HIS REGRET (Ex-Husband wants Me Back) novel Chapter 896

Lydia's consciousness returned slowly, beginning with a heavy throbbing in her temples that seemed to pulse with every beat of her heart. Her eyelids felt unbearably heavy as she opened them, and her vision remained blurred for several seconds.

"Where am I?" she asked softly.

An unfamiliar damp scent filled her senses, mixed with the smell of old wood and long-settled dust. She did not move right away. She simply lay still, allowing her awareness to fully return as she tried to remember what had happened before everything went dark.

The first thing that came back to her was Naomi's scream and the way the girl had looked at her. Her eyes had been filled with fear and terror, as though they would never see each other again. Lydia squeezed her eyes shut at the memory.

No. She would not let that happen. They would see each other again soon and be reunited, just as they had been that morning over breakfast. And... she wanted to see Cale, her husband, as soon as possible.

Gradually, her vision came into focus. The high ceiling stretched above her, supported by old wooden beams. The cement walls, still not completely plastered, were cracked in several places. A simple hanging lamp dangled from the center of the room, casting a dim yellowish light.

The place where she was being held was far from comfortable, yet it could not exactly be called shabby. It was as though someone had deliberately kept the old building habitable without ever intending to restore it properly.

Lydia let out a quiet breath.

Her hands were not bound, but the iron door at the front of the room was tightly shut. Two men stood guard not far away, each with a weapon hanging at his waist. Even the small windows set high in the walls were fitted with thick iron bars.

She shifted her gaze to the corner of the room, studying every detail that might help her later. There were no sharp objects, nothing useful enough to serve as a weapon. There was only a simple bed, a wooden table, a chair, and a bottle of water placed casually on the table.

She drew another deep breath. Panicking would not help her get out of this place. If she wanted to return home to Cale, she had to keep thinking clearly.

The sound of several men talking outside the room immediately put Lydia on alert. Through the narrow gap in the slightly open door, she could see part of a much larger area. A massive concrete pillar blocked part of her view, but she could make out the silhouette of the man who had abducted her standing with four others.

Yes, he was Silas Evermont.

The mastermind behind everything that had happened to Naomi and her today.

"I warned you from the beginning," one of the men growled, his voice tightly restrained. "You've gone too far!"

Silas remained standing casually with both hands tucked into his pants pockets. "Too far?"

"The woman you brought here is no ordinary woman!"

"She's just a woman," Silas replied nonchalantly.

The man immediately shook his head. "Are you an idiot? She's the wife of the Chairman of the Obsidian Circle. Do you want the entire Obsidian Circle hunting us down?"

Silence suddenly fell over the room for several seconds.

Lydia remained seated without taking her eyes off the scene. Her face was calm, but she deliberately sharpened her hearing to catch every word coming from behind the pillar.

"If Cale Miller finds this place," another man's voice came out lower, as though he was afraid even to say that name. "He won't stop until he finds every one of us."

"He'll destroy this entire organization," another man added. "We all know how he deals with his enemies."

Silas let out a short breath, then chuckled softly, as though every one of those warnings sounded amusing to him. "You're all too afraid of one man."

"It's not fear," the man shot back. "We're trying to figure out the safest way to deal with him."

"You're all cowards," Silas said with a mocking laugh. "Is it really that hard to admit it?"

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