She's My Sleeping Pill-Chapter 960: UNTITLED PAGE

With her daughter finally asleep, Cayenne took her place next to Zeki. While the rest of the house felt like it was vibrating with chaos, Zeki was unnervingly still. He kept flipping pages with mechanical precision, his eyes never moving across the lines of text. The faint, crystalline remnants of tears were the only proof he’d broken at all. He held himself together with a brittle kind of strength, terrified that if he let a single word out, the whole family’s composure would shatter along with his.

Cayenne picked her son and placed him on her lap. "Thank you for being strong," Cayenne muttered as she hugged her son. "You are smart and strong, but you don’t have to shoulder the world. You can seek attention. You can cry as loud as you can. You can be naughty. You can just be a child. Let us worry the world for you."

Understanding what his mother said, Zeki hugged her back in silence, her reassurance and comfort brought him peace, and eventually, he fell asleep.

In the living room, the air remained thick, charged with a tension that wouldn’t settle even as they waited for Dr. Rivera to arrive. No one held a grudge—the tragedy of the doctor’s personal life was well-known, and Luiz was clearly just collateral damage in a messy game of chance. Yet, a cold friction rubbed against Stefan’s instincts.

He stared at the abductor’s ransom demand, the paper feeling heavier than it should. It didn’t sit right. Why use Luiz as a lure for a man who’s completely unrelated to him?

"It’s too neat," Stefan murmured, his eyes narrowing. "Things aren’t this simple. I think we’re missing something."

Criiing!! Criiing!!

The piercing ring of the telephone shattered the silence, jolting everyone from the tension.

Lucia lunged for the phone before the second ring could finish. As she listened, the tight mask of worry on her face shattered, replaced by a radiant, tearful glow. The caller hadn’t even finished their sentence before Lucia was breathless, jumping with a frantic, rhythmic joy that shook the room.

She sprinted to Cayenne, seizing her hands with a grip that was both trembling and tight. "Miss Yen! It’s Luiz! He’s been found. He’s at Senyu Medical Hospital—we have to go, now!"

A vacuum of silence followed, the words hanging in the air like something too fragile to touch. Then, the dam broke. The room erupted into a blur of motion as everyone lunged for keys, coats, and phones, fueled by a single, desperate heartbeat: get to the hospital.

As the hospital neared, the wall Kyle had built around himself finally crumbled. Relief hit him with a physical force. For days, his focus at work had been a hollow shell, his mind constantly drifting back to his brother. He was grateful that St. Francis Academy had granted him the grace to step away and anchor himself with his family during the storm.

Beside him, Jonas remained an enigma of silence. Yet, Cayenne knew the truth. She had caught glimpses of him through a cracked bedroom door—the man she once thought unbreakable, kneeling in the dark, whispering to a God he rarely spoke to. It was the first time she had ever seen her stepfather look truly fragile, his strength stripped away by helplessness.

Miles away, Clarisse had been fighting her own battle. They had tried to shield her from the kidnapping, especially since it happened so soon after Luiz’s visit to her home, but the headlines had traveled faster than their secrets. By day, she maintained a stoic front at the university, but by night, the facade shattered into silent, tearful prayers. Even her father, sensing the cracks in her composure, had softened his grip, allowing her those desperate visits to the Dumrique home.

But the vigil wasn’t theirs alone. Beyond the walls of their home, a digital sea of millions kept watch, their collective prayers a constant hum for Luiz’s safe return.

***

The woman who had found Luiz sat on a cold plastic chair outside the emergency room, the smell of antiseptic thick in her lungs. Her knuckles were white, hands clasped so tightly in prayer they trembled. When the shadow of a police officer fell over her, the comfort of her prayer vanished. The questions were sharp, clinical, and heavy with accusation. Despite being the one who had sped him to safety, she was now a person of interest. In the eyes of the law, it was a grim but necessary math: better to detain a thousand innocent souls than to let a single monster walk free.

She met the officer’s scrutiny with steady, honest answers, detailing every moment from the second she spotted Luiz. To clear any lingering doubt, she didn’t just answer—she offered up the truth in high definition, insisting that the officer take the footage from her dashcam. She had nothing to hide, and she wanted the camera to speak for her.

Seeing her resolute determination to help, the police officer’s attitude soften. "We’ll call you again once we secure the warrant to get hold of your dashcam footage. It might be tomorrow morning."

"Got it, officer," she said and gave a light bow.

The officer left in a hurry to return to the station and continue with the investigation.

The hallway fell into a brief, hollow silence—until a new sound cut through the antiseptic air. Heavy, frantic footsteps thundered toward the emergency room. Each strike against the linoleum echoed like a frantic heartbeat, pulling the driver’s gaze toward the swinging double doors. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Amidst the rush of frantic bodies, the first thing that anchored the driver’s gaze was Kyle’s feet. The sight was jarringly absurd: he was wearing a mismatched pair of slippers that looked like they belonged in a different world. On his left foot sat a small, cartoonish Minnie Mouse, while his right was buried in a clump of garish, bright yellow fur. The whimsical footwear looked hauntingly out of place against the cold, clinical gleam of the hospital floor.

"Lorraine?" Kyle uttered with questioning gaze. He hadn’t seen her for a very long time. "Were you the one who brought my brother here?"

"Yes. He suddenly jumped out in the middle of the road and I almost crashed. God, I was really startled when I finally recognize his face."

"It’s not the time for reunion," Kath interrupted infuriatingly. "How’s Luiz?"

"Ah, she’s jealous" everyone thought amidst the chaos.