Chapter 058 “Honey, Time to Sleep"

After dinner, Adelina finally had some time to look through Abbey's information.

Abbey, 21 years old, hailed from Melinda. She had grown up in an orphanage and met her now-Husband Orlando after graduating from community college. The pair had married after three months of passionate dating and moved to Harano City to work.

Orlando, also an orphanage alum but from Nova, was 28 years old. He had attended university in Harano City, majoring in Tourism Management. Upon graduation, he stayed to work in the city. He met Abbey on a business trip to Melinda and convinced her to move to Harano City with him.

After their wedding, Orlando left his original company and joined a new travel agency as a project manager. However, due to their honeymoon trip, he hadn't yet reported for duty at the new company.

As for Abbey, she hadn't started looking for a new job since arriving in Harano City and was currently unemployed.

The couple shared a Chevy worth about one hundred thousand dollars and planned to buy a house next year. Currently, they rented an apartment in an old downtown neighborhood, which only had staircases, no elevator. Their biggest plan for the year was to have a child.

Upon reading this, Adelina was highly unsettled.

Knowing Langston's serious nature, she couldn't help but wonder if he actually planned to follow through with their cover to the extent of trying for a child.

"Did you get all that?" Langston asked, looking up from his silence.

Adelina nodded. "Got it."

With that, Langston pulled out a lighter from his pocket, ignited it, and burned their written profiles completely.

"But..." Adelina couldn't suppress the doubt in her heart. "What if you really were to die? What happens to the Harano City bid then?"

Langston lit up with a smile. "Don't worry, everything is under control."

This man always had the look of someone confident, holding all the aces, and Adelina knew that her worries were superfluous.

"What about Parr? Can I go see him?"

As she was about to stand up from the couch, Langston pushed her back down with force, pinning her to the cushions.

"Who did you just say you wanted to see?" The man leaned over her, pressing down with his weight.

Adelina hardly dared breathe, carefully answering, "To see Parr... no, I mean, Van..."

She had just remembered that Parr, their associate, had changed his name to Van.

Langston chuckled. "Remember, in our world now, there are no longer any people named Langston, Adelina, or Parr. Even when we text in the future, if we mention anyone or anything related to these three, we have to retract our message within two minutes of sending it. That's the only way our conversation can't be retrieved later with software. We have to forget our old identities to stay safe in the future."

Adelina nodded, but he still didn't seem inclined to let her go. "It's late. Imagine what the neighbors would think if they saw a man's wife going downstairs to meet another man at night."

Adelina took a sharp breath, almost predicting his next words.

Sure enough, Langston paused only briefly before continuing, "So, honey, it's time for bed."

The next second, he scooped her up and headed towards the bedroom.

"Mr. Moore..." she exclaimed in surprise, but he silenced her with a kiss.

He kissed her deeply, his hands exploring under her clothes, stirring her completely.

After a moment, he lifted his head slightly and asked softly, "What did you call me?"

Adelina gasped for air, trying to push him away without success. "Orlando..." she whispered weakly.

He nipped at her again. "Not that!"

She was struggling, so he moved his hand suggestively lower, clearly frightening her, and she quickly corrected herself. "Honey!"

Langston finally stopped moving, the corners of his mouth curling into a faint smile, "Say it again?"

Her heartbeat quickened as she called out trembling, "Honey..."

"Hmm." Langston seemed satisfied and bent down to kiss her lips again.

However, this time, it was gentler than ever.

Adelina could feel the heat radiating from his body, his breathing deepening, his presence more intense.

She wasn't sure if what they were doing was right, but if they weren't Adelina and Langston anymore, and instead just an ordinary married couple, it was also a happy outcome.

This was the life she longed for.

Their kiss lasted for about twenty minutes until everything seemed to spiral out of control—at that moment, Langston suddenly got up and walked to the bathroom.

Adelina was finally free, but her heart continued to beat uncontrollably, as if it might leap out of her chest at any moment.

Forty minutes later, Langston emerged to find Adelina had already curled up on the bed and fallen asleep.

He leaned over, kissed her cheek gently, and then walked out of the bedroom.

In the living room, he picked up Orlando's cell phone and called Vanessa, "Find a way to expedite Adelina's death certificate, then notify Uncle Miller at the Frog's Leap Store to inform him that his son is now a widower!"

"Understood."

He went on to give some more instructions, making sure nothing was overlooked, before hanging up.

Inside the room, Adelina hadn't actually fallen asleep.

She kept pondering her current relationship with Langston, uncertain if within the next month they might truly cross the last barrier.

She was torn.

When Langston returned to the bed, it was unclear how much time had passed.

This time he didn't kiss her; instead, he gently wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her into his embrace.

When she woke again, daylight had already flooded the room, and Langston was gone, but he had left a table full of breakfast for her.

Adelina cleaned up and sat quietly at the dining table to eat.

Then, as if remembering something, she took out Abbey's phone and tried to log into her own WhatsApp account.

After entering her password, a prompt appeared on the screen, asking for a verification code sent to her original phone in order to log in.

She felt disappointed. She had forgotten this step.

She had now completely lost her identity as Adelina.

Meanwhile, at Mount El, the police had assembled over three hundred people and had been searching the mountain since the previous afternoon.

Divers even plunged into the deep waters of the pond, but in the end, they only retrieved a watch and a cell phone.

"It's Mr. Moore's watch; the phone belonged to Miss Howard," Vanessa said solemnly.

Waite insisted on diving in to look for them himself, only to be stopped by Alan. "Young Master Watson, this pond is very deep. You can't just dive in; the divers go down with oxygen tanks!"

After a fruitless two-day search for Adelina, Waite looked utterly exhausted, yet he refused to abandon hope. "I have a diver's certification. I can dive to the bottom without a tank. Maybe they missed something?"

Vanessa also tried to stop him. "Mr. Watson, I completely understand how you feel. I've worked with Mr. Moore for years and can't accept the disappearance of Mr. Moore and Miss Howard. But the police said that there are silt deposits down there. Once a person sinks in, survival is nearly impossible. Even recovering a body will be... undoable. So please, Mr. Watson, try to stay calm, and let's head back and figure out what to do next."

"Calm? How can you ask me to be calm?" Waite, nearly crazed, grabbed Vanessa by her collar. "Adelina is so young! She was just an intern! She could've stayed out of this, but Mr. Moore had to drag her into it! Mr. Moore has ulterior motives, don't think I can't see that, you..."

But before he could finish, Ward's powerful hand came chopping down, and Waite was knocked out.