YOKED TO A BILLIONAIRE BY VENNEH LISAH

"Oh dear, what happened to Mr. Roman's shirt ?" At the same moment, another paramedic exclaimed, "What's this?"

"Let me take a look at that." The younger one between them went in for a closer inspection. "If I'm guessing this correctly, it should be bird droppings."

"Did it come from that little parrot?" The two of them looked at the unconscious Finny in astonishment.

"Right, that has to be it." A third paramedic came out of the washroom and sounded agitated. "I saw that bird poop on Mr. Roman last night and he didn't seem too pleased."

"Could it be…" The trio looked upon Finny with considerable sympathy.

Violla was taken aback as she looked blankly at the bird. It crossed her mind that Finny could have been strangled by Davon.

Her strength escaped her as she nearly collapsed onto the bed.

"Miss Milan." The younger paramedic propped her up and offered her some gentle words of consolation, "Please take care of your health. The parrot is still alive so you might be able to save it if you could get it to a vet."

"As we have other matters to attend to, we should be going."

The paramedics appeared tense and left as quickly as they could.

"Hey, wait up." The younger one also followed suit, afraid that Violla might be upset. That could mean trouble for them.

Violla sat in the room by herself and was extremely upset with Davon as she looked upon the half-dead bird.

'Notions about him being considerate or a teddy bear at heart were all empty talk.

The man was brutal enough to throttle Finny for merely pissing on him.'

She thought him an absolute monster.

The more she ruminated about it, the more she wanted to choke the man right back.

At the same time, she considered another problem that may arise. If he could bring himself to do this to a mere parrot, she shuddered to imagine what would he possibly do to her three children.

As Davon had already borne a grudge against her triplets in the mistaken belief that they were Martin's, she was afraid that he might really cause them harm.

That got her so nervous that she started to pace around inside the room.

Just then, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. When she got close and peeked out, she saw a female paramedic outside talking on the phone.

For some reason, the Romans family bodyguards were all scrambling in the same direction.

Violla took the opportunity to sneak Finny out. She didn't even put on her shoes while she made a break for the elevator.

When the paramedic on watch took notice, she shouted, "Heavens, Miss Milan."

Violla darted into the elevator and jabbed at the button repeatedly. By the time two of the bodyguards reacted, the door had already closed upon them.

She panted and swallowed hard as her eyes transfixed upon the changing numbers, hoping to be able to free herself of Davon's grasp.

It was fortunate that she was on the fourth floor and therefore able to descend quickly.

The moment the doors opened, she ran like a bat out of hell.

"Miss Milan." The guards shouted after her from behind.

She only wanted to escape at that point and she couldn't care less about anything else.

However, the men were faster on their feet as they quickly gained upon her.

Violla's heart was racing when a Lamborghini ground to a halt by the side of the road. The roof of the convertible was open and Martin was at the wheel. "Get in, Violla!"

"Martin?" She hesitated as she stopped in her tracks, uncertain as to whether she wanted to drag him into this.

"Come on!" He unbuckled himself and pulled her in.

"Miss Milan." The car had sped off by the time the guards came out. However, one of them managed to spot Martin in the driver's seat. "Call Cruze now."

The wound that Martin had at the corner of his lips was still raw. However, he did not let that distract him as he took Violla away from there.

Her heart was still pounding from all the adrenaline as she cupped the bird to her chest.

Despite having eluded the guards whose silhouette vanished into the distance behind them, she felt neither exhilarated nor relieved, but a profound sense of apprehensiveness.She felt as though she had done something wrong.

"Hey," Martin said comfortingly. "You're safe now!"

"The kids are still nowhere to be found, and Mrs. Blake is still at the hospital." Violla was distraught. "Would Davon harm her if he learned that I've escaped? And the children…"

"Not to worry, I'll figure something out," he said as he held her hand. "No way that Davon Roman is above the law!"

After a brief pause, he continued, "Worse comes to worst, I'll go look for old Mr. Roman .I'm sure he would handle this justly!"

"Old Mr. Roman?" Violla furrowed. "He's a bit of an oddball. I'm unsure if he would help as he doesn't seem to like me very much."

"He'd be helping himself more than helping you," Martin replied with a frown. "If he wants a successful union between the Romans and the Tariques he'd have to see to it that Davon stays away from you!"

"It may be worth a shot should we run out of other options." Violla's mind was in a disarray. "We should try to locate the kids first as I'm really worried about them. Also, Finny's still unconscious. Can we get her to a vet?"

"No worries. I'm on it." Martin said.

In the president's office on the sixty-eighth floor, Davon was completing some paperwork when Cruze knocked on his door with something to report. "Uh, Mr. Roman…"

He hesitated before uttering cautiously, "Miss Milan has fled!"

Davon's hand hovered over the keyboards as he lifted his eyes. "Come again?"

"Miss Milan …" Cruze steeled himself before he reiterated that last part, "She's escaped!"

"Escaped?" Davon was dismayed. "Are you telling me that the stupid woman had escaped from the hospital in the full view of so many?"

"Martin and a couple of his men were there. Miss Milan took the opportunity to break free when your driver was distracted. They fled in their car before our guys could catch up."

Davon frowned intensely, and a bone-chilling glint flashed across his eyes. His hand clenched around the fountain pen he was using.The pen snapped between his fingers like a twig.

Cruze's face turned as white as a sheet. "Please calm down, Mr. Roman. I've already tracked them to a villa in the western suburbs and will be taking a team over…"

"Leave them be," Davon interjected. "She'll be back on her own!"

"Those who were posted at the hospital. What good are they if they cannot even keep an eye on one woman?"

"Yes," Cruze said as he lowered his head hurriedly. "I know what to do."

There was knocking upon the door before Clyde entered. "An update, Mr. Roman . I've found out that the three children alighted from the school bus at Uplands after class at three in the afternoon. As Mrs. Blake was indisposed and could not be there to pick them as usual and Miss Milan arrived about twenty minutes late, they…"

Davon leafed through the file as his eyes fell upon the photo of the three children.

The adorable trio had fine features and radiant smiles.Those bright eyes of theirs were communicative and sparkled with life.

Pure and delightful—they were like angels from heaven.The beauty of innocence!

The man oddly felt his own heart soften as he looked at the photograph of what was obviously someone else's kids.

It took a while before he spoke up, "Go to the Ministry of Transportation and dig out all the surveillance footage from Uplands. I'll handle this personally!"

"Understood!" Clyde said .

Martin took Violla to his own villa, and he summoned a doctor each for Violla and Finny.

Preoccupation with thoughts of the children and Mrs. Blake's compounded the woman's restlessness.

It was well past eight in the evening when Martin finally hit upon a breakthrough after he had mobilized his network of contacts. He eagerly brought his laptop to Violla. "Come take a look at this."

"What is it? Have you found them?" she said as she drew close.

Martin pulled up surveillance footage showing the children alighting from the school bus. They stood by the side of the road for around a couple of minutes, possibly to listen to the class teacher before the vehicle drove off.

The three children remained there as they talked amongst themselves before they departed in the direction of home.

"Ryan, Jason ,Eliana." Violla teared up when she saw her children.

"Let's watch on. There's more." He went on to play the next clip.

The first clip cut off halfway when the children were walking on the road.

The next one showed them walking hand in hand. They had stopped to fool around for a while when Eliana pointed towards the forested area nearby. Jason then started to run towards it.

Eliana and Ryan followed closely behind.

As these were captured on a traffic camera, there was no audio. Violla reckoned that the kids had gone in there because they were playful.

The footage ended there with the frame fixed on Ryan .

Violla asked anxiously, "Are there others?"

"That's all I'm able to gather," he replied. "I've inspected the site but have found no tracks there. That area isn't monitored either. There's a road on the other side though, but it seems like someone had erased the surveillance footage from there. I wasn't able to find any other leads."

"How could that be?" The color fell from the woman's face. "Unless…"

She had an ominous feeling that the children might have met an accident on that road.

'Could that be why the perpetrator had erased the footage?'

"Let's not try to get ahead of ourselves," Martin said as he held her hand. "I've inquired at all the hospitals in the City that I'm able to poke my nose into. There isn't any child admission that fits their description."

"Are there any hospitals to which you don't have access?" she inquired anxiously. "Is it Immaculate's?"

"More than that," Martin said with a furrow. "There's Amelia's Hospital under the management of the Roman Group. It's an exclusive private facility. Thus, I wasn't able to get anything out from there."

Violla felt a shiver down her spine when it occurred to her that her children's disappearance may have something to do with Davon.

"And also…" Martin continued, "I've not been able to locate that missing footage despite spending a considerable sum and drawing on some strong connections, which could mean…"

"That whoever has deleted the footage has more influence than you do?" Violla immediately caught on.

"That's right." The man nodded.

"It's really him…" Violla howled through gritted teeth. "Davon, you bastard!"

"But I don't understand why he would want to kidnap the kids?" Martin was perplexed. "Does he know about their parentage?"

"I don't know…" The woman replied in distress. "I wouldn't be as worried if he did."

If he knew, he might, at worst, want them back with him. Conversely, they would be in greater danger if he did not.

"Why would he try to harm them?" Martin asked. "You have to help me understand this so I would be better positioned to talk to Old Mr. Roman."

"Davon had mistakenly believed…" Violla looked at him in embarrassment. "That they are yours."

"What?" The man was quite astounded and took a moment to recover. "No wonder he's so hostile every time we crossed paths. He acts as though he wants me dead."

"I'm so sorry, Martin, for dragging you into this mess," Violla said in remorse.

"No. You did the right thing." Martin then took the time to analyze it critically.

"Although it was reasonable for him to be angered by something like this, a rational person would not hurt you out of jealousy, much less go out and kidnap your children. His actions proved that he's violent and paranoid to the extreme. You have done well to keep your children and yourself away from him."

"It was never my intention to use you as a shield." Violla explained. "He kept pressing when he found out about the existence of the kids. It was just coincidental that Mr. Black and you showed up at his place and led him to the wrong conclusion about you. I had no choice but to go with the flow then, but I really tried to distance myself to avoid implicating you. Unexpectedly, his misunderstanding has only deepened since, so much so that it gave you distress every single time. I am sorry, I truly am…"

"It doesn't matter," Martin replied nonchalantly. "There wasn't much he could do beyond hitting me in the face. However, you've had no end of trouble since getting mixed up with that man. It would be better if you steered clear of him."

"I wish I could, but what am I to do now?" Violla was slightly panicky. "Do you think he would harm the children?"

"Try to calm down first. I'm going to call old Mr. Roman right away," Martin said as he got onto his feet. "Stay home and rest up. I'll call as soon as I have news."

"I'm coming with you." Violla tugged at him. "I can't rest easy until I see my children."

"Alright." He held her tightly. "Put on an extra layer. I'll wait for you outside."

"Okay."

On board the Rolls-Royce Phantom, Davon frowned as he viewed the clip on his tablet.

He had managed to get his hands on the security footage of the three children ahead of Martin. Besides, he found out one of the kids was hospitalized after being hit by D'barl's driver.

It was Davon who issued instructions to have the last clip erased, which was why Martin was not able to access it.

Davon was making his way towards Amelia Hospital.

"Never would I have expected that the child involved in the accident was Miss Milan's," Cruze said cautiously. "If she were to find out the truth, I fear there might be more misunderstandings to be ."

"As though she hasn't had enough of those already," Davon said coldly. "All things considered, it wouldn't make that much of a difference. The important thing is to keep the child's identity from Grandpa."

"Understood!" Cruze only realized now the depth of Davon's feelings for Violla. Davon probably opted to hide things from the old patriarch to keep the possibility of a future between Violla and himself together alive.

"Information sent from the hospital, Mr. Roman." He passed along the hospital's report on Jason and Eliana before he gave Davon an overview.

"The one who was struck is Jason the second youngest. He suffered a mild concussion, a fracture on his left ankle, and multiple abrasions. He has recovered consciousness this morning."

"The youngest is Eliana. Her tonsil was inflamed, probably due to all the crying when she saw her brother hurt. The fever she had subsided over the night. The eldest boy, Ryan is fine."

He continued, "After the incident, Old Mr. Roman had been overseeing things himself at the hospital, and only left at midnight. He was around eight this morning and even stayed around to keep the children company."