Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

Murray ordered a bottle of vodka, one shot, two shots...

Seeing him drink like he had a death wish, Cliff hurriedly urged:

"Man, that stuff is strong. You should really take it easy!"

Don't end up in the hospital again...

Murray turned a deaf ear, still clutching his glass tightly: "Your phone, give it to me."

"Why do you need my phone?" Cliff asked, puzzled, while pulling out his smartphone to hand it over.

Before he could fully extend his arm, Murray snatched it eagerly and dialed Roseanne's number.

Soon, a familiar female voice came through.

He sounded like a man dying of thirst in the desert who had finally found water, desperately saying, "Anne, I miss you so much..." Roseanne was speechless.

Cliff was shocked. "Oh man... Is Roseanne ever going to answer my calls again?" he thought.

"Anne, please come back. I know I was wrong... We promised to grow old together, and now, so soon, you want to leave me?"

"Let's put the past behind us. Whether you want to pursue further studies or work, whatever you wish to do, I'll be there for you, unconditional support..." "Also, remember our promise last year? To watch the sunset and count the stars in Turkey? Have you forgotten?"

He spoke in a lump, his voice raspy.

His posture was almost humbled to the dust.

But the silence from the other end continued, unanswered.

Murray continued, "I was wrong before... Only now do I realize how much you've given me... Anne, I love you, I can't live without you..."

Roseanne asked, "Are you done?"

Finally, she responded.

However-

"I heard you're going to be a dad, congratulations." she said, then hung up.

"Beep Beep-"

With just one sentence, she sent him plummeting into hell.

Murray's eyes lost focus, and the hand holding the phone dropped to his side.

She said congratulations.

Ha, congratulations?! So, she knew everything! Absolutely everything!

Cliff cautiously asked, "Man, you okay? What did Roseanne say?"

Murray, it

off: "With a forced smile, w We Forget it, let's drink! 7

t stopping until f

With that, he grabbed the bottle and took a big swig.

Cliff, alarmed by his drinking, quickly intervened: "You can't chug it like that... That's vodka!"

Murray suddenly halted, then asked, "Cliff, do you think she'd bother visiting me if I drank myself to death?"

Cliff, terrified, replied, "Man, it won't.

come

Listen

that, seriously, it won't...

o me, it really vel

it

When Cliff helped Murray out, aside from a slightly red face, he seemed pretty sober.

"Murray, let me take you home..."

"No need." Murray waved him off, grabbing his coat from Cliff's arm, "I'll go by myself."

Seeing he was relatively sober, Cliff didn't insist further: "Okay. Just text me when you get home."

The night was deep, the moonlight ghastly.

Pushing open the door, the entire villa was as quiet as a haunted house.

Murray went straight upstairs to the study.

He turned on the computer and pulled up the security footage.

When initially designing the villa's security system, the security advisor recommended installing cameras, so he did, but made them discreet and hardly ever used them.

He wanted to see who had been meddling with the documents.

How Millie and Beverley were getting along on regular days.

He clicked into the storage disk and found it stored the last year's worth of surveillance footage.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

Divided into 12 monthly files.

Curiosity piqued, he opened the earliest one.

Back then, he and Roseanne were still together.