The Setup

Liora’s POV

It was the night everything started to go wrong.

Not long after Vivienne’s threat, I found out she and Sebastian were going to watch a baseball game. I sat in my room, trying not to think about how her arms would be wound with his; the kisses she’d cover his face with.

Sometimes I wondered if he still loved her; if he still cherished her kisses the way he did mine. Did he actually love me?

The thoughts kept me awake that night, and I chided myself for thinking so much about someone whom I still didn’t fit in his league.

I was about to go to sleep when my phone rang. Too tired to answer, I ignored it. Whoever was calling could wait until morning.

But the call was persistent, and I was forced to look.

It was Eleanor.

‘Hello,’ I answered in my best “awake” voice.

‘Liora,’ Eleanor sobbed. ‘There’s been an accident.’

‘What do you mean?’ I gripped the phone closer. ‘What accident?’

‘Sebastian was involved in another terrible accident.’

I had to take hold of myself before I could drop the phone. A cold shiver ran down my spine, and for a second, it seemed my vision was blurred.

‘It’s bad Liora, you have to come to the hospital right now,’ she continued sobbing.

After I got the address of the hospital they were in, I changed into something appropriate and rushed to the hospital.

When I got to the hospital, Eleanor was already there. Sebastian laid on the bed, his head and arm in a cast. Vivienne was also sitting beside him, her hand wrapped in a sling.

‘Sebastian, Vivienne,’ I gasped when I saw them. ‘Are you two-‘

‘Get away, you witch,’ Vivienne went hysterical. ‘Tell her to leave. She’s going to kill us.’

The nurses had to calm her down, before she succumbed to crying. I was shocked but I dismissed it as a normal Vivienne drama.

Sebastian was awake but he couldn’t say much. I went to his side and held his hand.

‘What happened? I heard there was an accident…’ I asked him.

He gave my hand a little squeeze. ‘Vivienne thinks the accident was staged.’

‘What? By who?’ I gasped.

‘By you, you witch!’ Vivienne cut in. ‘I swear Liora has been trying to kill me and Sebastian ever since.’

‘That’s a very grave accusation,’ Eleanor glared at her.

I looked at Sebastian. He was more relaxed as I held his hands but his expression was filled with something else.

‘Do you think it was staged?’ I asked him softly.

It took him a while to answer. ‘Yes,’ he looked at me.

‘Hello! There was a strange car following us.’ Vivienne stood up. ‘I need to get out of here, Bastian. My arm hurts. My body. How will I ever look pretty in time for my photoshoot?’

No one answered her as she kept rambling. Even as she left the room, she was still talking to whoever cared to listen about needing some anesthesia for the pain.

‘Your father is on it,’ Eleanor rubbed Sebastian’s shoulders. We’ll soon know if the accident was planned or not.’

The doctors had Sebastian stay in the hospital for a day to monitor if he had any concussions or internal bleeding.

By the time he was discharged and we got home, Vivienne was already there.

With Camille.

Sebastian was too tired to acknowledge her, but I could feel the unease as he looked at Vivienne.

Vivienne proceeded to make introductions. ‘Camille, this is Sebastian as you know, my fiancé. Bastian, this is Camille, my new friend.’

‘I don’t have time for this,’ Sebastian murmured and walked upstairs.

‘Taking advantage of men at their weakest points again, Liora?’ Camille sneered at me. ‘That’s all you ever did with father. That’s why he left almost all the company shares to you.’

I turned to leave but Camille stood in my way.

‘And now you’re using your evil game to get to Vivienne’s fiancé.’

‘Get out of my way, Camille.’

‘He’ll see you for who you really are,’ Vivienne closed in. ‘A cheap lying manipulator who almost tried to kill us. Right, Giselle?’

I turned to look at who she was talking to, and sure enough Giselle was standing aloof at a corner of the house.

Why were they involving Giselle? My thoughts went straight to my still missing necklace; I had forgotten to ask her about it, and she hadn’t given me any feedback.

Another day will do.

‘Don’t try to bring Giselle into this. And I’d never try to kill anyone, obviously.’ I brushed past her without waiting for a reply from her. It was bad enough that they thought I was manipulating Sebastian, now murder?

Times past, I have been accused of many things but murder has never been one of them.

The next morning, Sebastian came to my bedroom.

‘The accident was planned,’ he stood by the door and gazed at me. ‘Vivienne was right.’

I dropped the book I was reading and looked at him. ‘Have they found out who did it?’

‘Yes,’ he nodded, exhaustion clearly etched on his face. ‘Two men were caught this morning after much sorting out. They finally confessed to staging the accident.’

‘Why?’ My chest hammered because his expression said there was more than he was telling me.

‘Someone paid them to. And I don’t know who it was, but my father wants us to come and identify something. It’s really important.’

Everyone usually has a sense of premonition that blares aloud when the worse in inevitable. Mine was screaming within me.

Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly.

I followed Sebastian and Vivienne to his father’s house. The whole family was there when we arrived; there was no exchange of pleasantries as everyone remained silent.

‘The assassins showed us proof of something,’ Reginald spoke up once we had settled down. ‘They said the woman had called them with specific instructions, and when they had named their price, she had paid in jewelry.’

My heart began to beat faster, the premonition siren blaring louder in my ear. Something wasn’t right; was it the way Vivienne smirked subtly in triumph? Or the way Eleanor avoided looking at me?

‘Here’s the jewelry we retrieved from them,’ Reginald produced the jewelry from a small black box.

As he dangled the blue sapphire crystals above, all my life flashed before my eyes, because I suddenly knew what everyone was looking at. It wasn’t just any jewelry.

It was my missing necklace.