CLARISSA.The first thing that hit my nostrils as my eyes fluttered open was the strong smell of antiseptic. The white ceiling slowly came into view, and a slow beep echoed softly from the side. I squinted as I tried to make sense of my environment, and in my confusion, I shot my head up in one swift movement.“Ow!” I groaned as I felt a sharp, needle-like pain at the base of my head, and I slowly put myself back in bed.“You’re awake.”That voice was familiar — strongly familiar, a voice I could recognize anywhere, even in my deepest of dreams. I turned to my side to find Devan sitting beside me, his face extremely weary with exhaustion.“Where am I?” I asked, puzzled. “What happened?”“You’re in the hospital,” he replied gently, taking my hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze
DEVAN.Clarissa and I had chosen instead to meet up at her office first to pick up a few things before heading on to the airport, and as I sat across her desk with my arms folded across my chest, I watched quietly as she paced her office restlessly, flipping through the numerous folders and murmuring incoherent words to herself. I smiled to myself as I continued to watch as she returned to the shelf, rummaging through and pulling out even more folders and documents.“You’re gonna give yourself a heart attack, you know that, right?” I asked, teasing her gently.She shot me a sharp look, but her face quickly softened and dissolved into a tight smile. “I just want everything to go smoothly,” she said, gathering another stack of folders. “This deal is one I can’t afford to mess up.”“Well, what if you’re actually not going to mess it up?”
CLARISSA.I lay still on my bed, my thoughts tangled like the curls I had absentmindedly continued to twist and twirl around my index finger for the past thirty minutes or more since I got back to my room from the grocery shopping I’d left for two hours earlier. The memories of my sudden breakdown at breakfast still lingered in my thoughts — how the room had spun, and how the hallucinations had come at me like strange stinging insects, it all felt so creepy. And now, days later, that creepy sense of unease had refused to leave, no matter how hard I tried to flush the thoughts.Something wasn’t right — I knew that for sure, but what made the feeling more difficult to contain was that I was also very sure that Isabella had something to do with it. I could feel it deep in my guts, but my feelings weren’t enough. I needed proof, something solid and concrete enough to validate my thoughts.
ISABELLA.My face creased into a smile as I walked into the hotel room I’d reserved for my rendezvous with Bruce, and I paused for a moment to glance around the dimly lit room. Long soft-glow lamps hung lowly from the ceiling, giving the room a golden yellow hue. My eyes swayed to the floor to see rose petals carefully arranged and trailing from the door where I stood to the bed, which had cream-colored silk sheets and two fluffy pillows arranged on them.“Perfect,” I said to myself, making a mental note to tip the guy from room service who had helped me with the decorations, later on my way out. Right now, Bruce was the business of the day for me, and I couldn’t wait to have this business over and done with.I walked further into the room and sank slowly into the cool softness of the king-sized bed, placing my purse just beside the bottle of sparkling wine that sat in a silver ice bucket with two
BRUCE.A few days after the attack, I sat alone in my study, thinking about the attack and who must have been behind it. As much as I hated to admit it, my brain could only think of just one person — Clarissa. I wondered why she had chosen to go mute for this long only to send thugs after me as her own means of retaliation, and because I needed answers, I picked up my phone and dialled her number.The call rang twice without a response and on the third dial, I was already losing my patience when her voice filtered through.“Hello?”“What do you think you’re doing, Clarissa?” I asked, ignoring what she had said.“What do you think I’m doing?” she answered, reverting my question to me.“You think this is some sort of joke?” I asked, raising my voice. “Wherever you are, I’ll find you C
DEVAN.I sat in my study, the only light in the room coming from the glow of the laptop’s screen. My informant had gotten me the list I needed, and my fingers moved steadily across the keyboard as I sent out the final email. I’d drafted each message carefully, making sure to lace them with enough threats to spark fear, but vague enough to avoid legal backlash. I was desperate to get answers, but I made sure not to let my desperation cloud my sense of reasoning.We have evidence linking you to the recent attack on Bruce. If you don’t want this exposed, contact me immediately, the messages read. I leaned back into my chair and began counting the seconds, waiting and hoping that at least one of them would send a reply. But all I got in the first hour was silence, till the replies began to trickle in.The replies weren’t what I’d hoped for, as most of them flatly denied involvement in any