Library
Search
Home / Romance / Life Is Not Late / Chapter 4

Share

Chapter 4

Author: Ivy Monroe
Adrian texted me at dawn.

"I'm sending Chloe to London for a while. Once the storm passes, I'll find the best medical team to help you recover. Then we'll go to the Mediterranean for our honeymoon."

I stared at the screen with dry, empty eyes.

He had killed my baby and destroyed my reputation, and now he thought a vacation could buy my obedience.

I didn't reply.

When I was about to leave the hospital, paparazzi and protesters surged toward the entrance like a tide.

"Evelyn! Did you encourage underage fans to attend those parties?"

"Is the golden girl image officially dead? What's the truth behind the midnight video?"

Their questions stabbed at me from every direction.

Before I could even react, Adrian pushed through the crowd, his face dark with rage.

He didn't ask a single question.

He raised his hand and slapped me across the face.

The sound echoed through the hospital entrance.

My ear rang.

"Evelyn, I already agreed to send her away," he growled, grabbing my collar and lowering his voice by my ear. "Why are you still so vicious? You leaked the photos from Chloe's assault ten years ago. Are you trying to kill her?"

I tasted blood in my mouth.

Looking at the madness in his eyes, I gave a hollow laugh.

"I didn't do it."

"Who else knew the details but you?"

He wouldn't listen.

He dragged me away and had me locked inside a massive, empty soundstage deep within the studio.

The lights were blinding. On the giant screen mounted to the wall, Chloe's manager was holding an emergency press conference, crying as she accused me of bullying Chloe for years.

Adrian pointed at the screen.

"This is what you owe her," he said. "I'm telling the media you have a severe mental disorder, and that the party scandal was a manic episode. From today on, you'll stay in a locked treatment facility until you recover."

A locked treatment facility.

Mental disorder.

Manic episode.

Every word was a death sentence.

Once the public accepted that label, I would never be able to speak for myself again.

I looked at the man I had loved for three years. My voice was so calm it sounded unfamiliar even to me.

"Adrian, to keep her in the light, you're going to bury me in hell forever. Is that it?"

He didn't answer.

He only glanced once at the white bandage around my wrist, then turned to the bodyguards.

"Keep her here. No phone. No visitors."

The lock clicked behind him.

The sound echoed through the empty stage.

A few minutes later, the giant screens in Times Square suddenly cut away from their luxury ads.

A grainy, high-impact video appeared.

It was me, sitting in the empty soundstage, looking straight into the camera.

"I used to think the best stories happened on movie screens," I said. "Then I learned that in Hollywood, the cruelest acting happens in real life."

I smiled at the camera. It must have looked beautiful. It must have looked tragic. I had been trained my whole life to make pain look cinematic.

"Goodbye, everyone. I can't play this part anymore."

The camera tilted down.

Blood had already stained the expensive silk dress across my lap.

That night, the internet exploded.

The top trending topic was my death.

Paul told me later that by the time Adrian saw his assistant's panicked face and rushed back to the soundstage, it was too late.

The room was empty except for the blood on the floor and a back door Paul had smashed open.

According to Paul, Adrian's world tilted.

He stumbled, barely able to stay on his feet.
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Latest chapter

  • Life Is Not Late   Chapter 10

    Adrian walked toward me as if every step carried the weight of a lifetime.The perfectly controlled man I remembered was gone. His cheeks were sunken, his bones too sharp beneath his skin, and the old arrogance in his eyes had been replaced by a sick, desperate plea."Evelyn," he said when he stopped a few paces away. "You've tanned a little. You're thinner too... but you look well."He stared at me as if he had been surviving on the memory of my face for years.I didn't break down. I didn't scream. I didn't even feel the rage I once thought would never leave me.I simply looked at him the way one looks at a stranger from a past life."Evelyn, I only have half a day," Adrian said when I didn't answer. He took an urgent step forward, but the women from my hiking group immediately moved closer, wary and protective. "I have to leave soon."He gave a self-mocking laugh and slowly lifted the hem of his pant leg.In the fading sunset, the cold metal of an electronic ankle monitor flashed aro

  • Life Is Not Late   Chapter 9

    Two years later, I was living at the foot of the Alps.The mornings there were always cool and clean, carrying the scent of grass, stone, and distant snow.No one in that little European town knew Oscar-winning actress Evelyn. To them, I was simply Cindy.I had traded my heavy Manhattan gowns for hiking boots and soft sweaters. I bought bread from the same bakery every morning, learned the names of my neighbors' dogs, and walked through streets where no one raised a camera at my face.After surviving the wreckage of my old life, that kind of ordinary peace felt almost unreal."Eve, you forgot something!"Paul's hurried footsteps came up behind me.I turned and saw him holding my hiking pack, worry carved into his face."Are you sure you don't need me to go with you?" he asked.I smiled and took the pack from him."Our hiking group is all women. If you join, they'll be nervous.""Cindy, le bus va partir!" one of my friends called from the bus.Just as I was about to climb on, Paul rubbe

  • Life Is Not Late   Chapter 8

    Adrian drove through the midnight streets of Manhattan.Neon lights smeared across his blood-stained face as the car sped forward. The man who had once ruled the careers of countless stars, the king of producers, now calmly called the police."This is Adrian," he said. "I've killed two people, and I'm on my way to turn myself in."He didn't hire a top legal team. He didn't call PR. He refused every possible way out.To him, the world outside had become more of a prison than prison itself. Everywhere he looked, he saw Evelyn's shadow.But at the final turn before the police station, a massive black SUV roared out of the darkness and slammed into his car.The impact flipped the vehicle in the middle of the road.Glass shattered with a deafening crash.Through his blurring vision, Adrian saw a tall man jump out of the SUV.The man pried open the twisted car door and dragged him out of the wreckage by force.It was Paul."Please," Adrian gasped, blood running down his face. There was somet

  • Life Is Not Late   Chapter 7

    Adrian didn't spare a glance at the panicked man trying to flee.He looked down at Chloe, lifted his hand, and hurled the cracked phone into her face."Ten years," he said. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw, and edged with something lethal. "For filth like you, I drove my wife to her death and lost my only child. Tell me, Chloe. Did you ever feel even one second of guilt?""Adrian, listen to me." Chloe lunged forward and tried to grab the hem of his coat. "I love you. I was just afraid of losing you. Those messages were nonsense. I didn't mean any of it.""Love me?"Adrian let out a broken laugh. A single tear slid down his cheek, but there was no tenderness left in it, only mockery."Do you love me, or do you love my resources? My PR team? The fool you could move around like a puppet?"He grabbed Chloe by the hair and dragged her close, forcing her to look at the truths on the phone screen."The kidnapping was fake. The assault was fake. The betrayal that night was fake. And this firs

  • Life Is Not Late   Chapter 6

    Seven days after Evelyn disappeared, a heavy rainstorm hit Manhattan.Adrian wandered through the mansion like a ghost. He no longer dared to sleep in the wedding bed. Instead, he spent every night in the study, digging through everything Evelyn had left behind.Recordings. Interviews. Behind-the-scenes clips. Old voicemails.He was desperate to hear her voice one more time.In a dusty drawer, he found an old phone with a cracked screen.At first, he thought it belonged to Evelyn. But when it powered on, the pink case stirred a memory.It was Chloe's phone.She had dropped it in his car two years earlier, and he had kept it ever since.That night, driven by an impulse he couldn't explain, Adrian typed in the password.The phone unlocked.What appeared on the screen was not the soft, pretty world he had imagined.It was an encrypted album titled "Game."Adrian opened the first video.It was from ten years ago, during the kidnapping that had changed all their lives.In the video, Chloe w

  • Life Is Not Late   Chapter 5

    Adrian lost track of how he survived the next three days.Scandal crashed over him like a tsunami. The board suspended him from all duties. Reporters surrounded his companies, investors demanded answers, and every news outlet in the country was replaying the final video Evelyn had left behind.Adrian barely noticed any of it.He spent his days locked inside the empty soundstage, staring at the dark, dried bloodstain on the floor.He refreshed his phone like a madman, searching for any proof that Evelyn was still alive. A hidden account. A hospital transfer. A private jet record. Anything.But Evelyn had vanished overnight.Then he saw an old post from Paul: a photo of autumn leaves.The location tag was a small town in Connecticut, Evelyn's birthplace.She had once told him that if she ever got too tired, that was where she wanted to rest.By the time Adrian reached the rural church, the sunset had turned the brick cemetery walls the color of dried blood. There were no cameras, no flas

More Chapters

You may also like

Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status