Belonging (5) - Alex's POV

Luke's hands angrily trembled as he placed Rika inside the car. A faint aroma coming from her body revealed she was drugged to sleep. It began with a simple phone call, us checking up on her. Although the football stadium was poor, we watched the pathetic game in plastic seats. My ears were filled with annoying loud cheers, nasty smell coming from the vendor selling junk food. Luke's face was expressionless, showing he equally disliked this place. We only agreed to come to this place for Rika.

Rika actually believed these people were her family. Her unpaid caretakers in the third district who were barely related to her. I sighed as she mostly loved them since they awfully spoiled her. Whatever Rika asked for, they would give, not caring if it would be bad for her. It was annoying on our end as Rika would use them as a shield, her original intent of visiting them. However, when her caretakers agreed with us, she equally treated them as an enemy. I nearly scoffed when hearing from Luke that she wanted to become more independent.

This immature and spoiled girl wanted to become independent. Rika only used her brain whenever there was something she wanted like her waterpark. Otherwise, she was extremely disappointing, and needed a lot of attention and care. There was nearly no difference between her and a newborn baby. I would help Luke wake her in the mornings, a condition she was breaking since she wasn't inside our mansions for reversing the bans. In the latter half, Luke would put her to sleep every night before getting some free time for himself.

How could we trust someone like her? Leaving her in the care of her nanny, we reluctantly joined their family on an outing. The first call went fine, and Luke's face relaxed as we watched her roll around in his bed. But the second call was when we noticed she was outside, odd sounds of cars passing by, people chattering in and out, and some creaking like she was on a swing. She was totally at that playground she previously showed interest in. Maybe it was our mistake for trusting her nanny too much.

"Excuse me, we will unfortunately have to return to your house. Your wife let Rika out of the house," Luke rose from his chair.

"It's fine. Rika is fourteen, she can take care of herself. I wanted to take you two out since it looked like you needed some time to relax," Rika's caretaker revealed.

The next second, we all heard Rika desperately scream, background noises of people beginning to call the police. Luke didn't wait for his approval anymore, and dashed to our car to head towards Rika. I joined him as I punched in the location and adjusted the setting to maximize the speed. From the call, we knew Rika was with Ally, a person threatening us to take back the lawsuits. But a serial killer had somehow joined them, and was close to kidnapping Rika. As soon as we arrived at the playground, Luke instantly opened the car door, seeing Rika getting kidnapped in front of our eyes.

He pulled her away from the serial killer, and simultaneously kicked the gun away, leaving him weaponless. When the serial killer lunged to attack, I instantly kicked him away from them. In the act of self-defense, I made sure he wouldn't be able to rise from the ground, and targeted the pressure spots. Until I passed him over to the police, giving them a gist of what had happened before joining Luke. To solve the problem of the rights her horrible caretakers possessed, Luke called uncle inside the car.

"You can leave the rest of us. We can take their rights away when they visit us, but not now. We're bound by a contract from when we first took her away. However, you should know Rika equally belongs to us if not more than she does to them. You have the right not to listen to everything they say," my uncle went over the details.

"We can't leave the house," Luke sadly realized.

"We can make sure they won't be able to say anything when you leave the next night on our end. Come to our villa in the capital instead of the first district," my uncle ended the call.

One more night inside this poor house full of outlandishly selfish people. While Rika's nanny did nothing when she arrived at the scene before us, she demanded to pass Rika to her. As we entered their house, Luke ignored her as he furiously began packing his and Rika's belongings. The blame was on her, freely allowing Rika to do whatever she wanted. This was not how you were supposed to treat a child who barely knows anything, eager to explore the outside world.

Although Rika knew about the danger, she was willing to take the risks to play outside, regardless of her situation. It wasn't Rika's fault with her pure mind full of innocent intentions. It was up to us to teach and guide her towards the right direction. Unfortunately, Rika rarely obediently listened to anyone, leading us to take more drastic measures. Luke took out a scanner, trying to identify what the criminal used on Rika.

As we looked at the results, we discovered he used a potent drug to leave her paralyzed while she slept for an uncertain period. It was frightening to know we were nearly one second late from losing her.