Chapter 258: Took years of my life

Later that evening, Dominic freshened up and stepped into the bedroom, only to find Clara sprawled across the bed with her arms stretched out to either side.

For a moment, he stood by the door, taking in her exhausted appearance. Her hair was a mess, and the way she stared blankly at the ceiling made it seem as though she had just returned from a battlefield.

A faint smile tugged at his lips.

He slowly approached the bed and sat beside her, reaching out instinctively to brush a strand of hair away from her face.

"What’s wrong, sweetheart?"

"Dom, are children always this difficult to deal with?" Clara suddenly asked, turning her head to look at him.

Dominic paused, seemingly taken aback by the unexpected question. After a moment of thought, he shrugged.

"That depends on their age, doesn’t it?"

Clara blinked before pushing herself into a sitting position.

"Right. I’ve met Penelope and a few other children at the charity event, and they weren’t nearly as troublesome. But Zane..." She let out a long, defeated sigh. "That fifteen-year-old rebel is impossible to handle!"

Dominic chuckled at the frustration written all over her face.

"Is he really that bad?"

"Worse!" Clara exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. "I somehow managed to get him to clean up the mess he’d made in his room, but I swear, getting him to do that took years off my life."

She slumped against the headboard, looking utterly miserable.

"And don’t even get me started on his attitude. Every time I tell him to do something, he acts as though I’ve committed some unforgivable crime. Honestly, I don’t know how I’m supposed to teach someone who refuses to cooperate."

Dominic couldn’t help laughing at her dramatic complaints.

Clara immediately turned to glare at him.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No, sweetheart." He tried to straighten his expression, though the amusement in his eyes betrayed him. "I’m just surprised. I didn’t know my wife could be defeated by a fifteen-year-old boy."

"Dominic Sterling!"

"All right, all right." He raised his hands in surrender before pulling her into his arms. "I’m sure you’ll figure something out."

Clara rested her head against his chest, letting out another weary sigh.

She had known that tutoring Zane wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t expected it to drain every ounce of energy she possessed.

At this rate, she wondered whether teaching the boy would be more exhausting than running an entire business.

After spending some time coaxing his wife into a better mood, Dominic finally headed to his study while Clara went to take a bath.

The moment he settled behind his desk, he picked up his phone and called Mark to ask whether he had found any information about a girl named Nana, the same name Clara had mentioned in the text message she had sent him that morning.

Although Dominic hadn’t deliberately gone silent on Clara the other night, he had made sure to explain the reason behind his sudden disappearance rather than let a misunderstanding linger between them. Only after they had cleared things up had Clara told him about Nana, a girl she was trying to find who had also been among the children rescued alongside them.

At the time, Dominic had gone quiet as he tried to recall his memories of those days. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he searched his mind, he couldn’t remember any girl named Nana among the rescued children.

He might have been only eleven years old when he was kidnapped, but his memory of those events remained surprisingly clear. He still remembered the children they had managed to save. There had been twenty of them, and he was certain that none of the girls had been called Nana.

Nevertheless, Dominic wasn’t willing to dismiss Clara’s concerns simply because he couldn’t remember the girl. He had promised to help her find Nana, and he intended to keep that promise.

That was why he had instructed Mark to investigate the matter once again, just in case something had escaped their attention during the initial search.

"Boss, we did find a girl named Nana on the list of rescued children," Mark reported over the phone. "But there’s a problem. Her name is the only information recorded. There are no other details about her."

Dominic’s expression changed immediately.

"What do you mean there’s no other information?" he asked, his voice turning serious. "How can a rescued child have no records apart from her name?"

"That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Boss. We’ve checked the available files, but we haven’t found anything else."

Dominic leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping impatiently against the armrest.

That didn’t make any sense.

The children had been rescued decades ago, but their identities and basic details should have been documented. Even if some records had been lost over the years, it was difficult to believe that an entire file could disappear without a trace.

"Check the original records again," he instructed firmly. "And find out whether anyone accessed or altered those files. I want to know who this girl was and why there’s no information about her."

"Understood, Boss. I’ll look into it immediately."

After ending the call, Dominic stared at his phone, his brows drawing together.

Who exactly was Nana, and why did her existence seem to have been erased from their past?

Dominic had plenty of questions running through his mind, but he didn’t let his doubts stop him from reaching out to MoonlitRose, aka Clara, to tell her everything Mark had discovered about Nana.

Meanwhile, Clara sat in her room, staring at the screen with a conflicted expression.

"This is exactly what Adrian was talking about, and now even Vanta has confirmed the same thing," she murmured.

She remained seated for a while, trying to make sense of the information. The fact that both Adrian and Vanta had come across the same incomplete records only made the situation more suspicious.

Unable to ignore her growing curiosity, Clara immediately contacted Adrian and asked him to share all the information he had gathered about the rescued children.

It didn’t take long for his reply to arrive. Opening the email, she carefully went through the details once again.

Just as Adrian had mentioned, there was indeed a girl named Nana on the list. However, apart from her name, there was absolutely no information about her.

"That’s strange," Clara muttered, scrolling further down the page.

Then, something else caught her attention.

Although several photographs showed Clara standing alongside the other rescued children, there was no information about her accompanying those pictures. It was as though someone had deliberately excluded her details while leaving the photographs untouched.

Clara’s brows furrowed.

"How is that even possible? Did someone deliberately tamper with the children’s records?"

She leaned back in her chair, her gaze fixed on the screen.

The more she investigated, the more she realized that something about the rescued children’s past simply didn’t add up.