You're Just My Ex-Husband,My Lord-Chapter 266- abandon

This call was indeed what Bert had hoped for—it was Dave calling.

Dave was already on his way to the town. He had been too busy during the day, and the work he was dealing with only just finished now. He hadn’t even had dinner and immediately drove over.

No matter what, he couldn’t rest easy with Laurent and Bert being here, even though she had already said she was going back to her own place.

However, as soon as he got in the car, he received a call from Laurent’s mother.

On the other end of the line, Laurent’s mother said, 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Dave, Laurent still hasn’t come home. I just called her, but it was her client who answered the phone. She said Laurent had gone to print some documents. I feel something’s wrong, but since it was her client, I didn’t want to call again. I thought I should let you know and see if you could try calling her..."

Laurent hadn’t told her mother about the business with Bert, so Alex and Cassy had no idea about what Laurent and Dave had been through during this time.

As soon as Dave heard Cassy’s words, he sensed that something wasn’t right. After agreeing, he hung up the phone and quickly dialed Laurent’s number. With his Bluetooth headset on, his expression was cold and serious, his back stiff and straight, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, all revealing his nervousness.

His mind was involuntarily starting to imagine the worst possible scenarios, but he was also certain that none of them would make him give up on her.

In his heart, he silently swore that if Bert dared to hurt her, he would tear Bert apart!

Laurent’s phone kept ringing, but no one answered.

He relentlessly dialed again and again, and his heart became more and more anxious with each attempt.

Dave couldn’t imagine what he would do if something happened to Laurent. He felt like he might just kill Bert.

Meanwhile, inside the hotel, Bert sat leisurely in a chair, smiling as he watched Laurent’s phone continue to ring incessantly beside him.

He wanted to make Dave worry, suffer, and feel unbearable pain, so he deliberately avoided answering the phone.

In the bathroom, Laurent was on the verge of breaking down. She sat on the floor, hugging her head, tears streaming down her face, her eyes red from crying.

Dave couldn’t get through to her phone, and he must have been panicking and worrying desperately on the other end. Bert’s torture of Dave was, in effect, torturing her as well.

After a while, the room quieted down, and her phone stopped ringing.

However, the driver’s phone began to ring again. It seemed like Dave had contacted Matthew and got the driver’s number, trying to inquire about her situation.

But what no one had expected was that the driver, with such excellent skills, was also under Bert’s control. The driver’s phone continued ringing in the silent room for a while, and then Laurent’s phone rang again.

The driver’s phone was still unreachable. Dave was certain that something had happened to Laurent.

In his panic, he saw the highway service area ahead, swerved the car into it, got out to breathe a few deep breaths of fresh air, then smoked a cigarette. Only then did he manage to calm his frantic and fearful thoughts, before dialing Laurent’s number again.

When Bert felt like he had tortured Dave enough, he slowly answered the phone.

Dave didn’t speak immediately on the other end of the line. He held his breath and waited for Bert to speak first.

However, Bert remained silent as well. The two of them silently confronted each other across the phone line, until Bert finally broke the silence. He spoke with a smug, yet hateful smile.

"She’s here with me at the hotel, in my room. I can do whatever I want with her."

Bert intentionally made his words ambiguous, trying to provoke Dave on the other end.

Cold words slipped through Dave’s clenched teeth.

"You can try."

"Hah, Dave, what kind of attitude is that?" Bert’s tone showed his dissatisfaction with Dave’s cold demeanor.

"If you begged me right now, maybe I’d consider letting her go. But with that attitude of yours, I’m definitely not going to let her off the hook."

"No matter what you do to her, I won’t abandon her. That’s my attitude!"

After Dave said those few short, firm words, he hung up the phone without any hesitation.

Bert was furious on the other end of the line. Clearly, it was Dave who was in the passive position, the one who needed to beg and be fearful, yet Dave dared to hang up first?

After the few sentences exchanged, Bert had failed to provoke Dave into panic, as he had hoped, despite having Laurent in his grasp. Frustrated, Bert angrily threw Laurent’s phone onto the floor.

He then stormed toward the bathroom, opened the door, and yanked Laurent out of the room, roughly tossing her onto the floor outside. Laurent felt dizzy from the impact.

As she struggled to lift her head, she saw Bert towering over her. He was unbuttoning his shirt with a sinister expression on his face, a stark contrast to the gentle smile he usually wore.

"He said no matter what I do to you, he won’t abandon you? Fine, let’s see about that!"

Laurent was shocked that Dave had actually said such words about not abandoning her. At the same time, she was terrified of Bert’s behavior. Perhaps Dave’s words had given her some warmth and courage. She scrambled to get up from the floor, pressing herself against the wall behind her to protect her chest with her clothes, and shouted at Bert:

"Bert, if I hadn’t just bought you medicine and food, do you think you would have the strength to do this to me now?"

Her sudden outburst and her words caused Bert, who was losing control of his emotions, to calm down slightly. His hand froze mid-motion as he was unbuttoning his shirt, though his eyes remained dark and menacing as he glared at Laurent.

Laurent was fully committed now. She trusted her own judgment. While Bert could be unpredictable, he hadn’t completely lost all boundaries. And if she didn’t act boldly now, what other options did she have? She couldn’t just wait for Bert to actually do something to her, could she?

So she gathered her courage and continued:

"When you had your stomach problems downstairs, I could have walked away without a second thought, leaving you to fend for yourself in this unfamiliar place. I’ve known all along that you’ve been scheming to trap me, yet I still helped you in the end. And now you treat me like this? How dare you? Where is your conscience?"

Laurent deliberately brought up Daniel.

"If you really do something to me, do you think you father will ever forgive you in this lifetime?"

She blurted out all of this in one go. After she finished speaking, she felt weak all over, but still gritted her teeth and forced herself to hold on, refusing to show any hint of fear.

Bert didn’t make any other movements. He just glared at her with a dark, piercing look, as though he wanted to burn a hole through her face. After a long pause, he suddenly made a move. He stepped forward and grabbed her. Laurent, terrified and uneasy, was about to scream and struggle, but Bert threw her back into the bathroom and locked her in again.

She stumbled as she was thrown back in. She reached out to steady herself on the sink, barely avoiding a worse fall. However, she was incredibly relieved. At least her earlier words had worked. Bert hadn’t resorted to even more extreme actions.

As for Bert, after throwing Laurent back into the bathroom, he went to the living room, took another phone out of his briefcase, and started making a quiet phone call, giving instructions about something. But because his voice was so low, Laurent couldn’t hear what he was saying from inside the bathroom.

Bert had just been enraged by Dave’s calmness, which had only made him even angrier. After finishing his call, he glanced at the stomach medicine and the now-empty lunch box on the table. He had to admit that after taking the medicine and filling his stomach, his stomach did feel a lot better.

After hanging up with Bert, Dave immediately contacted Morrison and some of his other friends to help quickly locate the hotel where Bert was staying. Meanwhile, he increased his speed and rushed toward the town with all his might.

Dave had no other thoughts now. His mind was consumed by the words he had just said to Bert:

"No matter what happens to her, I will never abandon her."

For the first time, he understood the meaning of those four words: *no matter what, never give up.*

He had heard those words before, in books, on TV, or from the mouths of cultured people. But now he realized that no matter how others felt or talked about it, it was nothing compared to the real, personal experience of truly understanding it himself.

About half an hour later, Dave arrived at the town, and Morrison and the others had helped him find the name of the hotel where Bert was staying. He immediately drove there.

Bert hadn’t tried to hide his identity when checking in. He had openly used his passport to complete the registration process, so it was easy to find him. It seemed that he had no intention of concealing anything. His real goal appeared to be nothing more than provoking Dave.

While Dave was on his way to the town, he received another call from Laurent’s mother, asking about the result of his call to Laurent.

Dave chose to lie to them, speaking softly to reassure them.

"She’s just working overtime. I’m almost there. I’ll pick her up after work. Don’t worry about it."

Laurent was her parents’ only child, and Dave knew how precious she was to them. He chose to temporarily ease their concerns, not wanting them to be anxious.

The painful things, he decided, were his burden to bear alone.