The woman had let go of her husband by now, so, at last the brown haired man wasn't suffocating, instead, he could focus all his attention onto his wife and try to help her calm down.

Though they both knew that it wouldn't be easy.

"Why is it not that simple?" Martin cluelessly asked to which Alice took a deep breath in, and the room fell silent.

She was preparing to explain something important, something that would change the course of the conversation.

The pause before they spoke seemed to last an eternity, creating a sense of suspense that filled the room.

Nevertheless, eventually the blonde haired woman began to speak:

"I can't just call the police on Tom because my whole family works in that damn business!" She sighed hopelessly. "My mom, her lover, Felix, his girlfriend, and a bunch more. So they will be all exposed if I call the police, and I can't let any of them get caught, they're innocent."

"Innocent?" Martin's voice sounded surprised. "I don't mean to offend anyone in your family my love, but if they're involved in what Tom is doing then-"

"Well at least they don't have blood on their hands like he does!" Alice cut him off, a bit frustrated still, but with the help of a few deep breaths she managed to calm herself down.

"They simply want to make some money." Her voice became quieter. "Plus..." now the woman hesitated to continue.

Alice looked away from her husband in order to break their eye contact, however, Martin being Martin couldn't have ignored his wife's unusual behavior.

"Plus?" The man's voice questioned as he stepped closer to her. "Plus what, my dear?"

"I-I c-can't-"

"Come on." He cut her off, stepping so close that Alice couldn't have even escaped her husband in any way.

Essentially, the brown haired man had her cornered and everything was to his advantage, they were both aware of this.

Though Martin didn't want to seem threatening, so, the moment he spotted that bit of fear in his wife's eyes, the man lowered himself to such a point at which he would be shorter than her and looking up at the woman.

"What the-" Alice was about to begin, except she got interrupted before she could've finished

"So I can hear better when you're telling me stuff." Martin explained with his usual smile widely present on his face.

The blonde haired woman couldn't have truly said no to him even if she would've wanted to, his eyes, his face, his look, it all made her feel understood.

Alice knew he was the most trustable person in her life, therefore, there wasn't much of a reason as to why she should hold back this information.

"Well..." she sighed. "If I'd call the police they might also take me away because I too used to work in that business, in fact, I still occasionally borrow some money."

"What?" Martin's expression had turned confused, now his eyes almost judgmentally stared at his wife, or maybe Alice was simply overthinking everything.

However, the young woman's mind didn't get eased in any way when her husband asked:

"You still take money from that place?"

She became even more anxious to answer.

"Y-y-yes." Alice hesitantly stuttered. "Why?"

For some unexplainable reason she was scared, terrified even.

Maybe it was her past, but something in the woman made her feel threatened by the unhappy expression on the man's face.

"Alice." His voice was stern and cold, the brown haired man now also stood up and became much taller than her, it intimidated Alice even more. "We are perfectly well off financially aren't we?"

"Y-y-yes." The woman slowly began to cry in a whisper. "B-b-but a little extra doesn't hurt."

Her whole body was shaking by the time she had uttered that, and obviously Martin too became aware of it.

He tried his best to remain calm regardless of totally freaking out on the inside, because to the brown haired man the truth his wife had just confessed to him absolutely blew his mind.

"Its illegal!" He couldn't help emphasize with a louder voice than his usual. "That business is a criminal business!"

"Oh stop it Martin!" Alice tried to brush it off. "You're too soft!"

"I-..." he didn't expect such a statement from the woman in front of him.

The man felt a bit offended by her word choice since he only wanted the best for her and was doing his own best to stay as understanding as possible, but now she wasn't doing the same.

So when Martin continued speaking, he didn't hold back anymore.
"Maybe I'm just-...not insane!" The man spat.

"Shut up!" Alice crossed her arms in a grumpy manner. "You are stupid too, just in a different way."

"Whatever, but why did you even work there?"

The woman went silent in shame to that question.

Suddenly, she tilted her head down towards the floor and awkwardly fidgeted with her hands as a distraction.

"Alice?" Martin's voice attempted to get her attention. "Please tell me, I promise I'll understand all that you have to say."

"I-..." her voice slowly began. "Well there's no nice way to put it." She squeezed her eyes shut for a split second from the embarrassment she felt surrounded this topic.
"I-I- I took advantage of my appearance and used it to get myself money from men."

By the time Alice had finished speaking her eyes became filled with tears and the blonde woman had to look away again.

It couldn't be described how guilty and ashamed of herself she felt, as if everything would've been her own fault, ignoring the fact that in reality her younger self didn't have much of a choice.

On the other hand, while Alice was on the verge of sobbing, her husband didn't feel repelled at all by what she had said, in fact he wanted to help her now and make sure his wife wouldn't blame herself for anything at all.

"My love." Martin stepped closer to her and placed his palm on the side of her face in order to be able to make her look at him. "Don't worry, you don't need to feel ashamed-"

"B-b-but it was so low of me-"

"I assume you had a reason though, didn't you?"

"Well-...yes-...I had to."

"You see." The man gave his wife a reassuring kiss on the forehead. "It's okay, I understand. Everyone has desperate times in their life."

"I guess." Alice tried to make a small smile appear on her face.

She was extremely thankful for having such an understanding and loving husband like Martin.

He barely ever got mad, instead the brown haired man usually tried to solve all their problems or difficulties no matter how complicated they were.

Needless to say that now, just like usually, he was his most caring self.

"Thank you." The blonde woman returned a kiss. "For everything."

"Of course darling."

In the meantime while Martin and Alice got a little too carried away with their kisses, the other part of the Agreste family had managed to collect themselves from their previous shared crying session.

Nathalie, Gabriel and Adrien eventually finished their dinner in peace and now all three of them were exhausted, lying in bed.

The two adults sat in their room in complete silence, yet the tension in the air only became thicker by each and every passing second.

Though neither of them decided to say or do anything about the uncomfortable atmosphere, the designer just continued anxiously drawing his new collection's designs while his fiancée read over some emails, also fully filled with stress.

However, in contrast to the two grown ups, their teenager couldn't stay silent.

The blond boy had been talking to his floating cat friend for the past hour about all of his troubles.

Even if Plagg wasn't the most patient kwami ever who would listen to his owner's true feelings, he managed to seem somewhat understanding while he had his unlimited supply of cheese to munch on.

"So now I think my sister's kids have gone missing!" Adrien exclaimed with a heavy amount of frustration built up in him. "I don't know what monster would do such a thing! I mean can you believe that Plagg?!?"

"Wow." The little cat shook his head to agree with whatever his human friend said, for a moment he almost seemed to genuinely sympathize with his owner, but it didn't take long before the kwami felt the need to make a cheese joke about this serious situation:
"You see Adrien...kids are like cheese."

"What?"

"Some weird people love them and they're expensive, so those weird people try to steal them for free."

"Plagg!" The boy shouted angrily. "That's disgusting! Plus I'm actually very scared for Alice. Can you imagine losing your two little vulnerable kids?"

"Alright alright, I'm sorry." The black cat apologized. "However, I can't help much, I'm only useful for making you..." Plagg had slowed down speaking when he realized a wide grin began to appear on Adrien's face.

It looked like something such as an idea would've popped up in the boy's mind.

Unfortunately or fortunately enough, the small kwami too had managed to guess what his owner must've been thinking.

"Chat Noir-" Plagg's face became filled with fear as he finished his sentence.

"Exactly!" Adrien almost jumped from what seemed to be excitement.

"Oh no."

"You're a genius Plagg!" The teenager laughed.
"My 'Adrien' self is useless to help this issue, but my 'Chat Noir' superhero self can easily find the kids and even beat up the bad guys!"

"Adrien that's a dumb idea!" The kwmai tried to sound as convincing as he possibly could.

He already knew that when Adrien was angry at someone chaos was bound to happen, in addition to that, Plagg was also very aware of how strong powers he could give to the boy.

Therefore, chaos mixed with magical powers was never going to turn out well.

"Remember how you're not supposed to use the miraculous to your own advantage!" The kwami desperately tried to warn his friend, but Adrien already looked like his mind couldn't be changed about what he wanted.

"This is for my family." The teenager spat before pushing the floating cat away from himself.

"The last time I went with you to visit family was when we saw Felix and that didn't end well!"

"I'll be more careful this time Plagg! I've got experience."

"Oh god, 'I've got experience' is never to be believed when a teenage boy says it."

"Shut up!"

"Even worse."

Now Adrien had had enough of his kwami talking back to him, so before the cat could've held him back any further, the boy quickly said his transformation words:

"Plagg claws out!"

With that the teenager had transformed into his superhero self and was out of the mansion in a blink of an eye.

Gabriel and Nathalie of course had not noticed this at all, so just like before, they simply sat in their rooms, all silent, but fully stressed.

"My love?" Suddenly, Gabriel broke the quietness.

"Yes?" Nathalie answered with a trembling voice.

"H-how-...h-how are you?"

"Terrible...I can't stop worrying. I-I-I wish I could h-help o-or at least do something-" the woman was about to begin sobbing right when the grey haired man beside her unexpectedly placed his hand on hers.

"Nath it's okay." He whispered with an unsure voice. "I-I know it's not a great time to try and lighten the mood, but you shouldn't torture yourself too much with this thought.."

"That's impossible. I even scared Adrien at the dinner table!" Guilt broke the assistant's heart. "I-I swear I don't mean to act like this, but I just can't stop thinking about what a monster Tom is." Nathalie felt hopeless.

She didn't know what to do or how to act.

All she was certain about was that she had to apologize to the teenager.

If only she knew...

To be continued-