Luca remembered her work in the laboratory after she sent a friend request to the cleaning lady.

So far, she had not received any messages from Rhett. She presumed that it must be Luke's orders.

Luca took the initiative to send a message to Rhett to ask him about the situation in the laboratory.

Rhett responded quickly to her message. He told her that the experiments going on in the laboratory were going on as scheduled. They were ready to apply for a clinical trial now.

Luca looked at Rhett's simple response. It was as though he was afraid of disturbing her if he typed a few more words.

She shook her head, and the phone screen turned dim. She looked at her reflection on the screen. It was blurry, but she could see that her face was swollen.

She let out a sigh. She still could not go back to work even though she thought she was fine now.

She would at least have to wait for the swelling and pain on her face to subside completely. Only then would Luke allow her to return to the office and work.

Luca sat on the couch. She could not get used to not having anything to do these days. She picked up the remote and switched on the television. The news happened to be reporting about her kidnapping case, stating that it had nothing to do with Pierre Mallory.

The vicious and deceitful man came across her mind. Luca knew that Luke would lay his hands on him later even if she did not do anything.

It was not merely because of her but those who had malicious intent against him were bound to end up badly.

However, Luca could no longer bear it.

She took out her phone and sent a message to Abel: [The man you sent told me that you're dissatisfied with my work progress.]

After a while, Abel responded to her message right away: [I'm indeed not satisfied. You're still not that close to Luke Crawford. Don't think that I don't know what you're thinking about. Get it done for me. Otherwise, you'll regret it.]

Luca sent another message to him: [I'm already involved in T Corporation's project, but someone threw a monkey wrench into my plans. I have no choice but to rest at home now. And I don't even know whether I'll still have the chance to participate in the project or not. How am I supposed to get the tender document if I'm not involved in the project?]

Abel knew she was kidnapped by Pierre, so he replied to her message and asked her: [What do you want me to do, then?]

Luca replied: [I'm a vindictive person. I need you to deal with Pierre Mallory. Make him suffer.]

Soon, Abel replied to her message again: [Vindictive? Does that mean you're going to take revenge on me if you have a grudge against me?]

Luca fell silent for a moment after she read the message.

She wanted to get rid of Abel too, but would she be able to do that?

She could not afford to hire mercenaries, so how could she have the capability to deal with Abel? She could not even deal with Pierre Mallory because of her situation.

The phone she was holding in her hands vibrated again. Luca looked at it. It was another message from Abel.

[I can help you deal with Pierre Mallory, but you have to speed up your progress in approaching Luke. And you have to get the tender document no matter what. To get rid of Luke, we have to begin from the tender document.]

It suddenly dawned on Luca why Abel had asked her to put herself at risk of being discovered to steal the tender document.

It turned out she was assigned to this mission because this was the mission that could deal a blow to Luke and T Corporation.

Abel wanted to let her carry out the mission herself to make Luke suffer heavy losses. That was Abel's guilty pleasure.

Luca shook her head and replied: [Okay.]

Abel responded to her message again: [You get the chance to choose how you're going to deal with Pierre Mallory since I'm helping you take revenge.]

How to deal with Pierre Mallory?

Pierre set up a company behind everyone's back. All those things that he did to her and how he had been pestering Nina...

A malicious thought came into Luca's mind. She was thinking of making Pierre disappear from this world.

However, he was a member of the Mallory family, after all. She thought for a moment and replied to Abel: [I want his company to shut down.]

[That's all?] Abel's message came in again. Luca did not even need to imagine to know that he had a contemptuous smile on his face.

[That's all for now.] The doorbell rang right after Luca sent that.

She glanced at the time and reckoned that it was the cleaning lady. She stood up and went to open the door. copyrighted © content.

A kind-looking middle-aged woman was standing at the door. She smiled and greeted Luca when she met her. "Hello, Ms. Craw. I'm the cleaning lady Mr. Doyle arranged."

“Hello. Come on in.” Luca was indifferent to her greeting and asked the cleaning lady to come in.

She did not like strangers disturbing her, but there was no way she could negotiate with Luke. He was kind enough to take a step back by agreeing to look for a cleaning lady for her.

It was better than a 24-hour caretaker looking after her.

"Thank you. May I know where you would like me to clean?” the cleaning lady asked.

"I'm not sure either. You can just do whatever you see fit. This place hasn't been cleaned for days. Oh, you don't have to clean the maid's room. I'll be inside. Please don't disturb me," said Luca.

"Alright," the cleaning lady smiled and answered. When Luca was about to walk into the maid's room, the cleaning lady asked again, "Oh yes, Ms. Craw. What would you like to have for dinner? Mr. Doyle told me that I'll have to get groceries for you. If you need me to, I'll make dinner for you too."

Luca had not thought about what to eat for dinner. She always ate whatever she wanted when she was eating alone. Then, she remembered that there were some leftovers from lunch today, so she said, "There's no need to. I have some leftovers from lunch. You don't have to buy groceries."

The cleaning lady disagreed and said, "Leftovers are bad for your health. What you need most now is rest. You need to eat freshly prepared food."

Luca did not expect her to say that. She had no choice but to say, "Then please get me some fresh clams."

"Anything else?" the cleaning lady asked responsibly.

Luca did not know what fruits she should buy, so she just said, "Something that I can have with chowder."

"Alright, Ms. Craw," replied the cleaning lady.

Luca saw that there was nothing else, so she grabbed her bag and walked into the maid's room. Then, she took a straw out of it.

It was the straw that she used to drink the antidote given by the man from the Island of Despair that night.

She had wrapped it with tissue paper but wondered if it was contaminated. If it was uncontaminated, then it would be the highest concentration sample that she had been able to get.

Luca was planning to separate the substance from the straw. If she was lucky enough, she would soon be able to figure out the composition of the antidote with the undiluted sample.

She would have to rely on this antidote to save her life if she wanted to escape from the Island of Despair in the future.

She could save Eler and Amur too.

She sat down on the chair and began her work.

This whole time, she was focused on doing her research that she did not notice the time until the cleaning lady knocked on the door of the maid's room.

Luca snapped out of her work and glanced at the time, only to realize that it was already five-thirty in the evening.

She had been working continuously for more than two hours.

Luca put the separated sample back into the glass tube carefully, then stood up and went to open the door. "What's the matter?"