[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 368 & 369. (Patreon)

Chapter 368: To the hospital.

I got scolded by the police officer. I get where he was coming from. Civilians shouldn’t get involved in stuff like this because it’s dangerous and we can risk causing trouble for ourselves. But what was I supposed to do, huh? Just let him run away while I was right there? Thankfully, I got off scot-free due to all the other witnesses.

When I looked, I saw Mila helping the woman to her feet. She was shaking, holding her own nose. Some blood was dripping from it and tears ran down her cheeks.

“Th-Thank you…” she told Mila.

“You need to go to a hospital, ma’am,” Mila said. Her own hands were shaking, too. “We can take you there, if you want.”

“There’s one like 15 minutes away from here,” Thomas said after checking his phone.

The woman sobbed, but that seemed to cause her more pain. “P-Please. I’m s-sorry…”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Mila told her, gently rubbing the woman’s back. “Oliver, can you bring the car?”

I had finished talking to the officer, so I took Mila’s car keys and went to the place we’d parked, leaving her and Thomas to look after the woman. They later told me the officer briefly questioned her while I was away.

I… had to stop for a moment before getting into the car. My entire body was still trembling, my heart didn’t stop racing and the whole scene kept replaying in my head over and over. That could’ve gone so very wrong. What if he had pulled out a knife, or a gun? What if he was stronger than me? None of that went through my mind when I saw it all happen. I was just… livid that someone would hurt another person like that. What if… that had happened to Mila? I needed to calm down a bit before I drove back to them, but I also couldn’t take too long.

What a fucking mess.

I picked them up in front of the store and the three got in the car, this time with Thomas next to me and Mila comforting the woman in the back.

“The officer questioned her briefly,” Thomas told me as I drove. “But she was a little too shaken to answer, not to mention it’s hard for her to breath and speak with a broken nose. They offered to take her to the hospital, but she wanted us to take her.”

I nodded. I don’t know why she’d choose us over the police, but I wasn’t about to leave matters half-finished.

“P-Please, can you… call someone for me?” the woman asked, her words hard to understand.

“Of course,” Thomas said, taking the phone he was offered, already unlocked. “Who should I call?”

“Honey,” she said. “M-My boyfriend. His n-name is L-Luke…”

Thomas nodded. “Should I tell him the hospital we’re going to?”

“P-Please…”

Thomas made the call. The phone’s volume was high, so we could somewhat hear the other person’s voice.

“Hello, dear,” said a gentle, cheerful voice.

“Hello, sir. I’m calling on behalf of…” Blinking, Thomas realized we didn’t know the woman’s name. He looked back at her, wordlessly asking.

“J-Jennifer.”

“...on behalf of Jennifer.”

The man’s tone suddenly changed. “Who is this?” he asked coldly, almost threateningly.

“Thomas Pierce, sir. Jennifer asked me to call you. She’s okay, but she was attacked by a thief who broke her nose. My friends and I are taking her to a hospital right now.”

…A little too blunt, but I’m not sure I could’ve done any better.

“Where!?” the man demanded, his voice now filled with worry.

Thomas gave him the address, and the man said he’d be there in ten minutes. Was he close by, then?

Mila chuckled softly. “He sounded really worried,” she told Jennifer. “Have you been together long?”

Jennifer managed a smile. “T-Three years now.”

“And he’s the first person you called, huh? He means a lot to you.”

Jennifer giggled, even though she winced from pain. “Yes. A lot.”

I smiled. Mila was trying to take her mind off the previous events, calm her down. Thank god she was here.

We arrived at the hospital and helped Jennifer get seen. She was taken into the ER and we waited outside. Not five minutes later, a group of three people drew our attention. A man and two women walking down the hallway as quickly as they’d be allowed to in a hospital.

“Ah, it’s Jennifer’s boyfriend,” Thomas said. When Mila and I looked at him in confusion, he explained, “I saw his profile picture on her phone.”

“Ah.” Mila and I nodded.

Thomas approached the man, deep worry clear in his brow as well as in his two other companions. “Mr. Luke, yes?”

“Mr. Thomas Pierce, then? Where’s Jennifer?” the man asked, looking around.

“She was already taken into the ER. Don’t worry, she’s fine and conscious.”

The three people let out big sighs of relief.

I took a moment to observe them. There was… something off about Mr. Luke, though I couldn’t tell you what it was. He was tall and slender, about as tall as Thomas, at least. It was hard to pinpoint his age, as he looked young, like he was in his mid 20s, but had an air of maturity around him. Thirty years old, maybe? He was wearing a black business suit with a red tie. His eyes were gray but his hair, short, bulky and half of it swept to the side, seemed dyed blonde. He had fair features and even I had to admit he looked handsome. Again, I couldn’t tell you what I thought was off about him. It was nothing more than a feeling.

One of the women behind him also called my attention, if only because of her darkish skin and dark brown hair that made me think for a split second she was the girl from the coffee shop, but no, This woman was older, probably close to her 30s. Similar figure, though, busty and curvy.

The other woman was younger, maybe close to 25 or something like that. Clear skin, thin frame and modest chest. Long, chestnut colored hair and greenish eyes bordering on gray.

“I’m sorry for sounding so cold over the phone,” the man said, now with a friendlier smile. “I’m Luke Allen, Jennifer’s boyfriend.” He gestured with his hand behind himself. “This here is Natalie, also my girlfriend. And this is Cecilia, my girlfriend as well,” he said, introducing the clear skinned woman and the dark skinned woman respectively.

…

Wait. Three girlfriends?

I blinked, perplexed. I looked at Mila and Thomas, expecting to see similar faces, but… they just nodded along. Was I the only one surprised? I guess that, considering that I was the guy with five girlfriends, that someone else freely admitted to having three shouldn’t be so strange, but…

…

Why did something tell me that it was?

************

Chapter 369: Luke Allen.

“So… What exactly happened?” Natalie asked Thomas.

“I couldn’t tell you exactly,” Thomas said, looking back at me. “Oliver here saw it all. He’s the one who caught the thief before he could run away with Ms. Jennifer’s things.”

“When we got there, he already had the asshole pinned on the ground making him eat gravel,” Mila said proudly.

With all eyes on me, my anxiety began to resurface. Three people I didn’t know, looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to explain everything. Still, I began to tell them everything.

“It happened too quickly. Ms. Jennifer was walking behind me when I heard some struggling. I turned around and saw the guy… punching her. I got mad and ran after him. Thomas and Mila heard something happening and got out of the store they were in. The police took the thief, then we offered to bring her to the hospital. That was when Thomas called, you, Mr. Luke.” I swallowed. “I’m.. sorry I couldn’t stop him from hurting her.”

“No, no. Thank you so much for standing up for her,” Mr. Luke said, his smile brighter now. “And thank you for bringing her here.”

“Seriously,” Ms. Cecilia said. “She must’ve been so scared. Thank you for helping her.”

“It’s the least we could do,” Thomas said, smiling bashfully. “If assholes like that exist, then some of us need to pick up the slack and help each other.”

Mr. Luke’s smile widened. “Just so, Mr. Thomas! Just so! Let me ask again, then, so I won’t forget it. You’re Thomas Pierce, correct?” he asked our resident big guy, to which Thomas nodded. “You, miss, are…”

“Milana Aliev, sir.” Mila addressed him formally, too. Was it the suit that made us think he was so much older than us?

Then he turned to me, and his eyes seemed to look beyond just my face. He… examined me, appraised me, evaluated me… all in a single, short look. “And you are Oliver…”

“B-Brooks, Mr. Luke.”

The man smiled, a smile of genuine appreciation. “I am truly indebted to you three, and I mean to see that debt paid in some form or another.” He brought out his phone out of his pocket and turned to Thomas. “Would you mind giving me your number? I’d like to call you once Jennifer is better and I’ve finished some urgent business.”

“Um… Sure, yeah…”

I found it a little odd, too, but I didn’t think much of it. Thing is, even though I felt something was strange about Mr. Luke, I didn’t find him threatening or dangerous. He really did seem like a genuinely good person.

Only minutes later we found out how right we were.

We said our goodbyes and left Jennifer in their care. Then, as we drove back to the cosmetics store (because that was what we were there for, remember?) Thomas let out a ‘Oooooh!’ as he checked his phone.

“What? What is it?” I asked him.

“I thought I’d heard the name before, so I checked.”

“You mean Mr. Luke?” Mila asked him.

“Yeah. Luke Allen, sort of famous playboy and stupidly rich philanthropist. He’s known for burning money like it’s nobody’s business and somehow making it all back through his various businesses. He regularly donates large amounts of money to charities, too.”

“People like that are usually hiding a dark secret or two,” Mila said, skeptical.

“You’d think so, right? And he HAS been at the center of some internet drama, but it’s all people being outraged that he donated money to a foundation against breast cancer and not to [insert other charity here]. It’s all pretty ridiculous stuff. Besides, his businesses mostly amount to entertainment of all sorts. He owns a large part of the stocks for a huge game company, has beach resorts all over the world, has a movie production company, and I think he has plans to create a new video streaming service.”

I winced. “What the hell? What is he doing around here, then?”

Thomas shrugged. “No idea.”

“I guess it’s not so strange that he comfortably admitted that those three women were his girlfriends.”

For a full moment, Thomas and Mila didn’t say anything. Then, they gasped in shock.

“Wait, yeah! He said those three were his girlfriends, right!?” Thomas asked.

“He did, didn’t he?” Mila’s jaw hung. “I… didn’t think anything of it when he said it.”

Okay, now I thought they were overreacting. “I mean, it’s not THAT strange, right? I mean…”

“Yeah, but we’re a special case, aren’t we?” Mila said.

“He’s a special case, too. A man with that much money can do whatever he wants.”

“No, that’s not the issue,” Thomas said. “It’s that… I didn’t think anything of it until you mentioned it. Even now, I feel like I SHOULDN’T think anything of it, but when you call attention to it...” Thomas swallowed. “Do you think… he has some magic powers, too?”

I sighed. “It’s possible.”

“Did you feel something?” Mila asked me.

“Nothing concrete. Just a vague feeling that there was something odd about him. Thomas, how old does it say he is?”

“...Forty years old.”

“He DOES NOT look 40!” Mila said. “He looks in his mid 20s at best!”

“He could’ve had surgery, I suppose, but…” I shook my head. “I’d rather not get involved with him any further.”

“We really screwed up by giving him our names, then,” Mila said.

“I bet he would’ve found them regardless,” Thomas said. “If anything, at least we’re on his good side.”

“At least.”

“Do you have a bad feeling about him?”

I shook my head again. “No. If anything, I’m willing to believe he really is a good person. It’s just…”

“Just…?”

“Rich people make me uncomfortable.”

They both laughed at that.