7 Years Of Love Chapter 04
That single sentence was enough to jot all three of them fully awake.
Tessa frowned.
“That’s impossible. I watched her get into a taxi. Did you just miss her somehow?”
The housekeeper looked rattled.
“I definitely didn’t. The front gate never opened, and her
se Pedroom is
empty. I just assumed she was with you guys at the hospital, looking after Ms. Amalia.”
Panic hit Dylan like a physical blow. I felt exactly like seven years ago- that same crushing weight of coming home full of hope, only to find Lorelei gone.
His hands shook as he pulled out his phone and dialed her number.
The call went aight to voicemail.
The tension in the room snapped.
Tessa pressed a hand to her chest.
“No, that can’t be right. Call the police Do it now.”
Officers arrived and scoured the home security footage for an hour, but they found absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile, Dylan was with another group of officers in the hospital security room.
“There. That’s her.”
He pointed at the familiar figure on the screen, his eyes bloodshot from stress. Seeing her get into a taxi brought a momentary wave of relief.
The police immediately started pulling feeds from street cameras along the taxi’s route.
In his hand, Dylan’s phone kept buzzing. The screen lit up with messages from Amalia-stickers and texts saying how much she missed him and how worried she was.
An officer glanced at him.
“Go ahead and handle that. We’ll let you know the second we find anything.”
Dylan forced himself to breathe, trying to stay calm as he headed to the hospital room.
When Amalia saw him, she immediately pouted.
“I thought you were with Lori. I didn’t think you were coming.”
Dylan frowned.
Comments that used to sound like cute jealousy now carried a sharp, ironic edge.
It reminded him of seven years ago. He had just turned Amalia down to go look for Lorelei when a text popped up on his phone saying almost the exact same thing.
Lorelei had written that she assumed he was holding another woman and wouldn’t be coming back.
He had replied then, asking how she could think such a thing.
She never responded.
He had denied it back then, so why had things ended up like this?
Was he going to lose her all over again?
A regret sharper than anything he’d felt seven years ago washed over him.
He had promised that once he found her, he would never leave her side.
Yet here he was, leaving her alone again and again.
He stood up abruptly.
“She’s not home, and I can’t reach her. I have to go find her. Get some rest.’
Amalia looked stunned.
A moment later, she huffed.
“Lori is probably just mad at me and disappearing on purpose. She wants to see you panic to teach you a lesson.
Dylan stopped cold.
His mind filled with images of Lorelei lying awake for nights on end, too terrified to even close her eyes.
“Impossible. She would never joke about something like that. You’d better hope your parents don’t hear you talking like that.”
Half an hour later, police coordinated with the telecom company and airport authorities. They confirmed her SIM card had been dumped at the airport.
Surveillance footage showed Lorelei boarding an international flight four hours ago. She was alone. There was no coercion.
It wasn’t a kidnapping; the tragedy of seven years ago hadn’t repeated itself.
Yet Dylan felt hollow.
The guilt that had weighed on him for seven years had vanished the moment he found Lorelei.
And the warmth he’d shared with Amalia over those years-comforting each other through their pain-had completely evaporated now that Lorelei had left again.
He touched his chest. His heart wasn’t racing because he felt guilty about scolding Amalia.
It was pounding because he remembered Lorelei’s indifference when she had calmly accepted his apology.
He realized now that his love hadn’t shifted to someone else during those seven years; it had simply been buried under layers of guilt and self- deception.
He had never wanted to admit that he had sacrificed the person he loved most for a stranger.
So, he had numbed himself, elevating Amalia’s importance just to lessen the weight of that terrible choice.
He had pretended so effectively that he eventually fooled both himself and Lorelei.
How could he have treated the woman he loved so deeply this way, just to avoid taking responsibility?
He pulled strings to find out which city Lorelei had flown to, made arrangements for her parents, and booked the next available flight.
He was going to bring her home.
As he entered the airport, Amalia intercepted him, showing off her bandaged wrist.
“Dyl, are you really going? Can’t you send someone else to bring her back? I’m scared to be alone.”
Dylan sighed.
“Mia, we both know the truth about what happened back then. I only stayed with you to outrun my own guilt. But I realize now that I haven’t let her go, and I never will.
“I’ll arrange bodyguards for you. Just focus on recovering.”
Amalia’s eyes reddened.
“I don’t believe you! You’re lying. You only feel guilty about her, that’s all.”
Dylan didn’t reply. He simply signaled with his hand, and a bodyguard stepped forward to escort her away.
After landing, I found a local hospital that specialized in orthopedics.
The exam confirmed that I had missed the optimal window for a prosthetic fitting, but the doctor assured me that if I built up my muscle strength through rehab, the delay wouldn’t matter much.
Following the advice of an American doctor, I checked into a nearby care facility.
The presence of other people made it feel safer.
At first, being alone in an unfamiliar city was terrifying.
I ended up hiring a professional female bodyguard to stay with me twenty- four hours a day.
I expected insomnia to haunt me.
What I hadn’t anticipated was the sheer exhaustion of physical therapy.
The pain made me sweat and cry until I was completely drained.
Every time the pain made me want to give up, I told myself to hold on just a little longer. Tomorrow, or the day after-someday soon-I would stand again.
Holding onto that thought kept the insomnia at bay.
On the third day of my rehab, my bodyguard, Serena, was wheeling me toward the hospital.
As soon as we exited the facility’s main gates, I spotted a familiar figure.
