As soon as the four children said goodbye to the teachers, the vehicle slowly drove away from the school gate.
On their way home, Matthew remembered what the teacher said about Damian and looked at the boy who was having fun with Erica. "Among the songs the teacher played, which one do you like best?" he asked.
Damian tilted his head to the right and replied, "I like all of them."
"Would you like to learn how to play the piano?" 'Yesterday he said that he wanted to be a famous star like Debbie and Chantel. Does he actually want to be a pianist but still doesn't realize it?' Matthew wondered.
Damian blinked for an instant before asking for his father's permission. "Dad, is that okay?"
Matthew looked at his son with a smile that reached his eyes and said, "Yes, as long as you want it."
"Thank you, Dad!" The little boy's eyes lit up. He resembled Erica a lot when caught by surprise.
In fact, the boys looked more like their mother than their father.
After dinner, Matthew took Boswell to the company with him. There, Matthew started to show his son how to do the work.
In order to prove how serious he was about what he had said, Boswell paid full attention as he learned from his father.
Whenever he couldn't understand about something, Matthew would patiently explain it to him until he got it.
Meanwhile, many of the company's employees grew fond of the boy and began to address him as Mr. Huo the Third since he was Carlos Huo's grandson.
Later in the evening, Erica was with her children at home when she unexpectedly received a call from Matthew. "I got an emergency in the company, and I can't go home now. Could you bring me two documents I have in my safe in the study as soon as possible?"
"Sure!" Noticing the unusual urgency in Matthew's tone, Erica quickly got off the bed and told the maid to keep an eye on the three children playing in her room. Then she ran to the study.
They were still on the phone as Erica followed Matthew's instructions to open the safe.
If Matthew hadn't told her, Erica would never have known that there was a safe in that room. Putting her phone on the table, she said, "I'm done with the first lock, now what?"
"Turn right once and then turn left three times."
Crack! Erica heaved a sigh of relief and told the man on the other end of the line, "It's unlocked."
"Take out all the files on the top layer," Matthew instructed her.
The moment Erica squatted down to get the documents, several items at the bottom of the safe inadvertently caught her eye. All of a sudden, the phone went silent.
Matthew waited a long time, but Erica didn't say anything else. So he called, "Rika?"
There was no response from the other end of the line.
Matthew raised his voice. "Rika!"
He called her three times in a row before he finally got a response from her. Yet it didn't get past him how faint her voice sounded. "I'm listening."
"What's wrong?"
With reddened eyes, Erica held a stack of files in her hands and shook her head. "Nothing. What do I do next?"
"Find an envelope with the number 19 and bring it to me in person. Ask the servant to look after the children until you're back. Don't let anyone else touch this file."
A single tear rolled down Erica's cheek as she nodded. "Okay."
"Now, I'll tell you how to lock the safe," Matthew continued.
Before closing the safe, Erica took out several other things from it without Matthew's knowledge. She then temporarily placed them on the table as she followed his instructions.
After they hung up, Erica left the maid to take care of the kids and took a car from the garage so she could drive to ZL Group.
With her hands on the steering wheel, Erica couldn't shake the memory of what she had seen in the safe as tears kept falling down her face.
It turned out that Matthew had pretended too well.
About three minutes after she left home, she got past a parked car on the street. The mysterious vehicle immediately turned on its engines and started to follow her.
Erica had too much going on in her head that she didn't notice anything at first. She just kept driving fast towards the company.
However, once she stopped at the traffic light, she looked through the rearview mirror and saw a black car with no license plate right behind her. At that moment, she realized that perhaps she was being followed the whole time.
Wiping her tears, she glanced at the portfolio in the passenger seat and became vigilant in the face of the possibility.
The moment the light turned green, she stepped on the gas and drove off.
As expected, the other car sped up to keep track of her. Although Erica should have continued to drive straight ahead, she suddenly turned to the right, changing her entire course.
Whoever was behind the steering wheel of the other car seemed to have figured out that Erica had realized she was being followed. Therefore, the black car picked up speed in order to surpass Erica. Once it finally got past her, it blocked her way in the middle of the road.
Erica stepped forcefully on the brakes and ended up hitting her head against the steering wheel. "Ouch! It hurts!"
When she raised her head, she noticed two fierce men as they got out of the other car. One was holding a dagger while the other had an axe.
Quickly, she put the car in reverse to get out of there.
However, the men seemed to have guessed her intention as they rushed to her car and blocked her way.
'Oh, this can't be good!' Erica thought to herself, already reaching out for her phone to try to call Matthew.
Nevertheless, the people outside didn't give her a chance. The man holding the axe smashed the window open within seconds.
The moment Erica had seen the axe coming down her way without mercy, she dodged it quickly. Yet the cellphone she had managed to unlock, had slipped down under the passenger seat, making it impossible for her to reach out for it.
Now that her phone was not a possibility anymore, she had to focus on dealing with the man with the axe on her own.
At that precise moment, her phone started to ring. She glanced at the caller ID, and it was Matthew.
Anyway, she couldn't answer it now. Looking straight ahead, Erica sped up. She dragged the man holding himself at the window with her until she crashed into the car ahead.
The impact caused the man to be thrust away as the black car was totally knocked over.
But she wasn't off the hook yet. Before she could tell it, the other man at the end of the car, jumped onto her roof.
Quickly, he leaned over to the driver's seat window and reached out his hand to grab Erica's hair.
"Ah!" He pulled her hair so tightly that Erica almost cried in pain. Somehow she managed to step on the gas again, this time towards the lawn nearby.
Still, the man wouldn't let go of her hair by any means at all. With no other choice but to stop the car, Erica pulled him down from the roof with her two bare hands.
He fell to the ground but quickly got on his feet and grabbed the door handle.
Erica realized she would have to open the door herself and get ready to fight.
So, she jerked the door wide and fast, causing the man to be thrown back to the ground.
Getting out of the car, she asked him, "Who are you?"
However, he did not answer her question. Instead, he stood up and rushed towards her.
Erica stretched out her leg and kicked him in the stomach. Due to the pain he felt, the man immediately took a few steps back.
Meanwhile, inside the car, her phone kept ringing over and over again. She knew it was Matthew calling. But before she could get to it, she needed to deal with the man in front of her first.
Only at that moment, the other man she had already struck down, ran over to her as well, and despite her initial thought, she would now have to deal with not only one but two men at once.
At ZL Group, Matthew was truly worried about his wife.
He knew something must have happened to Erica after calling her four times without getting an answer.
Still on the phone, Matthew suddenly stood up from his chair and told Boswell, "Stay here. Don't go anywhere before I come back, okay?"
Boswell agreed seriously, "Yes, Dad!"