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Chapter 18

A/N: In the first half of this chapter, we learn (just a bit) why Isla Isari has become so emotionally cold and "crazy". In other words, something about her suffering!

It's Sunday night and Isko is lying awake in his bed. He has a headache and simply can't turn off his thoughts, which have been going round in circles since Saturday night. His boss had voluntarily and smilingly left the villa with these men on Saturday night and ordered Isko to stay at home and ordered two of her bodyguards to keep an eye on him and report everything he does to her.S he no longer trusts him at all, which worries Isko greatly. 

The fact that his boss no longer has even the slightest trust in him became apparent a few days before Saturday evening. He once again had to serve her physically in her bed, but was sent back to his room immediately after the act. She usually insisted that he stay with her for at least another half hour, if not the whole night. She often talked to him after the sex and occasionally shared her thoughts with him. And on rare occasions, she even let him in on a secret or two about herself.

For example, he knew that his boss's birthday wasn't on Saturday. Her birthday is in December. December 12 to be precise. She had confided this to him a few years ago and since then she had taken him to a restaurant on her birthday, where they ate together and celebrated her birthday. And he also knows from her that she was married twice and that she didn't marry by choice either time. It was thanks to the fact that she told him how these marriages came about that he hadn't simply snapped her neck on one of those nights when he had to sleep with her.

He didn't doubt for a moment that the stories she told him about her marriages were in any way fabricated. He remembered well how she put her head on his chest, let one hand circle on his stomach and told him that she was only 14 years old when she had to marry the 67-year-old village chief of her village. She was wife number 7!

Her parents, she told him, were overjoyed that the village chief wanted to marry her. He gave them 6 cows and 2 goats. The wedding was celebrated throughout the village and everyone was happy for her. Only she wasn't happy at all. She was afraid and disgusted by the old man. Her wedding night was the worst thing she had been able to imagine at the time. 

One year after her wedding, she gave birth to her first child. A daughter. But because it was a girl and not a boy, she was punished. The head wife and the other concubines came into her room, tore her daughter from her arms, took her jewelry and clothes and locked her in her room. They sold her daughter to a couple from abroad. She never heard from her again. 

After another year, she gave birth to her second child. Another daughter. They took her away again, sold her abroad and took everything she had. All she had left was the dress she was wearing and the bed in her room. But she didn't care about any of that. She had had two children and both had been taken away from her. But the shame of having had two daughters and no son also had an advantage. Her husband lost interest in her.

One day, when Isla Isari had just turned 19 and was only a shadow of her former self, strangers came to the village. They were businessmen from America who wanted to ask the village chief for permission to set up an oil drilling rig near the village. While they were negotiating with each other, Isla Isari had to serve them. Bringing them drinks and food, massaging their hands and feet and allowing them to be touched.

Later that evening, the men came into her room with her husband. The village chief explained that she now belonged to one of the men. A greasy fat guy who stank of sweat, cigars and alcohol. He had sold her to him. Then the village chief performed a small ceremony that married the foreigner to Isla Isari. And that very night, her new husband brutally attacked and raped her. The next day, they took her away tied to her new husband and covered in bruises.

They took her to a large house in America, which was located by a river. Her new husband handcuffed her to the bed in her new bedroom for over a week. Several times a day, he or his friends attacked her, beat and raped her, robbing her of any will to live. It was only thanks to an old woman who worked in the house that she didn't give up completely.

The old woman advised her to pretend that she liked it when her husband made love to her. She should moan, kiss him and ask him to be gentle with her. Isla Isari did this and her husband became kinder and gentler. He untied her and she was allowed to move freely around the house.

Even his friends were no longer allowed to touch her. All she had to do was pretend to love her new husband so that he would allow her to do more and more things. After a month, she was even allowed to leave the house and go for walks around the grounds. He took her into town and bought her nice dresses, jewelry and shoes. 

After a year and a half, she gave him a son. He gave him the name Michael and loved his son more than anything. Just as he had begun to love and adore Isla Isari. But the more he loved and adored her, the more jealous he became. Again and again he accused her of cheating on him and flirting with all the men she saw. He started beating her again, threatening to kill her, locking her in the house again and violently attacking her again and again.

One day, when her son was just three months old, she had just put her son to bed when he grabbed her by the hair, dragged her through the house and pulled her into the bedroom, where he first beat her up and then brutally raped her. This time he had taken it too far and her life was hanging by a thread. Wavering between life and death, Isla Isari didn't even realize that her husband, believing she was dead, threw her into the river to dispose of her.

She had been floating in the river for perhaps a few hours when a woman pulled her out and took her home. She nursed Isla Isari, who fought for her life until she escaped death. Then the gray-haired old woman took care of her and taught her how to control her emotions and fight back. She learned from her not to let anyone beat, rape or humiliate her again. But above all, she learned how to make her body speak for her and use it to wrap others around her finger so that they would do whatever she wanted.

This knowledge about his boss made it difficult for Isko to kill her himself. Even though she had done so much to him and still forced him to have sex, he felt sorry for her. She was abused, raped, lost three children and more than once fought for her own survival. No matter how much Isko hated her, he could not kill her himself. Because he felt sorry for her.

But now he wondered whether it was right to let her live. Because she had lost her trust in him. And he knew that the people who lost her trust disappeared at some point and somehow never reappeared. And he didn't want to be one of those people. He wanted to live. Yet, as he knew only too well, he had not been able to hurt her. Worried and still with a splitting headache, he finally fell asleep and didn't wake up until noon on Monday.

Zhan, Yibo and Sia sat in the conference room and ate the lunch they had ordered. Today they had noodle soup, salad and sushi. Sia told Yibo about her wedding and asked him lots of questions, which Yibo was more than happy to answer. Meanwhile, Zhan was lost in thought and had to think again about the fact that Yibo had called him cute. At this thought, a pleasant tingling sensation ran through his stomach, making him smile.

And hadn't Yibo's behavior when Zhan talked about Isko been kind of strange? Could it be jealousy? Zhan wondered, but didn't really believe it and didn't want to get his hopes up and have them dashed. After all, he had sworn not to get his hopes up. He wanted to remain realistic. And realistically speaking, a relationship with Yibo probably wouldn't stand a chance anyway. After all, as a secret agent and idol, he had no time for anything else. And he was only here with Zhan because he stayed by his side as an agent and protected him, not because he liked Zhan and wanted to be with him.

His thoughts led him on to Yibo's mission and the question of what this woman was up to? He wished he had a mastermind who could predict what this woman was planning next. And of course it would also be good if he knew what she had done so far. Why did she do all the things she was accused of? 

And then Zhan wondered what Agent Nax was hiding? Why was the agent, as Yibo himself told him, behaving so strangely and outside her norm, which were so alien to Yibo and his colleagues? Yibo had told Zhan that Agent Nax was more like a robot, never going from her path, which apparently always went straight ahead for her, and always sticking to her well-thought-out and well-planned plans.

"Boss?" Sia asked, snapping Zhan out of his thoughts.

"Yeah? What is it?" Zhan asked, confused.

"Are you still going to eat that or do you want it gone?"

Zhan looked at his plate, which had two pieces of sushi on it, which he had taken apart without realizing it, but hadn't touched. "Um, I'm full."

"What's wrong with you Zhan?" Yibo wanted to know.

"Nothing. I was just thinking. I had all sorts of things going through my head that kept graphic designers busy."

"All right then. Who wants a fortune cookie?" Yibo asked, holding the three fortune cookies in front of him. Zhan and Sia wanted one.

Sia stared at the small, narrow piece of paper from the fortune cookie and read aloud with a laugh: "If you think you can find valuable life wisdom on a small piece of paper in a 5-cent fortune cookie, you've got a problem."

Yibo read out his note: "Everything you touch turns to gold!" Zhan and Sia immediately agreed.

Zhan now also read out his note, laughing: "Come to the dark side. We have cookies!"

"You stay right here where you are." Yibo said and laughed as he read through Zhan's note.

Sia was about to say something else when the phone rang. She rushed to the phone and Zhan looked at Yibo: "I have an idea of what we could do tonight."

"And what?" Yibo asked.

"We'll go to the place by the river where this arm was found."

"Why?"

"Well, we'll follow the river and see where it takes us."

"Yes, fine. But why?"

"You said that I'm allowed to look into everything now. And you said that I'm now part of the team for as long as the investigation continues. And I'd like to see it all for myself. I want to know where the river leads, how far it is from this woman's villa and how she could have disposed of this arm, or perhaps the whole body, in the river from the villa. We can't really go into the villa. Although that would probably make more sense, considering the acrid smell of chlorine and bleach coming from the basement door."

"Wait a minute. I agree that we can do our own investigation. But, what do you mean about the basement door and the smell? You haven't even told me that yet."

"Not?" Asked Zhan.

"Um, no. I would know, Zhan."

"Well, when I was in the kitchen, I saw a door that probably leads to the basement. I hadn't quite reached the door when I caught the acrid smell of chlorine and bleach. And I don't assume that these strong products were used for normal cleaning or washing. Because you clean completely different things with it." 

"And what do you think?"

"Well, I've had to use these products before." Zhan said, explaining how he first came into his apartment and noticed the stench of a corpse and only got rid of it after using these strong cleaning products. "So my guess is, if she really is behind the disappearance and death of this businessman, this woman probably did it down there in the basement. I had read up on how long it takes for a corpse to start smelling of decay. And the answer was that it varies. But with some dead bodies it happens very quickly. On average, it takes one to two days for the decomposition process to start and for the smell of decay to develop."

"Okay, I'm aware of that. So you're assuming that she killed him down there and stored his body there for a few more days, creating the stench of decomposition, which she removed with the cleaning products?"

"Yes. Or that she used it to remove the blood. In any case, I'm 90% sure that if you used luminol there, everything would glow brightly."

"Mhhh, I see. Unfortunately, we can't get a search warrant just on suspicion."

"I know. That's why I'm interested to know if the villa is near the river."

"But we could also check that on a map."

"Sure. But I'd prefer to see it on site. Especially as these little sleeves that go off the river aren't on the maps. They're too small for that."

"In that case, I agree with you. As far as I'm concerned, we can go and see for ourselves later."

"Okay." Zhan said and then quickly changed the subject when Sia came back. She told him that her fiancé had called her and wanted to know if she had eaten lunch and what she had eaten.

"He's always worried about me and wants to make sure I'm okay." She explained. Zhan knows that Sia developed an eating disorder due to an illness as a child and has had to be very careful and watch her diet very carefully ever since. So he thought it was very sweet and thoughtful of him to call her and ask if she had eaten.

They stayed in the conference room and talked until the end of the lunch break. Then they got back to work. And since Yibo had decided not to just sit around and to support Zhan, he took care of sorting through all the emails Zhan had received over the past two years. A job that Sia was supposed to do, but was happy to hand over to Yibo.

A/N: We will learn more about Isla Isari as the story progresses, as this is part of the story and part of understanding why she does what she does. I hope you don't mind. It's just a part of the story that I think belongs in it.

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