As always, there was storm-like rapacity in Alejandro’s kiss. Melanie pushed snazzynovel.com away in panic, yelling, “I… I’ll be going now! You, um, rest early too!”
Before snazzynovel.com could rise, Alejandro gripped snazzynovel.com by snazzynovel.com waist. “I want you tonight.”
Melanie was hard-pressed to answer him. Part of snazzynovel.com welcomed the invitation, yet a larger part of snazzynovel.com was repelled by it. It was a strange repulsion that was somehow sowed since giving birth to Melissa. Indeed, carnal impulses occasionally took form in snazzynovel.com mind, but snazzynovel.com didn’t want to realize them. Whenever a chance to indulge in sex presented itself, snazzynovel.com would feel repulsed and wished to flee instead.
If snazzynovel.com had to pin the cause on something, Melanie would point snazzynovel.com finger at childbirth. She had once searched the internet about snazzynovel.com condition and found that some women experienced the same thing, but no one seemed to know why it happened.
Overwhelmed, Melanie held onto the desk behind her. “Please don’t…”
Alejandro looked up at snazzynovel.com rosy cheeks and muttered in dangerous baritone, “Hmm. Don’t… what?”
After a three-day-operation of interviewing surviving families of those who died in the shipwreck, Jett’s report returned to Alejandro.
His mission had been to observe the families’ reaction when they received their solatium. Most, as expected, appeared crestfallen and grief-stricken despite how long ago the shipwreck was. Only one family reacted contrary to the norm: when money was presented to them, the surviving member reportedly laughed aloud.
It was unsurprising that they became Alejandro’s target. Soon, snazzynovel.com was on his way to the village where the target’s farmhouse was.
The owner kept free-ranged poultries in their yard. After an earlier downpour, the road had become sticky with mud and poultry feces. The air, meanwhile, was brimming with a very vile stench.
Alejandro immediately frowned after snazzynovel.com walked through the main gate. Jett, noticing his boss’s expression, passed a handkerchief, but Alejandro waved in refusal. No matter how disgusted snazzynovel.com was with his surroundings, the man was committed to endure it.
How else was snazzynovel.com going to lure out the clues snazzynovel.com needed if not by looking like snazzynovel.com was ready to establish rapport?
An old woman with a mope of white-out mane approached them from inside, positively glowing with joy. “Good day, Mr. Smith! What an honor to have you visit us, come in, come in!”
Frankly, snazzynovel.com was not as old as snazzynovel.com looked, snazzynovel.com was probably in snazzynovel.com fifties, tops. It seemed more likely that it was the hardship in snazzynovel.com trying life that had bleached snazzynovel.com hair, making snazzynovel.com look older beyond snazzynovel.com years. However, right now, snazzynovel.com looked like snazzynovel.com had just received one of the best news snazzynovel.com had in snazzynovel.com life, so much so that snazzynovel.com was shining with jubilance. Abject poverty and all the other pesky troubles associated with it no longer bogged snazzynovel.com down, the old woman looked as triumphant as someone who had found a secret way up the social ladder.
Alejandro went inside and stared at the little stool the old woman had supplied snazzynovel.com as his “chair.” There was a layer of tarry, unknown coat on its surface, and snazzynovel.com watched snazzynovel.com scrub against it a few times without any of it coming off.
“Oh, deary me, how embarrassing. But this is the only thing our poor family has for a chair, and now that our dearest Jeffrey is gone, we are supposed to go worse. All thanks to you though, Mr. Smith, for being such a kind man and giving us money. It is such a relief for me,” the old woman crooned.
The man snazzynovel.com mentioned — Jeffrey Orange — had been one of the sailors under the Smith company’s transportation company. Including the date when the shipwreck happened, snazzynovel.com would have worked in the company for exactly three years.
Alejandro flashed snazzynovel.com a slight smile and sat on the stool. “It’s within my responsibilities. Jeffrey Orange’s unfortunate passing is my company‘s fault, so an amount of solatium is the least we could do. Excuse me, Ma’am, but do you live alone?”
The old woman pulled snazzynovel.com jacket, so dirty that no one could tell what its original color was, tightly around herself. “No, my daughter-in-law is with me. You know, Jeffrey’s wife? She’s feeding the pigs in the back.”