Chapter 287

Melanie opened her eyes slowly, the harsh white ceiling above her swimming in and out of focus. Everything felt too bright, too clinical. Her body was heavy, limbs dull with exhaustion, and her mouth was painfully dry. She blinked several times before her gaze finally settled.
“You scared us to death,” a familiar voice said as her hands were held in bigger ones.
She turned her head with effort, her heart giving a weak flutter when she saw Adam sitting at her side. His brows were drawn tight, his usually steady eyes filled with worry.
She let out a shaky breath, her throat dry and scratchy. “What… happened?” she asked, barely above a whisper. She swallowed hard and tried again, her voice still raspy. “What… happened to me?”
Adam didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be studying her, maybe trying to decide how much to say. Finally, he leaned forward, his thumb gently brushing the back of her hand.
“You don’t remember anything?” he asked carefully.
Melanie shook her head, frowning deeply as she tried to think. Her mind felt sluggish, like wading through thick fog. “I remember… leaving Marianne Thomas’ house. I got into the elevator. I was feeling… strange. Then I—I called you, I think? After that, I don’t know. Nothing.”
Adam’s frown deepened. He glanced at the monitor beside her bed, then back at her. “The doctors said it was a panic attack. A severe one. They couldn’t find anything else. No signs of trauma, no head injury, no neurological issues or anything in the blood… nothing. Just complete physical exhaustion. Like your body shut down.”
Melanie closed her eyes for a moment, trying to make sense of it. “But… I don’t have panic attacks. That’s… just not me.”
“I know. Which is why I’m so confused too.”
She turned to look at him again, her frown returning. “Adam… are you sure there’s nothing else?”
He shook his head. “They’re running more tests. But right now, no one knows what caused it. Just stress, they said.”
Melanie stared at the ceiling again, her mind spinning. Something wasn’t adding up. Why would she have a panic attack out of the blue.
Meanwhile, Adam was at a loss. If he had not reached there in time, Melanie would have been lost…
He took a deep breath and thought back to the scene when he’d raced to follow Melanie’s location on his bike. He’d been across the road when he had seen a black SUV overtake the cab and block its way.
Before he could even shout, they were at her door, trying to drag her out. Melanie hadn’t moved. She’d slumped, barely conscious, and it was the cab driver—thank God for him—who had pushed back. The man had opened his door, jumped out, and shouted for help, fighting the strangers off with all he had while he had raced across the road towards the cab, dodging traffic.
By the time he reached them, the two men had already let go of her and taken off. They’d abandoned the SUV right there, in the middle of the street, and disappeared into the crowd before he could get a good look at their faces.
He had rushed to the cab, pulling the door open, and found her lying there, pale and unmoving, her phone still clutched in her hand. Her last message had still been open on the screen, her location blinking. According to the police, they’d had some powerful tranquilisers in the car, and were probably human traffickers.
But, Melanie’s blood samples showed no signs of any sedatives. So, it was impossible to know whether they had been keeping an eye out on her, waiting for her, or it had been a coincidence that they had spotted her and feeling out of sorts and followed her, hoping to use the situation to their advantage.
But even with all that-the attack, the abandoned SUV, the near abduction-it wasn’t what worried Adam the most.
What haunted him more was what Melanie had been saying in her half-conscious state.
She had been drifting in and out, her eyes barely open, her body limp in the hospital bed. The doctors had been setting up the IV, checking her vitals, speaking in low voices around her, but Adam hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her face. Her lips had moved, quietly at first, almost too softly to hear.
Then, with a broken sort of whisper, she’d said, “Melanie loves Father the most… Papa… I do… I really do…”
Adam had gone still. The nurse beside him had frowned, glancing at her monitor, but he couldn’t focus on anything else.
She’d repeated it again, voice strained and small, like a child muttering in a dream. “Papa… Melanie loves you the most… don’t be angry…”
It had shaken him in a way he didn’t know how to explain.
Because, in all the time he had known her, Melanie had never mentioned her parents. Not once. Even when she had been a little girl, she had never mentioned them. And when once he’d asked her, just once, if she ever missed her family, she’d brushed it off with a change of subject.
So to hear her mutter something so raw, so childlike, about a father he didn’t even know existed in her narrative… it unsettled him. He had come to believe that her parents had probably died too, like his and that was why she never spoke of them.
He looked at her now, still pale but awake, and his brows furrowed deeper.
What had happened at Marianne Thomas’ house? What had she seen-or remembered-that had triggered such an intense collapse? Was this really just a panic attack? Or maybe she had seen something that had caused this?
Or had something inside her cracked open?
“Adam? What are you thinking?” Melanie asked slowly.
But he smiled and held her hand, “I am thinking that I should keep you tied by my side.” He could not ask her all this now. If she didn’t even remember what she had been muttering about, then there was no point to it.
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