Chapter 248: A gentle Wife 

Hazel acknowledged the query with a slight upturn of her chin. “He wanted a seafood porridge, but the place her asked for had closed. Stop by third avenue. There is a good seafood. restaurant there,” Hazel instructed. 

A tense silence fell over the vehicle for a few moments as the guard appraised her coolly, seemingly expecting more of an explanation about whatever had transpired back at the club’s private lounge – the thunderous noises and chaos they had barged into upon arriving. 

But Hazel offered no additional context, simply sitting with her spine straight and hands folded primly in her lap. 

Eventually, Wolf settled back against the leather upholstery with a sigh, evidently unwilling or perhaps just unsure how to broach the subject of his employer’s wife unleashing wanton destruction on her enemies. The remainder of the journey passed in tense quiet. 

When the SUV pulled up to the weathered facade of Chu’s neon–bedecked storefront, Hazel didn’t wait for her escorts. She simply pushed open the door and strode inside, the muted tinkling of the front bell announcing her arrival to the elderly woman manning the register. 

“Good evening, Mrs. Chu,” Hazel greeted her politely as she approached the counter. “I’ll need an order of the spicy master stock seafood porridge, please. With extra battered shrimp, this time.” 

The old woman’s eyes crinkled with familiarity at the routine request, already reaching beneath the counter to produce one of the insulated carrying bags. Hazel waited patiently as the Styrofoam containers were carefully packaged up, allowing her mind to wander. 

While part of her felt slightly silly about catering to Marcus’s bizarre cravings, she reasoned it was better to pick these little battles. Keeping him satiated, at least in some small regard, could go a long way toward maintaining a delicate balance. At least until she was ready to dismantle his entire operations once and for all. 

With a polite word of thanks, Hazel accepted the warm satchel of food and exited the shop, buckling herself into the waiting SUV for the final destination – the medical campus where Marcus had been convalescing since his injury. 

As the vehicle merged onto the expressway, Hazel pulled out her phone and quickly tapped out a voice note to Lydia: 

“It’s me. Just leaving the club right now and everything is….settled. I’ll explain more once I’ve finished up some final business elsewhere. But you can stand down for now, I’m alright.” 

She ended the voice message with a amused shake of her head. Only Lydia would ever agree to be her glorified getaway driver and head thug as needed; if she had forgotten to message her, Lydia would have raged a storm. 

An hour later, the sleek black SUV rolled to a stop outside the hospital, the kind with blacked out windows and a plain, unmemorable exterior. Hazel looked up at the hospital and felt slight stress she had released return to her. Inside that building, was Marcus Green. 

The guards piled out first, surveying the perimeter with a series of precise, practiced motions, before allowing Hazel to come out of the car with the satchel of still–steaming food clutched striding under one arm. From there, she was escorted with her usual indifferent detachment, through the hospital main entrance and a maze of brightly–lit corridors before finally arriving at Marcus’s recovery suite. 

The door was already open in anticipation, one of his hulking bodyguards posted like a statue on sentry duty outside. Hazel quirked a single eyebrow at the sight of the armed men, but walked by as though she had not seen them. 

Marcus was reclining in a hospital gown on the single bed when she entered. Despite his weakened state, the hard lines of his weathered face and steely gaze immediately commanded the room like some apex predator asserting dominance over his territory. 

“Mr Green,” Hazel greeted as she entered, but he did not reply. Instead, his eyes remained trained on her form. 

“I brought the porridge you wanted. Though the seafood place you had talked about was closed I got you one from a place know,” Hazel said uncomfortably as she placed down the food. 

Pursing her lips into a thin line, Hazel strode over to the portable table beside the bed and carefully unpacked the satchel of take–out containers. “Your porridge order, freshly prepared, so you need to worry. 

“What were you doing tonight?” he asked, his tone cold, the slight Sicilian lilt barely noticeable beneath the precisely measured words. 

“I had a meeting. Didn’t Your men tell you where I went?” There was a slight accusatory tone in her voice when she said this. 

“I need to know where you are for your safety. Have you forgotten how we got here?” he asked. 

“I remember.” 

“I am more interested in what you were doing?, Marcus replied with an indulgent chuckle. ” You went to such a place without taking my men. It is almost as though you think you have super human powers.” 

Hazel felt her skin prickle at the undisguised condescension, but refused to be baited so easily. With studied nonchalance, she opened the wide ceramic bowl and waved the pungent aroma of shrimp and spiced broth towards Marcus’s face, watching impassively as his nostrils flared with undisguised relish for the potent scents. 

“Will all my conversations also be reported to you?” she asked. 

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“Will you always be going over to face people that want to trap you?” he continued after a few slurping spoonfuls, pinning her with an expectant look. “I am curious, what did do when you got there? My men said those people wanted to pass you around as entertainment.” 

Hazel felt herself stiffen instinctively at the subtle needling, the way Marcus always seemed to intimate that he knew far more than what was on the surface. Squaring her shoulders, she met his loaded gaze with a careful mask of placid disinterest. 

“I talked nicely and they listened.” 

A pregnant beat of silence stretched out between them, thick with unspoken tensions and implications. 

Marcus took out his tablet and opened the pictures of the carnage of her room when she had left in the club. The pictures were quite gnarly. 

“It seems quite the gentle wife,” Marcus said. He recalled when he had first seen Hazel. She had slammed trays into family members at a restaurant. It was quite the sight.. 

Hazel could see the flickering–gleam of calculation pass through Marcus’s solemn eyes as he sized up her words, her body language, clearly trying to unravel whatever other things she was hiding. 

Finally, he huffed a low, gravelly chuckle and waved a dismissive hand. “Very well, it is good you asked nicely.” 

With a curt nod, Hazel busied herself with clearing away the now–empty food containers, desperate to remove herself from Marcus’s presence. She dearly hoped her mask of practiced indifference hadn’t slipped, allowing him to see even a glimmer of the fury she held within over the fact that he was prying into her life. She knew that there was no way she could ask him to stop. He was a dangerous man, who had promised to protect her from dangerous people. Both the protector and the enemy, she could not afford to offend. 

Hazel knew she was balancing on a precarious razor’s edge, playing an increasingly dangerous game. She did not want to know more about Marcus and he could tell. And she did not want. him to know much about her but he did not seem to care. 

“Is this night’s matter someone’s plot?” Marcus asked and she paused and nodded her head. 

“Should I get rid of them?” he asked. His question caused her to almost choke on the apple she 

was snacking on.. 

She did not need anyone to tell her that he was not joking. He meant every word that came out of his mouth. When she looked into his cold eyes, she could not help but swallow. 

She hated Jenny, but she had never considered… at most, Jenny was a pest. Besides, if she did something to Jenny, her father would hunt her down. At the thought of her father, Hazel paused. For a second she wondered. Her father was at most a tricky and sleazy business man. Marcus could crush him with the snap of his hand, couldn’t he?