보관함
검색
홈 / Romance / After They Buried Me / Chapter 3

공유

Chapter 3

작가: Pepper Reaper
Noise woke me the next morning.

I got dressed and went down.

Vivienne had workmen pulling out every raised threshold in Moreland House.

So my chair could get through.

"You're up."

She turned around and smiled at me.

"Once you're all the way better we'll put them back. Deal?"

The smile was so bright it left me off balance.

She and Connor had grown up together.

But she was the one who confessed to me.

It happened by accident. I came by right after she'd put her car into something.

The engine wouldn't turn over and she was standing there crying.

I'd apprenticed at a garage once, back when I was scraping by.

I rolled up my sleeves and had her running again in a few minutes.

She said it was the first time anyone had put themselves in front of a problem for her without being asked.

We dated. We fell in love.

I thought it would just keep going like that.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Vivienne smiled sweetly and pulled my hand into hers.

"My husband-to-be is doing really well. Barring surprises, you'll all be at our wedding before long.

"He's precious to me, so nobody gets to say a word against him."

I looked up, and that's when I saw the phone in her other hand. She was livestreaming.

The little bit of feeling that had just risen in me turned into a joke.

"I don't feel good. I don't want to be on camera."

I ignored the hurt that jumped into her face.

I pulled my hand back and got out of there.

I hadn't gone far before I went soft and opened her stream on my own phone.

Connor had already taken my place next to her.

He kept his face out of frame.

The viewers thought nobody had moved.

The comments kept rolling: perfect couple, forever, you two made me believe in love again.

Then they started egging the two of them on to kiss.

My fingers went white around the edge of the phone.

I watched Connor lean in.

Vivienne tipped back an inch.

She didn't stop him.

Twenty seconds of it, on screen.

My fingertips went cold.

I didn't watch any more.

I just turned around and left our engagement ring where it lay.

She'd designed the pair herself.

There was a sunflower cut into the inside of the band.

She said it was because I was the sun that came into her life.

So which one of us had she meant. Me, or the boy she'd been turning toward since they were children.

I didn't have the strength left to work it out.

I went back to my room and started packing.

The door banged open.

"Gabriel, was this you?"

Vivienne shoved her phone in my face.

A trashy headline filled the screen.

CUCKOO IN THE NEST: THE MORELAND HEIR SWITCH, AND TWENTY YEARS IN A LIFE HE STOLE

Under it, a high-resolution shot of Connor's face.

"Is any of it not true?"

I looked up calmly.

My not panicking made her face go darker.

"Connor's parents are dead. Why are you still coming after him?

"He just wants a family. What has he done wrong?"

The familiar dull pain came back into my chest.

For a second I couldn't tell if it was the compound or her.

"I just wanted a family too."

I said it under my breath.

But mine had been gone since the day I was taken.

Vivienne didn't catch it.

"Do you know some lunatic online went after Connor over this? He's bleeding."

She stepped aside as she said it.

Connor was behind her with a gash across his forehead, still running.

"It's fine.

"Even if the post did come from the IP in Gabriel's room, it's fine.

"I owe him this much anyway."

He gave the bitter little smile and said all the right things.

And then my parents came through the door and my father hit me across the face.

"He's the one we owe!

"We never should have had you."

이 작품을 무료로 읽으실 수 있습니다
QR 코드를 스캔하여 앱을 다운로드하세요
이전 챕터 다음 챕터

최신 챕터

  • After They Buried Me   Chapter 9

    It was footage of me being beaten. Of everything that had been done to me.The man I used to be was afraid of hurting them, so he never went into how bad it had actually been.They thought I'd eaten badly and dressed badly.It never crossed their minds that I'd been living in hell.Connor spent his first twenty years wrapped in money.My first twenty went by in beatings, in work nobody should do, in fear.It was only after the Vances died that I was found and brought back to the Morelands.I thought I finally had a mom and dad who'd love me.Instead, I'd found a deeper hole.Watching the skin-and-bone kid on the screen, both of them were shaking.They finally understood how much I hated them.And what kind of parents they'd been.They couldn't bring themselves to come near me again.But every year on my birthday, something they'd made by hand arrived.Sometimes expensive, sometimes not.Always everything they had to give.I never took one.I told Dana to do whatever sh

  • After They Buried Me   Chapter 8

    The surgeries in Lydora had genuinely taken part of my memory.But I keep a journal.It didn't take much to work out how far gone I must have been to put my life on an email from strangers overseas.Vivienne, whose people had just turned up my current address, didn't get to enjoy it long.A news story landed on her phone.It was the truth about that grotesque pile-on three years ago.Connor had staged the whole thing.He'd even paid off Roz to go into my room and upload the post from the IP there.So that I'd take the blame.So the whole family would believe I was going after him.Vivienne remembered coming at me, righteous, demanding an answer.She remembered using the worst things that had ever happened to me to pull the mob off Connor.And she'd done it anyway.She'd promised she was going to stay with me.Remembering the look on my face, Vivienne wanted to put a knife in herself.And there was more.The file also had the truth about Moreland Industrial.The company

  • After They Buried Me   Chapter 7

    Three years later, Lindencrest.A private jet came down at Lindencrest International.I moved fast through the terminal while my assistant ran the day's schedule in my ear.In a few short years the companies I ran abroad had gotten very big, very quickly.I'd come home for one piece out of a collection.A gift for one of my larger overseas clients.Dana told me I'd been unconscious in Lydora for the better part of a year.Dozens of emergency surgeries dragged me back off the line.That email I'd sent overseas without any real hope was what saved my life.Treatment like that comes with a bill.Almost everything from the first half of my life was wiped.I remembered, faintly, that I'd had a family.If I pushed at it, something went through my skull like a needle.The biggest auction in Lindencrest, and everyone in the room was somebody's heir.I'd barely walked in before I felt several stares burning into me."Doesn't he look exactly like the Moreland boy who died?"Someb

  • After They Buried Me   Chapter 6

    Every Moreland asset in my name went to the foundation.Moreland House with it.All of them had to move out."Is there something wrong with Gabriel? Fine, he died. What right did he have to give it all away? Who did he think he was?"Connor stood outside with a couple of bags of his own clothes, stunned.He'd thought coming back to the Morelands meant taking his life back.And it had gone exactly the way he expected.The real heir dies, and everything is his.He just never counted on me getting there first."Connor, how can you talk like that? What do you mean, fine, he died?"My parents, out on the curb with him, couldn't believe what they were hearing.The Connor they knew was gentle and well behaved. He'd never said anything that ugly in front of them.He was done pretending."Mom, Dad, am I wrong?"What gave Gabriel the right to liquidate the whole Moreland estate? Forget everything else, did he ever think about how the two of you are supposed to live?"His voice had

  • After They Buried Me   Chapter 5

    "What does that mean?"What do you mean, there was no money for his medication?"My parents had turned to look at her too.Vivienne couldn't produce a word.When they understood I'd died on that table because nobody bought the medicine, their world caved in."Why didn't anyone tell us?"I'd have sold blood. I'd have found the money!"My mother went down on the floor, wailing.My father's eyes were bloodshot. "Viv, you're the one who told us nothing would happen to him."Why is Gabriel dead? He was our son."It broke him.He'd never once imagined actually losing me. When they found me, the guilt and the joy had both been real.But being glad didn't undo fifteen years of raising Connor.Connor always knew the right thing to say. He fussed over them, asked after them, made them feel good.Not me. I worked, quietly, and carried the family, quietly.They hadn't set out to throw me away.They just wanted both sons in the house.What they forgot was that Connor being in it wa

  • After They Buried Me   Chapter 4

    I turned my head.Even the inside of my nose tasted like rust."Your brother's been home a few days and you already can't stand to have him here!"For fifteen years he was the one taking care of us in your place. Even if you won't do it for your mother and me, you don't get to destroy him!"My father stood there pointing at me, shouting.My mother's face was nothing but disappointment."Gabe, you're both my children, but you were wrong to do this."Apologize to Connor. Say you won't do it again, and we'll let it go."Connor came and stood right in front of me.Where they couldn't see, he raised an eyebrow at me, enjoying himself.He was waiting for me to confess to something I'd never done."And if I don't?"Will you drug me again and put me back in the hospital?"I laughed, softly.Every face in front of me went white."What are you talking about..."My father said it with the guilt all over him."So you're wrong and you still won't admit it. Stay in your room and thi

더보기

다른 추천

좋은 소설을 무료로 찾아 읽어보세요
GoodNovel 앱에서 수많은 인기 소설을 무료로 즐기세요! 마음에 드는 작품을 다운로드하고, 언제 어디서나 편하게 읽을 수 있습니다
앱에서 작품을 무료로 읽어보세요
앱에서 읽으려면 QR 코드를 스캔하세요.
DMCA.com Protection Status