Chapter 2

The words felt like a punch, knocking all the air out of my system. I stared at Zander, really stared at him, waiting for him to grin and say that he was pulling my legs. Then I'd curse him, call him an asshole for making such a dry joke, only that it didn't happen.

He didn't grin, his expressions remained hard, his jaws clenched. Then it hit me, the realization that this was not some fucking dry joke or Zander pulling another one of his annoying pranks.

I stepped back and shook my head.

“ That's impossible! You are fucking lying.” I screamed, unwilling to believe it.

Zander's gaze never left me and I could see it, the pain, the grief he had concealed earlier.

“ Pearl…” Zander called, taking a step closer.

“ Stop!” I screamed. “ Don't come any closer! Don't fucking do it until you tell me you are lying.”

The desperation in my voice could not be hidden and the tears I had convinced myself didn't look demure fell.

“ I wish I could do that but this is the reality we have to face. He is gone, taken from us.” He said through gritted teeth.

I caught it, that misplaced word in the sentence.

“ Taken from us?”

Zander nodded, hands clenched and expression grim.

“ He was found dead, shot. Gang war perhaps.” Zander replied and I felt my anger spiking.

“ Who?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“ No particular name, just speculation.”

“ That makes no sense. He was not part of any gang. I thought he retired.” I wondered out loud only for Zander to look away.

“ There's something you need to know.” He started and I could tell, I wasn't gonna like Zander's confession about my dad.

***

“ I'm sorry for your loss, Pearl.” I didn't know how many times I heard that phrase. It was becoming a nuisance in my ears.

All I could think about was the fact that my father was no more – the man who loved me the most was never going to tell me how proud he was of me again.

The fact that someone brutally took him away from me made me want to burn the world until I found the culprit.

But I remembered Zander's words that day he came to Los Angeles to break the news to me. He did it all for me, to protect me, to ensure I had that simple life I always dreamt of

Looking back, I would have chosen to stay in New York with my Papa. Maybe then, I wouldn't have to come back to bury him.

The life I thought I built for myself was nothing but a facade.

Lost in my thoughts, I didn't register someone's presence until that familiar expensive Cologne hit my nose, followed by an unfamiliar tap on my shoulder.

“Pearl, my daughter!” She called in that exaggerated loving voice of hers I loathed.

I cringed, took a step away and turned to face her, a not so friendly expression plastered on my face.

She had the guts of looking hurt by my actions but I didn't care.

“ What are you doing here?” I asked. I didn't bother to mask the anger in my voice.

She sighed, a wronged expression on her face.

“ I heard about your father so I came to see you. I was worried.” She replied smoothly, like she meant any of the words she said.

“ Worry about me?” I scoffed. “ That's rich coming from someone who abandoned me and never looked back.”

Isolde, my biological mother, winced at my words.

“ Pearl…” she started but I cut her off. “ I don't need you to worry about me. You never worried about me for the last ten years so don't come here and act pretentious. I don't need your sympathy.” I spat.

The sight of her threw my mind back to ten years ago. I was only twelve years old when she packed and left to “live her life.”

No matter how I cried and pleaded for her not to leave, not to break our family, she didn't listen.

She walked away and never looked back. I remember the look on my father as he watched her go standing at the garage.

For years, I blamed myself for being ‘ not good enough’ to keep my mother around.

That's until I met her again, married and living happily with her new husband.

Her departure didn't just mess my childhood, it wrecked my father. For years, he remained a shell of who he used to be until Zander's Mom came to his life. And for that, I resented her more than I hated her.

“ That's not true, Pearl! I always worried about you. I just couldn't…”

“ Excuses!” I snapped. “ I don't want to hear them. I'd suggest you leave from here. My father might be turning in his grave from your presence.”

For a moment, I felt her gaze on me but I bit my lips and ignored her. The young me would have been over the moon seeing her. But things changed when I learnt that I didn't need to force myself where I wasn't wanted.

With a sigh, Isolde turned around and left without another word. Good for her because I wanted to hear no other word from her lying mouth.

As her footsteps faded, I couldn't help but let the tears stinging my eyes fall down.

Truth was, me being harsh to her was my way of protecting myself. Growing without motherly love, I started craving affection and anyone who showed me even the slightest concern, I would end up getting attached.

At the end of the day when they walked away, I would be left empty and broken.

She broke me once, I wasn't going to let her do it all over again.

“ You know, you don't need to be so harsh to her. She is trying to be a good mother.” Vienna, Zander's mother whispered from behind, her arms wrapping me in a warm embrace.

“ It's too late for that. I don't need a mother anymore.” I replied, basking in the warmth of her embrace. After Vienna married my father, she became the mother I never grew up with. She filled that void my biological mother left.

“ Are you sure about that, Pearl? Wanting your mother’s affection isn't wrong or something to be ashamed of.” She continued but I shook my head.

“ Right now, I only want to find whoever killed my father and let them pay.” I mumbled.

Vienna pulled away immediately, her expressions shifting.

“ No, Pearl! I forbid you to do that. I won't lose another person in my life. I have already lost enough!”

Before I could reply, a movement caught ghe corner of my eye. Zander.

He stood there in his leather jacket, hands tucked in his pockets, his eyes locked on me.

The fading evening light made his jaw look sharper and his expression unreadable.

For a second, everything and everyone else faded.

He wasn’t just the man my father brought home four years ago anymore. There was something darker about him now,something dangerous.

And when our eyes met, I saw it… the silent promise that he would protect me, even if it meant burning the whole world down.