Chapter 1030

Teresa warned Lucas, “Lucas, don’t go out at night for a while. I’m worried Yalena might come after you again.”

Lucas nodded and said, “I’ll try. I still have to visit my friend in the hospital tomorrow.”

Teresa said, “Make sure you go during the day, when there are more people around.”

Lucas replied, “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

But Teresa still couldn’t shake off her worry. The next day, she took Lucas to the hospital.

Lucas’s friend, Tom, was lying in bed, unable to move at all. He used to be Lucas’s assistant. When Lucas was in a coma after overdosing on sleeping pills, Tom once went to visit him.

Tom was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, his whole body covered in wounds. The glass shards had all been removed, but he still looked like a wreck.

“Lucas, are you alright?” Tom asked.

Lucas replied, “I’m fine, but just look at you–you’re a mess. We have to call the cops. There’s no way we can just pretend nothing happened.”

Tom said, “I can’t call the cops. If I do, I’ll get busted for gambling too. I still owe a ton of money–calling the police would be suicide for me.”

“So you’re just going to take this lying down?” Lucas asked, frustration clear in his voice.

Tom said, “Yeah, I’ll just accept it. If I hadn’t given in to temptation and gone gambling, none of this would’ve happened to me.”

Tom knew he couldn’t call the cops and risk getting himself thrown in jail. He had no choice but to just put up with it.

Lucas sighed and said, “You’re just asking for trouble, man. If you’d just stayed away from gambling, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Tom said, “I must’ve been out of my mind. I know I screwed up. I swear, I’ll never do it again – never dare to.”

Lucas insisted, “You should still call the cops. Let the police look into it. I just feel like that casino you went to is different. Didn’t you notice that not all the accents in there were local?”

“They were from Mianara,” Tom said.

Lucas exclaimed, “What?”

Tom said, “I am sure a lot of people at the casino are from Mianara. I had a relative who went to Mianara to gamble and never came back.

“No matter how much money his family sent or how many calls they made, it was useless–he was stuck there. My relative even talks with their accent now. I can recognize it right away.”

“That’s all the more reason to call the cops. Maybe it’s tied to something bigger,” Lucas said, his tone serious.

Tom said, “No, I really can’t. I don’t even dare. Lucas, just let me off, okay? If I get the police involved, I’ll be finished. I’ll just take it as my bad luck. I’ll focus on recovering, I’ll be fine soon.”

Since Tom refused to press charges, Lucas could only sigh in resignation. He said, “Alright, I get it.”

When Lucas came out of the hospital, Teresa hurried over and asked, “How did it go? Is your friend alright?”

Lucas replied, “He’s not in any real danger, just some superficial wounds. I told him to call the police, but he’s too afraid of getting in trouble for gambling. And he mentioned that…”

“What else did he say?” Teresa pressed.

Lucas answered, “He said the casino he went to seemed to be run by people from Mianara, and there were a lot of non–locals there.”

Teresa said, “That’s all the more reason to call the police. What if it’s connected to something bigger?”

Lucas said, “That’s what I thought too, but the boss of that casino is Yalena. There’s no way you can be the one to call the cops.

“With the Kelly family backing her up, even if she gets caught, what if she sends someone after you for revenge? What would you do then?”