How to eat bread as hard as your brother’s head

Action, yes, she’d understand. But action romance? Leona thought she was seeing things.

She panned her sight towards each row and noticed that Ignatius had a lot of famous classic action romance novels.

‘Whoa, isn’t this the complete collection of Destiny Aitsuji’s books?’ she thought as she widened her eyes in amazement. As someone who could only afford a worn-out pocketbook from the thrift store, she felt that this discovery was the luckiest thing that happened in the last few hours.

Leona wiped the top of the books, then secretly borrowed the first book of [My Wife is an E-Ghost!]. She observed that her kidnapper was busy staring at his laptop and stole that opportunity for a peek. After catching a glimpse of the magnificent literary piece, Leona found herself quickly hooked as she invested more time into reading it and leaned at the side of the bookshelf. In just the first few paragraphs, the writer felt as if she was transported into a new world full of electronic ghosts and talented coders. The cleaning task was quickly forgotten as Leona turned page after page.

On the other side of the room, Ignatius tried to decipher what looked like hieroglyphs to him in the form of pie charts, bar charts and multiple graphs. He had no idea what those numbers in the table meant or the overly decorated formula with more greek alphabets than numbers.

Thankfully, his head researcher who wrote this report made a summary as requested that simplified everything for his understanding. That didn’t mean it was simple. Understanding the fact sheet still took a lot of brainpower, and Ignatius wasn’t the best science student back in the day.

Following his father's footsteps, Ignatius believed that a good way to grow his empire was to invest in technology. It didn’t matter what kind of technology it was. It could be space, communication, transportation technology, but Ignatius would scrutinize each industry with well-trained business acumen. In the last five years, the empire under his control grew exponentially in Norwich City and even started taking root in other countries. The Teivel family became a force to reckon with.

After a while of looking at mind-boggling data dumps and poorly summarized notes, the mafia boss finally realized that it was too silent. Feeling drowsy, he shook his head. However, sleepiness clung to him like a needy child. He needed to get rid of it and finish looking through the report tonight. What was his prisoner turned entertainer doing?

Ignatius looked around but did not see her immediately. Eyes darting around, the mafia boss confirmed that the main doors and the back doors were still closed. However engrossed he was in his work, he would surely hear the noisy doors moving. Hence, he was convinced that she was still somewhere in this room. Assuming that she did not leave the study, Ignatius wondered what she was up to this time.

The sound of paper turning amidst the silence gave her position away, and he swiveled around from his executive chair. Ignatius stood up and slowly approached his bookshelf. From where he stood, he caught sight of a sleeve peeking from behind the wooden structure. It waved with movement like a feather cat toy luring his attention. Like a cat ready to hunt his mouse, Ignatius prowled closer. He could only see the top of her head from where he stood as she hunched over in a corner. However, as soon as her face came into view, his eyes widened.

Ba-thump!

The mafia boss backpedaled, not expecting the strange sound coming from his ribcage.

From the time this rabbit-like muse was in his captivity until now, she had never once smiled. Ignatius didn’t blame her. Anyone would be scared pissless in his presence, much less a defenseless little carrot like her. However, her genuine smile introduced new colors to his world as he noticed her unusually sparkly celadon green eyes fixated on the book.

That was an illegal smile, and she should be arrested. Nobody else should be seeing her pretty smile!

It was at that very moment he realized that he fucked up. This little mouse was a toy. When did she become his muse?

Shaking the uneasy feeling off, Ignatius entertained the thought of messing with her. Leona looked too contented reading his collection while he was stuck reading Einstien’s stupid boring reports. It was too unfair.

Playing a little prank to catch her off guard, he whispered near her ear. “I thought I told you to clean, not read my book.”

Ignatius’ deep voice resounded in Leona’s ears. Startled, Leona let out a small squeak as she snapped her neck back to the hot whisperer. She wasn’t expecting Ignatius to be standing too close with her and their faces were only an inch or so apart from each other.

Ba-thump!

Unable to avoid locking gazes at this distance, celadon green and gunmetal gray battled for dominance. Leona didn’t know why she was inspired to look away first. Perhaps it was the near kissing scene in the book she was reading previously, but her eyes locked onto his pretty lips a few centimeters away.

Swallowing nervously, Leona wondered what Ignatius would do next. Not only was she caught reading the classic masterpiece, but her heart kept beating so fast that she might get a heart attack. The writer wasn’t even sure if she would wriggle her way out of the situation at this distance.

Wanting to put more distance between them, Leona prepared to move back, but the awkward position made her drop the book. Fortunately, Ignatius’ reflexes were quick like a bullet.

Feeling that the distance between them was even closer than before, Leona quickly averted her eyes and stared at the expensive book in Ignatius’ hand. “Sorry! I didn’t realize you were there!”

“You should do only what you were told. Do you want to be tied up on the bed again?” Ignatius narrowed his eyes.

As soon as the words left his lips, the mafia boss regretted it. He didn’t want to make it take a strange turn, but it was probably too late to take it back. What was wrong with him? Ordinarily, he would ask if someone wanted to be shot to death. He was probably reading too much into this because Leona let the innuendo fly over her head as she pursed her lips and lowered her head like a child about to cry.

Realizing how stupid she was, Leona tried to think of an adequate reason to survive this ordeal. Leona could only blame her hands that were programmed to reach out to read any Destiny Aitsuji books.

“I was…” Leona stammered, fumbling over words and fighting against her inner fangirl from lowering her ability to speak coherently. “It was written was so good that I-”

She couldn’t even finish her sentence as the air around her became so dense that it was suffocating. The frown on Ignatius’ handsome face made her words die in her throat. It wasn’t a look of anger or some tyrannical temper. If anything, it was the look of someone who was annoyed at the poop they accidentally stepped on.

As a bookworm, Ignatius was always serious about the depths of his knowledge. Leona might be smart and interesting. However, that was not enough to understand his sweet collection. Judging from her financially unstable background, it was obvious she wouldn’t be able to afford quality classic books.

“For a person to fully understand the novel, one must either be an avid reader or a writer.”

His cool statement riled the writer in Leona as she furrowed her brows.

“I am a writer,” she couldn’t help but blurt it out.

Almost at once, Leona wanted to pull all her teeth out and silence that stupid mouth! How was it that she fell for the bait and handed out personal information about herself to her kidnapper so easily? Asking her to clean his study with such tempting baits must be part of his master plan. Leona swallowed thickly, fearful of her life now that he was one step closer to knowing her true identity.

Instead of using that information to interrogate further, Ignatius only scoffed.

“As if.”

Feeling like a tornado missed her by only a few inches as Ignatius turned away from her, Leona glared at his back. How dare he belittle her? She was gingeromance628, one of the top authors in Wang Novels! If it weren’t for her debts, she would have collected all the masterpieces by now.

Ignatius returned to his dry reports and raised a brow at the silently fuming bunny in his study. What was she so angry about? Ignoring it for now, the mafia boss barked orders for her to resume cleaning. The book in his hand rested beside his laptop. If she was so interested in his collection, it wasn’t impossible to lend it to her. However, she would have to work extra hard to entertain him.

“What are you still standing around for? Don’t you see that my lampshade needs cleaning? Do you need me to remind you how to do your job? Clean everything again! You’re slacking off too much.”

Hours passed with Leona and Ignatius playing the game of cat and mouse. Each time Leona made her way to the bookshelf, she would peek at a few pages before Ignatius caught her skiving. She would quickly resume ‘cleaning’ in the most dramatic fashion and linger near the bookshelves, not that Ignatius minded.

The digital clock on the wall showed that it was seven in the evening. Leona had no idea how many times she wiped every piece of furniture in that study. It must have been at least four times before the devil of a kidnapper allowed her to leave!

Leona’s stomach growled obnoxiously, gathering pity from the mafia boss who finally finished her work. Although she didn’t do a good enough job to earn a reward, she worked sufficiently to deserve some food. Ignatius ordered one of his men to provide her with bread and water. The loyal goon obeyed and quickly returned with the stale week-old bread and glass of tap water.

Surely it couldn’t be that bad, right? Food was food, and the poor shouldn’t be picky. Leona convinced herself that if she imagined the taste of peanut butter, it would be possible to savor the bread. Opening her mouth widely and closing her eyes, Leona took a bite at the crust and almost instantly regretted it as she felt her front teeth aching. Why was this bread as hard as her brother’s head?!

Just like the thirsty crow who used stones in a bottle to drink some water, Leona thought about a genius idea to make the best of her miserable situation. Ignatius secretly observed her from the corner of his eye. He hid a grin behind his right palm as she soaked the edge of the bread into the glass of water. She was definitely an unusual one.

Sighing sadly, Leona munched on the soggy bread. What could she do? She could only adapt to the terrible situation. In less than five minutes, the show was over. Leona even licked the crumbs off her finger. That bread hardly filled her stomach, but at the very least, it wouldn’t disturb her when she slept if they allowed her to sleep tonight.

Having enough fun for the day, Ignatius dismissed the poor lady. His guards led her back to the small storage room and slammed the door shut behind her once she was rudely shoved inside.

With nothing better to do, Leona sat cross-legged on the tiled floor. After getting kidnapped, she spent so many hours here that she almost forgot the last scheduled chapter upload. She had no more stockpiled chapters scheduled for her readers because some of them were still sitting in the editing pile she was meant to do today before she was kidnapped.

If Leona knew she would be kidnapped, she would have uploaded the stockpile chapters from her folder. She knew Leonard was a big troublemaker. However, she never thought that she would be dragged into his shady problems. Not being able to upload anything in this stupid place meant that gingeromance628 would eventually roll down the ranks. All experienced web novel writers knew that meant lesser income. Worse still, her hard-earned reputation among readers would be lost!

Leona shuddered at the thought of becoming a woman who ran from city to city to escape her debtors. Living a fugitive life meant less time for writing.

“This can't go on,” Leona steeled her resolve. “I have to leave as soon as possible!”

She turned her head towards the mop leaning on the shelf. In her mind, the mop transformed into a sharp spear. Should she launch a surprise attack and fight the men in suits outside like Zhonglee from the famous online game? She might not know a single thing about spears, but she played enough games to know how to spin one in her mind. Leona grinned, entering the thought of an all-powerful writer defeating a bunch of trained thugs with a single mop. Alas, the happiness was short-lived as reality settled in.

As much as she wanted to be optimistic, there was no way a mop could win armed thugs. One squeeze of a trigger, and it would be her brain matter all over the spotless floor. Leona sighed as she imagined herself becoming dead meat after she failed. Even if she was lucky enough to survive the reckless attempt, security would even be tighter. It was better to bide her time to understand the whole layout of this place before devising a better escape.

Giving up, Leona decided not to be too rash. After such a long, unfortunate day, the ginger head soon fell asleep curled on the floor.