Ada“I know it’s hard to believe,” I tell him, “but it’s the truth. I came in this house with a fake identity because I wanted to find evidence against him. To prove what he did to my family.”Max is quiet for the longest time. I guess it’s safe to say that he’s speechless. I try to think of something else to add to this, but so far, he doesn’t look convinced. In fact, he looks angrier than he did a few seconds ago.“This…” he begins before trailing off. He averts his gaze and pinches the bridge of his nose. Then, he goes completely silent. “Say something,” I plead after a minute has passed. I know because I’m counting the seconds before he says something. “Please.”His eyes are hard as they land on me once more. “What could I possibly say to this?”“Tell me you believe me,” I claim. A humorless chuckle leaves his lips and he places his hands on his face. “Believe you? This is your way of trying to reason with me? Making up lies about my terminally ill father to cover up the fact
Ada The feel of my mother’s soothing fingers on my scalp is heavenly. “Shh,” she says, moving them in circular motions. “It’s going to be okay, my love. It’ll be fine.”I sniffle. I’ve lost track of time. I don’t know how long I’ve been crying. My eyes feel heavy and hot. They’re sore from all the crying and my eyelids are swollen. My nose is raw from all the rubbing, but the pain I feel is inconsequential compared to the one breaking me apart from the inside. I’m devastated. “I didn’t know things got to this point, darling,” she says to me. I hear chiding in her tone. “You didn’t tell us a single thing.”I don’t answer her because I’m upset already and if I say something, I’ll just get angrier. I don’t want to argue with the one person who’s offering me comfort right now. It’s not right. It’s not fair. But if she keeps on saying these things, I’ll explode. Because, for starters, what does she mean by ‘us’? Why do I have to tell Harry and Damson every single damn aspect about my
Maximilian I haven't left my office since Naomi—no, that's not her name. That's not her fucking name. I don't know why I keep calling her that in my mind when she lied about her identity. She lied about every single fucking thing and now I don't know what to do with myself. Ada. That's her damn name. Ada. Anyway, I haven't left my office since Ada left it. I don't have the courage or the face to make it downstairs, not when I know that everyone downstairs probably knows about this farce. Shit, this was a woman I introduced to my father. She was someone I planned on making mine. How did things go so gloriously wrong?Life has ups and downs, but this is a down I never thought I'd experience before. What the fuck. I loved that woman and she was just a liar. I never thought that I'd be able to be fooled. I always considered myself an expert at catching gold diggers or reading the intentions behind someone’s actions. I didn’t see this coming. That’s all I can say. Accusing my fa
Ada Against my better judgment, I open the door of my apartment and come face to face with the scoundrel that is Wes Zorn. He leans against the doorframe to watch me and I point a finger at him and say in a shaky voice, “You son of a bitch. Aren’t you ashamed? You ruined my fucking life and now you’re here, asking for money!?”“I didn’t ruin your life,” he claims before making his way inside my apartment. I leave the door wide open. “I’m only looking out for my future family.”I scoff. “You really think that you’ll ever be a part of the Loxleys? You’re delusional!”“If you almost had a chance, why couldn’t I?” he asks, glaring at me though there’s a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. “He was going to marry you, you know? He told his sister so, and she told me. I couldn’t let him get married to a fucking liar. I don’t know what you wanted from them, but it couldn’t be anything good, Ada.”Tears fill my eyes. Marriage. I close my eyes, imagining how beautiful and wonderful thin
Ada “You killed him,” I whisper in disbelief. My lips feel bloodless as I utter these words. I turn my head to look at Damson. “You killed him.”He looks over at Wes’s body. I cover my mouth with my hand so I don’t scream. I stare at Wes’s body and the pool of blood already forming around him. I’ve never seen so much blood in my life. I’m horrified by how pale he’s becoming. I look at Damson again, and he appears as shocked as me. “Fuck,” he curses. I look around, suddenly alert. The door is wide open. I stand up on shaky legs and hurry to close it. It slams shut because I throw my whole weight on it. Then, I take in the mess. The piece of glass Damson used to stab Wes came from the vase I kept near the couch. They were probably in a scuffle of some kind before I became conscious and I missed it entirely. It feels like I was out for like two seconds. How could this mess have happened in such a short amount of time?I didn’t even see Damson come in. “What are we doing to do?” I as
Maximilian Two Weeks Later As I push the front door open, I’m relieved to be home after a long day at work. I came early today compared to all the other days. I usually work until late because I hate being back in this house. It’s been my house—the house I grew up in—for years, yet it’s now tainted by her presence. And I have to admit that I haven’t gotten over her as quickly as I would’ve liked. Not a day goes by when I don’t dream about her. She’s haunting me, that woman, and it’s sickening to me because it shows me my weakness clearly. I wish I could leave this place but we made a decision to stay here and support our father, and that’s what I’m going to do. I can’t let a failed relationship pull me away from my dad. I’ll just have to find a way to get over this. Eventually. “Mr. Loxley,” Mrs. Danes says as she approaches me. She’s wearing a small smile on her face. For these last few weeks, she’s been trying to appear optimistic like nothing happened, and although I appreci
Ada These two weeks feel like two years. I’m being as serious as I can be. I haven’t left my mother’s house. Yes, we’ve had to reconcile. The matter was too grave for us to stay mad at each other. Damson killed a man—a man who was blackmailing me. And honestly, deep down, there’s some relief that Wes is gone. I know that makes me sound like a horrible person but I can’t lie about how I feel. I can’t do that. But my worry of being caught—of possibly going to jail along with Damson—clouds what small relief I feel. What happened was serious and it’ll be engraved in the forefront of my mind forever. I don’t know how people can kill others in cold blood; I really can’t. I’m haunted by what happened and Wes was a horrible fucking person. I let go of the apartment. Last week, someone else went to live in it. I know this because the landlady asked me to grab the last of my stuff so that the new renter would occupy the apartment by the end of the week. That was last week. I don’t th
Maximilian I close my laptop after reading the article. I'm not sure how I feel about it and I have to be completely honest here. Love isn't a reason why I'm marrying Kelly. This is the truth. I've accepted this. She's a good woman of good breeding and I've known her all my life. She cares about me and I've come to realize that I care about her, too. But it's not love yet. I'm sure it'll get there. She's a good woman and I don't see why I can't make myself love her. I'm tired of being lonely. Loneliness is what caused this whole mess. She's good for me. She loves me. I've been receiving congratulations the whole day. The whole article thing was her idea and I didn't want to contradict her, so I said yes. I feel bad about saying no to her, mostly because I feel like doing whatever she wants is a way for me to redeem myself. And I'm not ignorant. I know there's a lot I have to work toward. One can argue that I'm a terrible person for using her to forget someone else, which is ess
Ada Seven Years Later The sound of the water in the bathroom running makes me open my eyes suddenly.My vision is blurry at first but I blink a few times and sure enough, see Max standing in the bathroom, getting ready for work. It’s still dark out—he always leaves for work way too early. And because it’s Saturday, this makes even less sense. Normally, I don’t wake up, but for some reason, I did today. Rising from bed, I approach him carefully, making sure to announce my presence so he doesn’t get scared. He’s shaving his face and looks surprised when he sees me. “Morning, babe. What’s wrong? Did I wake you?”“No,” I mumble before taking the razor from him. I like doing his beard whenever I can. “I just figured I’d get up since I woke up.”“Hm,” is all he says. I finish shaving him, and then we both get washed for breakfast. Usually, he makes it, but this time, I decide to prepare it. We head downstairs together, and I ask him what he wants to eat. “Eggs? Bacon? Whatever you wan
MaximilianTheo managed to get out of trouble due to his close association to the government of Argentina. I don’t know what it is he does—I have a feeling it’s an important job but something off the record. He somehow managed to get the blame off his shoulders completely and got away unscathed even with police involvement. I won’t ask too many questions because that directly benefited us. Now, we can live happily, and it’s fucking sad that Theo isn’t experiencing this relief that we are right now. Though he knew about Grayson’s illness, he wasn’t expecting him to die so soon. Neither of us were. It’s honestly a terrible end to this fucked up story, and in all truth, it’s so unfair to me to celebrate when someone so close to us died. He wanted to be cremated and his ashes spread in Argentina. Theo honored this wish. I didn’t see him shed a tear once but the massive change in him is clear for everyone to see. They’ve been together for years—many years—and Grayson was his lifelong c
AdaStaring at his face makes me freeze a little bit—not enough to make me not know how to react because deep down, I expected this and even counted on it—but it’s still a shock. I haven’t seen him in years, too. The last time was at the hospital when he bumped into me. I know now that was on purpose. I didn’t recognize him then but we’d still been close. “Come with me and you won’t have to get hurt,” he claims in that unnatural voice of his. I realize that his hand is right over what I’m assuming is a gun in his pocket. “Why are you doing this?” I ask, stalling for time. We’re away from the entrance of the police station. I could scream but he’d either shoot me and get away, or get away. Either way, the police wouldn’t be able to catch him on time. I have to be smart about all this. “Aren’t you satisfied?” I continue. “You always took her from me for so long. She won’t even look at my face and refuses to call me her mother. Why don’t you just let me be happy?”“If you even think
Ada I can hardly believe that I’m walking into the prison and that in a few minutes, I’m going to be face to face with my mother. I haven’t seen her in seven years—we haven’t exchanged a single word since then. Now, we’ll have a chance to talk. Half an hour, I think. Am I ready? I’m not sure. Max stays outside. This is also part of the plan. The point is that he needs to seem distracted or on the phone so that when I step out, Damson will think that he’ll have the perfect opportunity to approach me, or maybe even capture me. And that’s where Theo and Grayson come in. But for now, I’m safe inside the station, and I’m going to be talking to my mother now. I wouldn’t be here unless it was completely necessary. I’m not looking forward to talking to her at all. An officer waves me over, gives me all the rules and instructions along with warnings, and then I’m put in a room with her. We’ll be sitting right across from each other. The door is opened for me and I step inside the gra
Ada In the morning, I can hardly believe that I’m leaving this cabin. It’s all happening so quickly and honestly, it’s so surreal. I don’t have time to say goodbye to Abby because she’s asleep but I do say bye to Rebecca and Samantha. Then, when we’re alone, I tell Rebecca what happened last night and she seems so happy that she’s practically bursting at the seams. “That’s so amazing, Ada!” she exclaims. “Oh my God. I wish I was there to see it.”Words can’t describe how it felt to hold her. I imagine mothers of newborns feel the same way when they finally hold them in their arms. That new feeling—this certainty that you would do anything for that child. That’s what I felt yesterday. Seven years after her birth. “There’ll be a lot more to come,” Rebecca assures me. “Soon there will be a time when we’ll forget all about this difficult beginning, you’ll see.”I exhale and clasp my hands together. “I hope so.”But it’s time for me to go. I sit in the backseat of the car and just h
Ada “No,” Max says. “That’s a crazy plan, Ada. Are you kidding me? Do you really think that I’m going to let you put yourself in danger like this?”I sigh, exasperated. “You told me yourself that he’s toying with you and I agree. He’s watching you and isn’t an idiot—as soon as he has the chance, he’ll kill you, and then what will we have accomplished? No, Max. This is what we’re going to do.”“But Ada—”“No buts,” I claim. “This is decided.”It’s easy for me to tell why Max doesn’t like my plan—in fact, it makes all the sense in the world, to be honest. I’ll be making myself a target so that we can better follow Damson’s moves. Everything else didn’t work. Waiting for him at both apartments was a pointless plan for so many days and in the end, he managed to plant a bomb in their car. I can’t stand by and let that happen—we have to do something to stop him while we’re all still alive. What if one of them died? How would we keep fighting, then?“I don’t want you to get ahead of yours
MaximilianI run a hand down my face in frustration. Gone again. The detective stares back at us, his expression of exhaustion mirroring ours for a second before he changes it and looks optimistic again. "Our guys are working on finding him and I'm sure we will very soon. You have nothing to worry about."Theo frowns and inches forward. "I don't think that's true, detective. You said that before and my niece was never found. I don't understand why there aren't more people after this guy. He's crazy and a danger to society. A lot of people could've been hurt today!" "I assure you that we're doing all we can," he claims, but even that is something he says to everyone, I'm sure. I've heard him a million times. I look over at Theo and he stares at me at the same time. The look written all over our faces is the same—we're wasting time here and if we don't get out of here soon, we'll waste even more time. Theo extends his hand to the detective. "Thank you for your time."We head out,
Maximilian When I woke up earlier today, I thought that it would be the same day as all the others. I was wrong. Because Damson chose to make an appearance in the most unexpected of ways and because our guard was down—courtesy of spending fruitless days looking for him—he managed to succeed. A stroke of luck saved us, because we should’ve all been dead by now. But I should start at the beginning. Grayson and Theo are taking turns watching Ada’s apartment. They slip in and out, which would make it difficult for him to watch them and know when they’re in and when they’re not. He can’t be watching us 24/7, or so we thought. It seems Damson is more sneaky than I have him credit for initially. I usually buy us breakfast. It’s hard to shop all the time and anyway, nobody has the patience to cook anything. So, I get fresh bread, butter sometimes, and cheese along with all other sorts of pastry that we can eat. I’ve learned that Grayson decided not to do chemo, which means that his da
Ada Abby has surprised us once more, and we’re beyond happy. Especially Rebecca and me, who are here all the time, waiting for every moment when we’ll be a perfect family and we’ll embrace each other as we should. But deep down, I’m no longer able to celebrate as much as I want to because I’m so afraid of what Damson has in store for us. I’m sure it’s all paranoia because he hasn’t given any sign of life—for all we know, he’s hanging by the neck in a motel room somewhere now that he knows he’s lost and that we’re after him along with the police. But I doubt that. The new Damson has proven to be someone very evil with plans and backup plans and the whole lot of it. He doesn’t have any empathy, and he’s just cruel and mean. I know that our happiness is bothering him. Just the thought of him makes him want to reveal himself so he can take one of us out. Lately, I’ve been trying to feel what he feels. As twins, one would expect us to have that kind of connection. But no. I’m just