Trapped with a Lawyer

When Samuel got to the seaside, firefighters had stopped searching the sea.

Ella had been found but she had no pulse and was not breathing.

Eric informed Samuel the bad news, causing Samuel to punch him on the face. Though angry at him, Eric did not show it. He sent Samuel to see Ella's corpse.

At that moment, few people knew about what had happened to Ella. It was better to keep it secret.

Samuel mindlessly walked to the seaside. He pushed his way through the firefighters and looked at the body lying on the ground.

She still wore the ancient costume from the play. Her body was pale and swollen because of the seawater.

For a moment, he felt like his soul had been sucked away. He crouched before Ella and reached down to touch her face.

Her face was cold, which made his eyes bloodshot. His heart hurt as if someone had plucked and torn it from him.

Tears began to well up in his eyes. He murmured, "Ella, Ella..."

The crowd stared at him, slack-jawed.

Samuel was Ella's ex-husband, was it necessary for him to shed tears like this?

Their relationship seemed to be complicated.

The crowd whispered. However, after Samuel fought back tears, he pulled her hand before his eyes and took a close look at her wrist.

Then he turned over her body. The crowd was confused by his actions.

Then he uncovered her body and found there was nothing on her pale waist.

"This is not Ella!" he shouted.

He said it confidently making the crowd more confused.

He looked at Eric who was more puzzled. Samuel said firmly, "This is not Ella."

Ella had a tiny mole on her wrist. The mole could not be corroded by seawater in a day.

That was impossible!

Even if someone contradicted that it was possible

How would one explain the lack of a round birthmark that was usually on Ella's waist?

There were other questions. 'Who was this lady pretending to be Ella?

Where did Ella go?'

Questions run through one of the crowd.

The corpse was carried away by the legal examiner. Samuel went back to his car, lost in thought.

It was obvious that Ella was in danger, even though the corpse was not her.

It was uncertain how long Ella had been missing. According to one of her workmates, she was with the crew the previous night when they were filming the play.

So Ella was captured last night and someone else was thrown into the sea.

'Who had taken Ella away?'

Samuel made a few calls to check whether Ella had been seen or to get some clues about where Ella may have gone.

After making several calls, Samuel focused on who could have wished Ella dead.

Was it Catherine?

Emma?

Or someone in the crew?

He recalled an accident that had happened four years ago. Maybe both of the accidents were engineered by the same person.

The person involved in that accident was never found. Samuel felt frustrated that Ella was in such a circumstance again.

Thinking of this, he brutally hit the steering wheel. The horn sound gave the crowd quite a scare.

The sound also pulled him together. He took out his phone and dialed Catherine's number. "Sam, what's up?"

Her voice was indifferent as usual.

"Where are you?"

His cold voice scared her. She replied apprehensively, "I am at the company. What happened?"

Samuel could not detect any abnormality from her voice. He hung up. However, he sent a man to get surveillance video of Catherine's residential area, from the previous night until today in the morning. Then, he drove off to look for Ella.

Suddenly, his phone rang, displaying an unknown number.

Samuel sensed the call may be eccentric. He picked up the phone and pressed the record button.

"Hello, Mr. Shao."

The voice was unrecognizable and weird as if it had been filtered through sound processing.

"What's the matter?"

"Mr. Shao, it's me who has taken Ella. I'm calling you because I am so afraid that I may be sent to prison in the future."

It sounded like the caller was sobbing, it sounded horrible.

"Where is Ella?"

There was anxiety in his voice.

There was a long pause before the caller answered, "I have locked her up. If you promise me not to investigate this matter and blame it on me, I will tell you where she is."

That sounded reasonable.

Samuel pulled over and focused his mind on the call, "How is she?"

He thought the caller would deserve severe punishment if Ella was not okay.

"In the meantime, she is okay. But I'm scared, Mr. Shao. And I can't assure you that I will not do anything bad to her unless you let me off."

That scared him. The caller's voice was exceptionally strange, like from hell.

Samuel paid no attention to the voice, "Give me the address. If she is fine, I'll let you off the hook."

He was about to proceed to the address given but he stopped.

He thought the voice sounded beyond strange. He made a call and asked some men to follow him secretly before he set off.

It was in a suburban wasteland.

Meanwhile, Ella looked at the masked men. Only their eyes were exposed, "What do you want?"

With both hands tied behind her, she tried to calm herself.

The masked men looked at each other, "Let us do it quickly. Miss Jing has called him. We need to hurry up, or we will screw up the plan."

Miss Jing?

Ella recalled she had seen her back before she suffered a blackout.

She was not sure about it then, now it was very clear.

"This woman looks good. Let us have fun with her first, or we'll regret it later."

They got closer to Ella, which scared her. She tried to calm herself down, "Guys, let us talk about this. Do you need money?"

'Was it Samuel that Amber had called?'

All she could do now was only delay their actions.

However, watching her, the men ignored Ella's words and started to remove her clothes.

"Stop. Didn't they tell you that I'm suffering from a terrible disease?"

Ella shivered because of fear. She remembered what had happened to her four years earlier. She was grateful that she was clear-headed at that moment.

"A disease?

What kind of disease is it?"

One of them stopped and stepped back.

It worked. Ella hurriedly told them about the rumors on the Internet. "My name is Ella. I'm an actress. You may have seen me on TV.

With so much bad news about me on the Internet, you must know that I'm suffering from a terrible disease. Don't you?

They say that I slept my way up and become famous. Well, it's true."

Ella gave her best performance at that very moment, she acted as a poor and helpless woman.

"Yeah, I have seen it all over the Internet. You have a terrible sexually related disease?"

Another man stopped as well and stepped back.

"You are right. My ex-husband is to blame. He had a mistress and that was the reason I divorced him. I found another man."

Ella started to waffle.

Three of the men stopped. "Boss, her ex-husband is Samuel. I heard that he has a mistress. What she is saying must be true." "So we rush off without getting anything?

Sounds like a bad deal."

Suddenly, the man addressed as boss, nipped Ella's cheek with his rough fingers. 00000000☐☐☐☐☐☐☐