Gotcha!” Jackson’s voice came out low and abrupt as he caught Mariam before she hit the ground completely.
Her body was cold, almost weightless in his arms.
He tightened his hold on her and turned immediately.
Without hesitation, he carried her back inside the villa, moving quickly through the corridors.
She felt fragile in his arms, her breathing shallow and uneven, her skin unnaturally cold against his coat.
He took her back to her room and laid her down on the bed.
He put a blanket over her shoulders before stepping back only to reach for his phone.
Sheikh answered almost immediately.
“She’s found,” Jackson said sharply.
There was a brief pause on the other end.
“Where was she?”
“Near the north boundary wall. Half conscious. You tell me how she even got that far,” Jackson’s voice dropped dangerously.
“What exactly are your guards doing? Sleeping on duty?”
“She escaped fast, Master—”
“I don’t care how fast she moved,” Jackson cut him off.
“This estate is supposed to be secured. Fix it.”
He ended the call without waiting for a response.
Lena stood nearby, pale and tense.
“Master… should I—”
“Dr. Varun,” Jackson interrupted immediately.
“Fetch him. Now.”
“Yes, Master.”
Within minutes, arrangements were made.
Nearly an hour later, Dr.
Varun arrived at the mansion and made his way to the fourth-floor room as instructed.
“Hey, Jackson… are you alright? Is your illness acting up again?” he asked casually, using Jackson’s first name out of habit.
He had been treating Jackson on a regular basis to be familiar with him, and the call had made him assume, as usual, that Jackson’s severe headaches had flared up again.
Jackson suffered from pounding headaches, and no amount of painkillers seemed to help.
He had to undergo nerve-block therapy to control the episodes and remained under continuous medical supervision.
[TMI: A nerve block is an injection of local anesthetics and/or anti-inflammatory medication directly into or near a targeted nerve. It works by interrupting pain signals from reaching the brain, providing temporary pain relief, prolonged therapeutic healing.]
However, the moment he stepped inside, his expression changed.
His eyes landed on the woman lying on the bed.
He blinked once.
Then again.
A woman?!
Jackson had brought a woman?
And strangely she looked familiar…
Jackson, clearly displeased, shot him a cold look and snapped, “Stop talking nonsense and check her.”
Without wasting time, he knelt beside her and checked her pulse, then her hands and feet.
“Hypothermia,” he said immediately, frowning.
“Severe exposure to cold.”
Jackson’s jaw tightened.
“Yes… she wanted to take an evening walk in the snow,” he said, keeping his expression completely straight.
Dr.
Varun: “….?!”
Dr.
Varun: ‘Who in the right mind would want to take an evening walk in the snow.’
Dr.
Varun had a firm belief that it was Jackson who had upset the woman, which was why she tried to run away in the heavy snowstorm.
He shook his head and decided to keep his thoughts to himself or else he would face Jackson’s wrath for no reason.
“Her body temperature is significantly low. Her hands and feet are freezing. She hasn’t eaten properly in a long time either—her system is weak. Exposure to snow for that duration only worsened it.” He continued checking her condition.
“She needs warmth, fluids, and rest. Immediately.”
Jackson exhaled sharply, looking down at Mariam.
“Do what you need to,” he ordered.
The doctor nodded and began treatment without delay, administering fluids and working to stabilize her temperature.
Warm blankets were brought in, and a heater was adjusted closer.
Dr.
Varun closed his medical bag.
“She’s stable for now,” he said.
“But she needs continuous care. No more exposure to cold. And she must eat once she wakes up.”
“Alright…”
That was when Dr.
Varun realised something—he recognised the woman.
“Isn’t she Mariam Doyle? Matthew Doyle’s daughter, from the Doyle family? Isn’t she the one you are going to marry?” The Doyles had recently been in the news.
The Doyle family had recently suffered two devastating blows.
Their daughter, Megan Doyle, had passed away after a long battle with cancer.
At the same time, the once-famous Doyle Group had suddenly gone bankrupt.
The news sent shockwaves through the business world.
What surprised people even more was that Jackson Walsh had agreed to form an alliance with the Doyle Group despite the fact that the Walshs and the Doyles had always been rivals. Visit novelping . com for the full chapter.
He did not give Dr.
Varun an answer.
“What are you planning to do with her?” Dr.
Varun prompted.
Was he going to use her as a leverage against the Doyle family?
This was already very suspicious.
Jackson’s expression turned dark and cold; as harsh as the raging snowstorm outside and it made Dr.
Varun swallow nervously.
“Doctor…you can go.”
Dr.
Varun hesitantly stood up.
“Call me if anything changes,” he said before leaving.
***
When Mariam finally opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was Lena sitting beside her, upright on a wooden chair that had been placed near the bed, her hands folded neatly in her lap as if she had been waiting there for a long time.
Mariam’s mind was hazy, suspended between sleep and reality, as though she had been pulled up from a very deep sleep.
The maid leaned forward, her chair scraping softly against the floor as she stood up in a hurry.
“Miss… be careful,” Lena said gently.
She sounded relieved as she reached out instinctively as Mariam tried to sit up, steadying her shoulder.
Mariam blinked a few times, her vision adjusting slowly, and then like a sudden violent wave, the memories returned all at once.
She remembered climbing the wall, driven by desperation and the hope of escaping, but was discovered by Jackson.
She remembered the exhaustion that had overtaken her afterward, her vision blurring before everything faded into darkness.
“How long have I been out?” she asked immediately, her voice rough, hoarse, as if it belonged to someone else entirely.
“Five days ago,” Lena answered.
Mariam stared at her.
Five days?
She had lost five entire days?
In those five days she could have tried 50 different ways of escaping…What a loss!
Then Lena spoke again, more carefully this time, as if testing the waters of Mariam’s mood.
“Miss… Master asked that you come down for dinner when you wake up.”
At the mention of Jackson, Mariam’s body stiffened almost instinctively.
“Was he angry?”
“About what?”
“The escape.”
The maid thought for a moment.
“He was furious.”