She's My Sleeping Pill-Chapter 959: SAVED AT HIS EXPENSE IV

Cayenne hadn’t known a full night’s sleep in days. The world had blurred into a jagged haze where focusing on her work felt like trying to catch smoke with bare hands. She was tethered to reality by a fraying thread, kept from the brink of total collapse only by the steady warmth of her husband and the soft, unknowing laughter of her children.

Then, the silence broke.

The call from Luiz arrived just hours ago, a sharp puncture in the suffocating tension. It brought with it a desperate, fleeting relief—at least the air in her lungs didn’t feel like lead anymore, knowing her brother was still drawing breath. But that comfort was short-lived. The relief soured almost instantly as the voice on the other end spoke: they want Dr. Eliezer Rivera in exchange for her brother’s life.

"Where’s the connection? Luiz interacted with Dr. Rivera once or twice, and they were never close to begin with? Why take my brother if they were after the doctor from the start?" Cayenne infuriatingly stated with her hands on her hips. Her eyes were spitting fire and she was smoldering in anger.

"I’ll talk to Travis and Jill about this," Stefan retorted as he pulled his wife in his embrace. "We still have a day to make plans."

"What about Nikolai? Has he contacted you yet?" Kyle questioned upon remembering that the strongest bodyguard had left to find and rescue his brother, Luiz.

"I haven’t heard anything from him," Stefan answered with a gloomy face. He knew that Nikolai has an untold story of his own, but Stefan never questioned him. And it never occurred to him that this incident would have anything to do with the bodyguard that he hired. "Let me call Travis."

On the second ring, the line clicked open to a bright, youthful voice that cut through the tension. It was unmistakably Jade; she chirped for her father before addressing the phone with an airy sweetness. "Wait just a moment, Uncle. Dad’s coming up now!"

"Hn," came the clipped, monosyllabic response.

The silence of the living room stretched for only a few beats before Travis took the receiver. When he spoke, his heavy baritone vibrated through the speaker, filling the quiet space with a sudden, grounding gravity.

How is the investigation progressing?" Travis asked, his gaze drifting repeatedly toward his wife, searching her face for any sign of a break in the storm.

"We received a call from Luiz a short while ago. We actually spoke with the kidnapper," came the reply, the voice on the other end tight with a new kind of exhaustion. "But the situation has shifted. The demand is entirely out of my hands now—they want Dr. Eliezer Rivera." A heavy silence hung in the air before the voice continued, lower this time. "I don’t even know how to approach the doctor with this. If I’m being selfish, I’d do anything to bring my brother-in-law home safely, but I know that doing this... it would jeopardize everything between us."

"Are you sure the call came from Luiz?" Travis retorted in disbelief. "Why would it be him?"

"What do you mean?"

"Belle is missing," the voice continued, strained and hollow. "Eli is out of his mind with worry; he hasn’t heard a word from her since yesterday. We’re trapped in this limbo, not knowing if she was taken or if she simply vanished. But Neon was with the Riveras, and she would never—under any circumstances—abandon her brother without a reason. We assumed that if it were a kidnapping, a ransom demand would follow shortly. We never imagined Luiz would be the one dragged into this nightmare."

A heavy, suffocating silence fell between the two men. The situation hadn’t just escalated; it had tangled into a Gordian knot of missing pieces and overlapping lives.

"I... I don’t understand," Stefan whispered, his voice cracking as he buried his face in his hands, the weight of the unknown finally crushing his composure.

"I apologise that Luiz got involve in this, but I could never imagine Eli having enemies. He is a very simple doctor. He only treats children and he never performed surgery that could endanger human lives. Still, this getting out of hand. I will set a meeting for the both of you."

"I appreciate that and please tell him that we will never blame him," Stefan answered and continued the conversation for a few more minutes before ending it.

Since the call was on speaker, he didn’t have to explain anything to anyone - tension just continued to hang in the air.

Amidst the pin-drop silence, the babysitter came out of the children’s room and called out Cayenne’s attention.

"Miss Yen, the little princess won’t stop crying and baby Aziel is also crying now. For some reason, they wouldn’t stop. I already fed them, changed their diapers and checked their temperature," the nanny narrated and she was about to cry from helplessness. She loves her job and she likes the children. It was the first time that they wouldn’t stop crying while in her care.

Cayenne ran upstairs with her husband following him. Inside the crib, Jahzara was crying while clutching a little angel figurine. Aziel was on the bed crying his heart out. Fat teardrops were falling on his face while Zeki sat in silence with his back on them.

Cayenne picked up the little girl and rubbed her back as she sang a song to comfort them. When the nanny tried to take the figurine, afraid that it will fall and break, the little princess cried even harder. So they let her jeep the small item instead.

On the other hand, it didn’t take long for Aziel to stop crying, though his hiccups continued for a while.

Without them knowing, Zeki waw also crying in silent. He was never the type to seek attention despite his young age. He just continued to flip the book he was reading even though his tears blurred his vision.

***

Mini Theater

Jahzara was playing with the small figurine of an angel while Aziel rolled on the bed with the tiger plushie. Zeki was reading a book while watching his siblings from time to time.

Jahzara: I haven’t seen uncle Luiz.

Aziel: Same.

Zeki was silent.

Jahzara: He hasn’t found another baby to replace us, right? 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Aziel: I don’t think so.

Zeki still remained silent.

A few minutes later, one of the nannies came back to change the children’s clothes. She told her colleague about the latest news regarding Luiz’ kidnapping without knowing that the kids could understand her.

Before she could even finish her narration, the air was punctured by the sudden, sharp wail of the children. Jahzara, always the most sensitive of the three, began first—a predictable chain reaction that usually saw Aziel following suit in a chorus of shared distress.

Yet, this time felt different. It’s not due to hunger, wet diaper or a fever; the toddlers seemed to be reacting to a shift in the very atmosphere of the room, an instinctual response to a grief they couldn’t yet name.

Zeki, however, didn’t join them. He turned his back to the group, his small frame trembling as he wept in a haunting, disciplined silence. Even at his age, he seemed to understand the unspoken rule of the house: someone had to be the pillar, and that impossible weight had settled squarely on his tiny shoulders.