Prologue

"Chris, why aren't you eating anything?"  Maa said with a scowl on her face. She hate it when someone wasted food. She has always taught us that there are people out there who don't have enough food on their plates and if we have the privilege of having our plates full we should be grateful for that, not waste what we are given.

But how can Chris eat with her on their family table knowing that Julie's chair was empty and he was the sole reason for her not being here with them? 

The things Chris had done to her and the words that he had said to her haunts him to this very day.

He can't get rid of his guilt. He just wanted to burn it all, burn it until there was not a shred of past left, not a shred his guilt left.

Maa doesn't say but he knew that she missed her too, every fucking day. Her silence only added more weight to his guilt. How can she not miss her? Julie was a part of her. Her part of her heart. 

The sorrow in maa's eyes ate Chris alive. Knowing that he was the one who divided their family, maa told her to leave because of him. His sister wasn't at fault at that time but he was. Maa didn't trust her, He didn't trust her. She begged him to believe her but he didn't. 

She begged them to believe~

It has been four years since she left home. Chris looked towards her empty chair, sometimes it felt like she was going to come downstairs from her room, shouting on top of her lungs for us to don't start eating without her because Jack was going to eat her share of cake too.

Sometimes it felt like she never left, she was still with us. Everything in this house reminds him of her and why not, she was the one who decorated everything.

Chris didn't know how to put it in words but it was just a twins thing and in his case, it was a triplets thing. Not knowing where she was and what was she doing haunted him. It leaves him restless. It was like an important part of him was missing.

You know we don't realize our mistakes until it's too late. And now when we have realized how wrong we were it was too late. We have lost her.

We have lost Julie.

"I'm full maa." Chris replied not looking at her. 

"Your daddy won't be home until tomorrow so I was thinking that if both of you are free you can stay here until he is back. It has been months since the last time we have spent some time together." Maa asked with desperation evident in her tone, completely ignoring the fact that Chris had barely touched my food. 

Finally, Chris looked at her face. 

She was looking at him and Jack with hope and why wouldn't she?

Jack and he loathed coming to their childhood home. They rarely visit. Jack didn't come because of his anger towards maa and Chris. And Chris didn't visit often because every time he came here the weight of guilt on his shoulders became almost unbearable.

It was like someone had tied a noose around his neck. He was unable to breathe under the same roof he had grown up.

Jack was his brother who was currently sitting with maa, unaware of the guilt that was eating Chris alive.

Jack, Julie and Chris are triplets. When they were young mom always told them that she knew that he and Jack were going to come in her life but Julie was an unexpected gift from God to her. Mom thought she was pregnant with twins because Julie was a wee babe probably hiding between her brothers. So when Julie came into this world she became a gift for all of us. She was cherished by everyone. They never let her out of our protection, not even for a second but know she was not with them anymore. They have no idea where she was, it was like she had cut them out of her life. 

The daughter of billionaire business tycoons was on her own. She didn't take a single penny from their parents. Even the money that daddy transferred in her account every month was untouched. It was like she was showing us that she didn't need us anymore.

We didn't know that she was the one who tied our family together until she left. Nothing was the same after her departure. 

Everything fell apart. From their sibling bonding to their relations with their parents. Every single thing fell apart.

"Sorry mother but I can't stay I have an important meeting tomorrow but I think your favorite child will be free." Jack replied nonchalantly. 

Chris knew that Jack wasn't going to stay until he was here with maa. He called their mother maa while Jack used to call her mommy but that also changed the day Julie left. Jack the once mommy's boy had become Jackson now.

They have two fathers. While Jack handled the business of their biological father Ethan James, Chris handled the business of their stepfather Maxim Sebastian and Mom's business, who Julie was supposed to take over.

The three of them were business tycoons. Jack and Chris pretty much got everything on a silver platter but that didn't mean that their parents went easy on them. They had to work their asses off to maintain their positions in the business world.

Failure wasn't a choice for them~

Julie, Jack and Chris were inseparable as children. Everyone used to call them 'The Destructive Trio' or 'The Reincarnations Of Satan'. The three of them were walking troubles. They were the kids who had spent a large part of their childhood days in police custody because of their attempts of doing the things that they were not allowed to do.

And they always got this ache to do the things that no other children were allowed to do which had always lead to extreme disasters like burning the kitchen in flames or the time when they locked their bodyguards in the house so that the three of them can drive a car. They were eight at that time. Not to forget the time when they almost blasted their mother's car to recreate a scene of Mission Impossible. The three of them were the definition of trouble.

Jack, Julie and Chris were partners in crime but now Jack hated his guts and he has every right to do so after all Chris was the one who started all this in the first place. Jack was treating him the same way Chris and maa had treated Julie.

Chris looked at maa, she held so much worry, sorrow and love inside her small body. Life was never easy for her. And now she was burning along with our family in the fire that Chris had started four years ago.

The least he can do to ease her worries for a time was to spend some time with her.

So he agreed.

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"Do you miss her maa?" Chris asked with his voice breaking at the end.

Currently, he was laying on the sofa with his head on maa's lap. As a child, it was his best place to voice his worries and guess what it still was.

As a kid he always sneaked from his room, leaving sleeping Julie and Jack behind to spend time with maa.

"Every moment." Maa replied while softly massaging his scalp. 

"I miss her mom. I just want her to come back, this house doesn't feel like home without her." Chris sighed "I don't even know how she looks like now. It's been years since she left home." He said longingly. 

"She didn't leave Christian. I made her leave. She didn't want to leave but my harsh words forced her to leave. You know before the truth came out she used to call your daddy daily. She would talk to Jack and your daddy, telling them about how her day was. Your dad always told me how she was doing, about the new things she was trying. He often told me that she wanted to talk to me but I never received her calls. I avoided talking to her. I was punishing her over something that wasn't her fault and after the truth came out she stopped calling daily. In the beginning, she would call in weeks and then weeks turned into months and months into years. Now it's your daddy who calls her every day but she rarely received his calls. And in my case now the roles are reversed. It's me who's calling her and now she avoids my calls. If you count blocking my number in avoiding. Now she's punishing me for sending her away. It kills me to know that now you and I hold no importance in her life." Maa sobbed.

"Daddy told me she's going to spend her vacations with her best friend. Do you remember maa that while growing up Julie didn't have any friends? Jack and I were all she had and now it feels like she's proving to me that she can have a life without us and she's doing a pretty good job in showing me my worth. After all, I was the one who told her to get a life of her own and leave us alone." 

"It wasn't your fault Chris, I was so afraid that she was going to turn into a person like Sara. I should have resolved that conflict between you two but look at what I did. Look what my fears of Julie destroying her life like Sara did to us. I pushed her out of our lives. Out of her own home." Another sob escaped from maa's lips.

"Do you think she will forgive us maa?" Chris voice his thought.

"It's been four years Chris and she hasn't visited us even once, I don't know what to expect anymore." 

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