Chapter 341: Raelynn Harper
"I will tell you later," she whispered softly. .
Ryle studied the rigid line of her shoulders. One look at her and he knew she was not ready to delve into the topic.
"Later, then," he murmured.
Daisy exhaled a soft breath and got up from his lap. She began to push the wheelchair back toward the concrete path of the helipad.
The rhythmic click-clack of the wheels was the only sound for a few moments until a sudden, heavy ’thump’ shattered the silence.
Daisy stopped so abruptly the wheelchair jolted.
In front of them, Locke had dropped to both knees with enough force to bruise. His head was bowed, his hands pressed flat against the asphalt.
Ryle’s brow furrowed, "What are you doing? Get up."
"I have deceived you!" Locke’s voice was thick with a guilt that had clearly seemed to have been festering for a long time.
Ryle’s frown deepened, a cold aura settling over him. "Explain yourself."
"The girl... the one we rescued..." Locke choked out, his forehead nearly touching the ground, "She is not your sister. I faked the DNA reports, Boss. She had long recovered her memories but I asked her to pretend to not remember anything. I... I couldn’t watch you fall apart. You were destroying yourself for a lead that was going nowhere. I thought if I made you believe you had found yourself, you... it would be for the best."
The air around Ryle seemed to freeze. His eyes darkened to a stormy grey.
Somewhere deep within his heart, a cynical part of him wasn’t surprised. He had felt it; the lack of connection when he looked at that girl.
But he had made himself believe that she had suffered in the outside world for so long. Naturally, things wouldn’t be normal between them.
"But that is not all," Locke whispered, his voice trembling, "I just discovered... that... the Young Miss may never be found again, Boss. She is probably gone."
At the first half of the confession, Ryle had been angry. But with the words ’never be found again,’ and ’she is probably gone’ he froze. It was as if his very soul had been turned to stone.
The search for Raelynn was the singular thing that had kept him tethered to his humanity for years. Even in death, he wanted to provide his mother the comfort that he had found his sister and she was safe now.
But it looked like he had failed, and not just failed, he had failed miserably.
It was Daisy who regained her composure first. She stepped around the wheelchair, her eyes narrowing as she looked down at the kneeling bodyguard. She noticed something, "You brought this matter up so suddenly. Why? If you’ve been hiding this for months, you could have continued hiding it. Why confess now? And why are you so sure Raelynn can’t be found?"
Her words caught Ryle’s attention.
Locke inhaled a ragged breath, "I just got a call from Lu and... she... she..."
"Aunty Lu?" Daisy’s brows pulled together in a sharp frown.
Aunty Lu had been working for them for a while now and she was one of the very few people who knew the inner workings of the Harper and Chen families.
But if she knew something about Ryle’s sister, then why would she hide it?
Suddenly, a yellow cab pulled up at the edge of the helipad, its tires screeching. The door flew open before the car had even fully stopped.
Aunty Lu stepped her out, disheveled and barely calm.
"Little Master!" Aunty Lu wailed as she saw Ryle. She didn’t even wait to reach them before she stumbled, her knees hitting the ground just a few feet from Locke. She was sobbing hysterically, her face buried in her hands, "I have wronged you..."
Daisy exchanged a bewildered glance with Ryle.
She saw the flash of alarm in his eyes.
Daisy immediately moved to the woman’s side, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder.
"Aunty Lu, stop. You’re going to hurt yourself," Daisy said softly.
She put her arm around the woman and firmly helped her up from the pavement, guiding her toward Ryle’s wheelchair.
Aunty Lu’s frame was frail, shaking with the force of her grief. She looked at Ryle, the boy she had watched once taken care of, now a powerful man and her heart seemed to break all over again.
"Tell us calmly, Aunty," Daisy urged, her eyes flickering back to Ryle, who was now watching the woman with a terrifying intensity, "What happened?"
Aunty Lu wiped her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief, her voice cracking, "Back then, a kidnapping had happened, not long after the Late Madam and Master fought a few times, accusing her of... of infidelity. He even said Young Miss was not his child..."
Most of the people, including Ryle who was a boy back then believed that this matter was escalated by the kidnappers who were the enemies of Kingsleys. That those people had planted such a bizarre doubt in the paranoid Master Kingsley’s mind that the child wasn’t his.
But Aunty Lu who had been, not just a maid, but a friend to the Late Madam knew things that the others obviously didn’t.
’’Those kidnappers... They were no enemies. They were hired by your maternal grandparents. They were afraid that your mother would be discarded by the Kingsleys and their relationship would fall apart.
If such a thing happened your maternal family would fall apart under the influence of Kingsleys, who were one of the most powerful back then. So, they did that...
Before your grandfather passed away, your mother visited and confronted him and it was then that he confessed about it.
Your mother was already unwell by the loss of her daughter but this only accelerated her condition. She stopped eating and always stayed depressed."
Ryle closed his eyes, those words opening old wounds that he had suppressed within him for years.
He could almost feel the warmth of his mother going cold as she took her last breath while he was still tucked in the warmth of her embrace.
He forced himself to open his eyes, the look in them intense, "Where is my sister now?"
