lying on the couch, sound asleep. His clothes were still in perfect order. Not even his hair was the slightest bit ruffled up!
There was no need to guess. There was definitely nothing "interesting" going on last night at all!
Clara sighed. These two had been dragging it out for close to ten years now, yet they were still stuck in this ambiguous "friend zone" after all this time. She was almost irked to death thinking about it!
"Ahem!" Clara dragged her feet into the room and yanked the curtain open, flooding the room with bright sunlight. "Wake up, both of you! Time to get up!"
Liam woke up with a grimace and promptly got up to his feet and grabbed his sister from the back by the collar of her shirt.
"You little sh*thead!" he hissed. 'So you finally opened the door, huh?'
"You're getting too bold for your own good if you have the audacity to play this kind of stupid prank! If you didn't think that I'd teach you a sore lesson today, then you're about to get a big reality check on how frightening your brother can be!"
'Ah!" Clara screamed and struggled in resistance, but against her brother, she was nothing but a helpless little bird, and had no chance of escaping his grip. 'Let me go, you idiot! I only did it to help you guys! What a shame! All my good intentions and painstaking efforts were totally wasted on you!'
"He's going to kill me!" Clara continued to make a loud commotion, now turning to Joanna for support. "You've got to help me, Joanna! My brother's gone crazy! He's really going to kill me!"
Despite the huge commotion between Liam and Clara, Joanna surprisingly still lay quietly in bed in the same position the whole time, just as if she had been replaced by a mannequin.
"That's strange," Clara noticed after fighting with her brother for a while.' Why do I feel like there's something wrong with Joanna?"
"Didn't I tell you to comfort her last night?" she asked her brother. "How did she end up this way? Did someone hurt her?"
"Do you think anyone could hurt someone like Joanna?" replied Liam, putting his hands in his pockets. He looked at Joanna, whose back was turned towards them, and softly added, "If I'm not mistaken, I think she's just in a self-healing mode."
"Self-healing mode?" Clara asked, puzzled. But judging by how calm her brother seemed, perhaps Joanna was in no big trouble after all?
Liam slowly added, "When a person gets hit by a huge psychological blow and becomes seriously traumatized, they'll get into a self-healing mode like some animals do. Some would bawl their eyes out, some would make a huge commotion, some would overeat or turn to alcohol to help them cope, and some would even turn to sex and become promiscuous. My guess is that our boss here probably chose to sleep in order to heal her trauma."
"No way," argued Clara. "The Joanna that I know has full confidence in Adie's ability to survive. She can't be so worried about her son that she became traumatized, can she?"
"Who told you it has anything to do with Adie?" replied Liam. He heaved a long sigh. He had no desire to keep the truth of the matter a secret anymore, so he explained, "Ace Moran is dead. In fact, he died trying to save Joanna. The doctors couldn't save his life. Perhaps Joanna just can't accept the reality of his death at the moment, so she…"
"What did you say?!" Clara's eyeballs almost fell out of their sockets. "Ace Moran is dead?! This is earth-shattering news! Never mind her, I don't even think I can believe that's true! I've heard of rumors about his death, but no one actually believed it! This is Ace Moran we're talking about after all! How could the City's most powerful man just die so easily like that…?'
'It's not just a rumor," said Liam, "because I saw his corpse on a stretcher wheeled out of the operation room with my own eyes. His body was lying stiff under a white cloth."
Liam was filled with conflicted emotions. To him, Ace Moran had always been an opponent both in business and in love. He had been anticipating the day Ace was finally eliminated, yet now that he had actually died, he felt inexplicably lost.
The man that he had always aimed to surpass was now gone forever before he had the chance to actually surpass him. Because of that, Ace Moran had become a forever insurmountable godlike figure. How could he not feel disheartened by it then?
The whole room was now filled with a dull and somber air.
Just then, Joanna's phone on the nightstand suddenly rang..
Liam and Clara exchanged looks. They thought that Joanna was still sleeping soundly, so they decided to take the call for her. But before they could reach for her phone, Joanna suddenly got up without a noise and calmly answered the phone.
"Hello, Officer. Yes, I'm Joanna Pierce. Aiden Pierce is my son. Is there any news of his whereabouts?"
The conversation went on for a little longer, then she finally nodded and said, "Okay. I'll be there right away."
Joanna's lovely face was calm and serene. There was not a trace of perturbations at all and she showed no emotion throughout the whole phone call. Instead, it was the twins who were excited and agitated to no end by the latest development.
"Was that the police, Joanna?" Clara asked with gleaming eyes. "Have they finally found Adie?"
"The officer only told me that they've caught the person who kidnapped Adie," Joanna answered calmly. "As for the rest of the details, well have to go there to find out."
After speaking, she then nonchalantly stretched her body and walked into her closet like nothing extraordinary happened and began to choose the clothes she was going to change into.
Her reactions were simply too calm and cool-headed that it made Clara and Liam even more worried.
Liam studied Joanna with a severe expression and cautiously asked her," Are you okay, Boss?"
Joanna's slender fingers were leafing through her numerous beautiful dresses, but she suddenly paused when she heard Liam's question.
"Don't worry," she shrugged and smiled. "I'm not as fragile as both of you think I am. I'm not turning to sleep to cope and I'm not in any kind of self- healing mode. I'm just exhausted and I needed some rest, plain and simple. Now that I'm well-rested, I feel as good as new."
But this did not convince Clara at all. Still concerned, she walked up to Joanna and put her arms around her shoulder. She was choked up and her eyes were reddening when she told Joanna, "I know this must be hard for you, Joanna. There's no denying that Ace Moran was a douchebag, but he was still the man you used to love with all your heart. I know for a fact that you can't be completely indifferent after he died trying to save you. You need to vent your emotions, Joanna. You can cry, you can scream, you can even eat or drink if you like. Just let it all out. Don't keep it all pent up inside, otherwise it's going to explode one day and hurt you!"
"I won't deny that I do feel sad, but I'm really not that sad at all. I just feel a little lost, that's all."
Joanna let out a long sigh and turned her head towards Clara, assuring her," Don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing. It doesn't matter whether that man is dead or alive. Well still keep on with our old plan… I believe that soon enough, the Pierce family and the Blackwood family will replace the Moran family in becoming the most powerful families out of the eight great families of the City!"
Clara wanted to say something more, but Liam gave her a look to stop her.
At the moment, anything they said would only fall on deaf ears. Ultimately, Joanna just had to realize it herself.
After a little rest, the three of them then drove to the police station as fast as they could. As the parent of the missing child, Joanna was called into the interrogation room alone by the officer handling the case after having filled out some forms. Clara and Liam, on the other hand, were asked to stay outside in the waiting room.
The officer handling the case was a man in his early thirties. After opening the door to the interrogation room, he pointed at a chair where Joanna was expected to sit before taking a seat across from her and then beginning the questioning.
"Good morning, Ms. Pierce. Last night we received a call from your son, Aiden Pierce. He informed us that he was a victim of child trafficking and even provided the exact time the crime took place, the name and address of the trafficker, and the evidence of the trafficking taking place. We would like to know, has your son really gone missing?"
"Yes," Joanna nodded, "my son has indeed gone missing. My friends and family have been looking for him everywhere, and because he had gone missing a few times before in the past, we decided it wasn't yet time to report it to the police.