She's My Sleeping Pill-Chapter 957: SAVED AT HIS EXPENSE II

Scar-face ordered Luiz to play the bait—the perfect lure to draw out Dr. Eliezer Rivera. Luiz might not have been the ideal pawn, but his undeniable connection to the doctor was the only leverage they needed. After weeks of dead ends and frustrated scheming, fate had simply dropped the answer right into their laps. Without breaking eye contact, Scar-face snatched the phone from the table and pitched it straight at Luiz's chest. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"Call someone and ask them to bring Joaquin here," it was a demand in exchange for his life. "And you better hurry up cause I'm not very patient."

Luiz had no desire to lead another man to his death, but his own survival instinct screamed louder. His hands shook violently, the blood draining from his face as he held the phone. All he could do was pray his brother-in-law would track him down before these thugs put a bullet in his brain.

"Oh, c'mon—don't be such a sissy!" The spiky-haired guy sneered. Before the words could even land, he delivered a resounding slap that sent Luiz's head snapping to the side.

The already bruising face was hit even harder which brought Luiz to tears. If he had to choose, he would rather want to stay with his original abductor than these new people who came. At least, his original abductor didn't hurt him physically - unlike this group that didn't even take an hour to hurt him beyond his pain tolerance.

Luiz grew up from a poor family, but he never went through this kind of excruciating physical pain. At most, he only had a stomach ache due to hunger. No one had ever laid a hand on him - not his parents nor his siblings.

Luiz didn't dial a random number; he reached for the one person he knew could help. On the second ring, Stefan's composed voice cut through the silence.

"Are you okay?"

Before Luiz could even draw a breath to respond, Scar-face snatched the phone away. He began barking out his demands, cold and systematic, bartering the youth's life for a price.

"I'll do as you say," Stefan agreed without hesitation. "Just make sure that you will never hurt him."

"You don't make demands of me, boy." With a flick of his thumb, Scar-face dropped the connection and tossed the phone onto the table like a piece of trash. A dark, predatory mirth danced in his eyes. "Drag this thing away," he gestured toward his two men. "We wouldn't want our model traumatized by the ghastly sight of a dead man."

The men snickered as they hoisted the corpse by its limbs. As they hauled the body toward the exit, the shadow finally fell away from the leader's face. Luiz's breath hitched; he had seen that face only once before, but the memory was seared into his mind. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine their paths would cross again like this.

This was the man who had publicly questioned Cayenne's parentage—the same man Stefan had ruthlessly humiliated at the gathering. The motive was clear now: revenge. But as the man's smug gaze lingered on him, Luiz realized the chilling truth - he had botched the job. The instructions had been for the youngest son, not the youngest brother.

"What now?" Luiz thought when he remembered that the man was supposed to meet with his accomplice the next day. "How are we going to trace the mastermind?"

Seeing that he was not making a fuss, scar-face told his men to leave Luiz alone.

Granted the smallest window of freedom,Luiz frantically mentally mapped out his next move.

Counting the people who came in, though unsure if they had other members waiting outside, Luiz found that there were twelve people in total.

Scar-face was playing with his Swiss knife, others were playing cards and drinking booze while some stood not far from them as guards.

"Escaping this hellhole isn't going to be easy," Luiz whispered to himself, fighting the heavy pull of exhaustion. But just as he was trying to steel his nerves, a movement caught his eye. There, looming on the second-floor landing, stood a man.

The man gestured for Luiz to stay silent, though he didn't if he was a friend or foe, he still followed the instruction.

"What's taking them so long?" Scar-face questioned irritatingly. "Someone, check those two outside. They could've just thrown that body somewhere. There's no need to make it a fancy tomb."

"Aye, boss!"

Luiz watched the man circle around without anyone noticing his presence. He was making way to another exit, probably planning to make an ambush.

If there's one thing in common from these group of criminal and from his abductor - it's stupidity.

They were so confident in their strength that they didn't bother to tie to Luiz again after they exposed him earlier. His hands were free and whenever there's a chance, he moved to loosen the bound on his feet as well.

If given the opportunity,

he could make a quick escape.

***

Driven by a desperate need to rescue the youth, Nikolai ghosted through the corridors toward the building's heart. He froze as two men emerged from a room, grunting under the weight of a limp, lifeless body. Nikolai ducked behind a row of rusted, broken vending machines beneath the stairway, the jagged metal and shadows shielding him from their sight as they passed.

To reduce the number of his enemies, Nikolai followed the two men stealthily, and ensuring that there were just two of them, he pulled the trigger of his gun consecutively.

Two bullets, two dead bodies.

He dragged them to the bushes and returned to the building. Guessing that Luiz might be on the lower ground floor, he choose to scout the area from the upper floor.

Sure enough, Luiz was sitting on a wooden chair while a burly man watched his every move while playing a knife.

Hearing the next instruction, Nikolai used another exit to get out of the building. He need to kill the man who just went out to find his colleagues.

Lying in wait like a cobra watching his prey, he waited for the man and without disappointing him, the latter came out while spinning the gun in his hand. Not even a minute after he came out, Nikolai jumped on him, wisted his neck without a second thought, and dragged the man to the bushes where he hid the three bodies earlier.

Not wasting another second, he ran back to the building and found Luiz talking to the man.

"Why do you hate Dr. Rivera?"