Billionaire Ordered in a Foreign Language to Humiliate the Waitress — Her Reply Left Him Speechless
Chapter 5
The hospital was four hours away.
Adrian drove himself.
Amelia sat beside him.
Neither spoke much.
Rain struck the windshield as the highway disappeared into gray.
Finally, Amelia asked:
“Why didn’t you ever get married?”
Adrian kept his eyes on the road.
“I couldn’t.”
“Because of my mother?”
“Yes.”
“You waited twenty-three years?”
“I didn’t know I was waiting.”
Amelia looked at him.
“You built an empire.”
“I built a wall.”
“What?”
“A wall around everything I couldn’t fix.”
She said nothing.
When they arrived, the hospital had been converted into a smaller private clinic.
The original records were stored in a basement archive.
Thomas had arranged access.
They found the file after nearly an hour.
Eleanor Hayes.
Female.
Age thirty.
Pregnant.
Emergency admission.
Severe injuries from a motor vehicle accident.
Amelia’s hands trembled.
“It’s her.”
Adrian touched the file.
“How do you know?”
“The handwriting.”
Inside was a note from a nurse.
Patient refuses to disclose identity. Repeatedly asks whether anyone has come looking for her.
Another line stopped Adrian cold.
Patient appears afraid of a man named Victor.
He closed his eyes.
His father.
Then they found the discharge record.
Eleanor Hayes had survived.
She had given birth to a baby girl.
Three months later, she disappeared.
No death certificate.
No burial record.
No further hospital history.
Amelia whispered:
“She was alive.”
Adrian nodded.
“But where?”
The answer came from an unexpected place.
An elderly nurse named Margaret.
She remembered Eleanor.
“She had beautiful eyes,” Margaret said.
Adrian leaned forward.
“Do you remember anything else?”
“She talked about a man.”
“Me?”
Margaret shook her head.
“No. Victor.”
Adrian’s blood ran cold.
“She said he would find her.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret thought for a moment.
“Actually…”
She disappeared into a back room.
When she returned, she carried a small envelope.
“This was left for me.”
“For whom?”
“For the child’s father.”
Adrian opened it.
Inside was a note.
Adrian,
If you ever find this, don’t trust your father.
He knows where I am.
He knows about our daughter.
And if he tells you I am dead, believe nothing.
Adrian couldn’t breathe.
The final line was written in hurried handwriting.
The only person who can prove what happened is the man who worked for him.
Below that was a name.
Samuel Carter.
Amelia stared.
“Who is Samuel Carter?”
Adrian knew.
His father’s chief accountant.
A man who had disappeared twenty-two years earlier.
A man everyone believed had fled after stealing millions.
But Adrian suddenly remembered something.
Samuel had once come to his office late at night.
He had looked terrified.
He had said:
“Your father isn’t the man you think he is.”
Adrian had dismissed him.
The next day, Samuel vanished.
Adrian felt sick.
All those years.
All those warnings.
He had ignored them.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man’s voice spoke.
“Stop looking for Claire.”
Adrian’s body stiffened.
“Who is this?”
“You already lost her once.”
Amelia reached for his arm.
The voice continued.
“Don’t make the same mistake with your daughter.”
The call ended.
Adrian stared at the phone.
Amelia whispered:
“How did he know I was here?”
Adrian looked toward the hospital corridor.
Someone had been watching them.
