Nana was reading the papers over and over again until her eyes started to hurt.
Liu Jinhai will have the complete custody of Liu Jian and Liu Nian. Mrs. Liu Nana, whatsoever, will have no right over them.
Those words endlessly hovered in her mind. It felt as if her brain stopped functioning.
No right over them?
She looked at Jinhai in a daze.
“What is this?”
Jinhai said, “Exactly what you are reading. Should I clarify it more?” He smiled and leaned in closer to her face. “It means my little wife, that I am taking the twins with me. Their custody now belongs to me. They will live with only me. If you don’t agree to come back with me, you will never see Jian and Nian again. I won’t let you.”
Nana was stupefied. She blankly looked at the man standing in front of her.
She said in disbelief. “This is impossible…you cannot do this. You will be taking Jian and Nian with you…”
“Yes. I will.”
The file fell from Nana’s hands. In a fit of rage, she clutched Jinhai’s collar.
“You-“
“Ssshhh. Our children are sleeping. Do you want to wake them up?”
Nana’s jaw tightened, and with great difficulty, she tried to control the storm in her heart. It took all of her strength not to flip out.
“What do you think you are doing!? I am their mother! Who do you think you are to take them away from me?”
Jinhai calmly said, “Why not? Am I not their father? I have the right to live with them too. I don’t want to live a lonely life without neither you nor them. So, I decided why not take the children? You are refusing me anyway.”
Nana couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.
“I disagree!”
Jinhai chuckled. “Your disagreement means nothing. I have already drafted the agreement, which will take effect tomorrow.”
Nana’s chest heaved up and down. “You cannot do this! I didn’t agree with this, and I didn’t sign any papers! You cannot take them away from me!”
Jinhai stared at her for a few moments before he burst out into laughter. “You are so naïve, Nana. Do you think I, Liu Jinhai, need you to sign any papers to get my work done?”
Nana widened her eyes.
Jinhai whispered in her ear. “See, this is the time when power and money come into good use. And Liu Jinhai doesn’t lack any of it.”
Nana pushed him away from her and raised her hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist midway.
“You! How can you stoop so low!”
Jinhai narrowed his eyes. He pinched her chin and forced her to look at him. “What do you mean by that? Didn’t I ask you so nicely before to come back with me? But you didn’t listen to me. So, I had to pull my last card.”
Nana angrily laughed with tears in her eyes. “So, you had already planned this long ago.”
“Since the time I had my first conversation with you after you woke up. The agreement was my backup plan in case you failed to understand my sincerity.”
“Liu Jinh-“
“baaa…”
Nian mumbled in his sleep and shifted in the crib as his brows furrowed with the noises.
Nana toned down. She tried to break free her hand, but Jinhai had tightly held onto it.
“You are crossing your limits, Jinhai! You said yourself when the twins were born that they will live with me. Then how can you do this to me?”
Jinhai shrugged. “That was then. This is now. Times change, and so does tactics. I didn’t want to resort to this, but you left me with no choice.”
“Me?” Nana looked at him, stunned. “Do you think I want to make these choices? Do you think that I am doing this on purpose to live separately from you? If you hadn’t lied to me again and again, then do you think I would be forced to decide this!?”
Jinhai kept quiet. “Whatever it is, but this is the truth that I will be taking the twins tomorrow.”
“No. You cannot snatch them away from me! I-I am their mother…” she trembled and clenched the sheet in her fists.
“Don’t cry, Nana.” Jinhai wiped the tears. “I am not snatching them away from you. I am just putting forth a condition. If you want to live with them, then you have to come with me. If you return, then I won’t stop you from meeting them.”
Nana burst out in tears. “You are threatening me.”
Jinhai’s heart shook to watch her cry, but he didn’t budge. This time, by hook or by crook, he wanted her to come back.
Jinhai smiled. “Whatever you wish to call it. I already didn’t want to let you go the first time you said you wanted to live with your parents. Remember? Outside the beach?”
How could Nana forget that? That was the first time she saw such a dark and possessive side of Jinhai that sent shivers down her spine. She had already assumed that he would be forcibly taking her back to Liu villa, but at the last moment, he didn’t.
Jinhai squinted his gaze. He pulled her into his embrace as he wrapped his hands around her waist.
Nana stiffened and resisted as much as she could, but she felt tired. Jinhai ignored her protests and continued. “I listened to you the first time. I let you go. Am I not a good husband? But that doesn’t mean that I will always entertain your decisions.”
Nana froze.
“I let you do what you wanted the first time, but not every time, especially if it even remotely concerns about our separation. So this time, no. You are coming back to me.”
Nana said, “And you don’t feel the least bit guilty about using Jian and Nian?”
Jinhai faintly smiled. “Am I not already a villain in your eyes? I gave the most cruel punishment to Suyin, I fooled you and slept with you in Chen’s banquet, and I used your pregnancy to make you marry me. What else could possibly make me more of a villain? I have already crossed all the lines. I don’t mind crossing one more.”
