Final Notice

Chapter 6

Valentina's POV

FOUR YEARS LATER

"Good morning, Mrs. Burrow!" I exclaimed excitedly as the middle-aged woman opened her door. She greeted me with a scowl and groaned when she saw me.

"Of course it’s you," she muttered, disappearing into her house and reappearing with a duffel bag filled with dirty laundry.

I held Aidan securely with one hand while reaching for the duffel bag with the other.

I feigned surprise at the weight of the clothes, saying, "These sure are heavy, but because you’ve been so supportive, I’ll charge you only a hundred pounds."

"Fine, just deliver it by Friday," she grunted, shutting the door in my face before I had a chance to reply.

"Will do," I muttered to myself as my smile faded. Holding Aidan in one hand and the duffel bag in the other, we crossed the road and began our walk home.

Four years ago, Taylor was the one working, and I didn’t have to worry about anything. I took it for granted and partied away my time. Now, here I was in South London, going door to door to see if anyone needed petty chores done.

Mrs. Burrow was a regular, always gave me her laundry, and paid me scrapes.

No one wanted to hire a twenty-four-year-old high school dropout who was also a single mom. I was shocked to find out that even janitorial jobs required qualifications. After what felt like a million failed interviews, I eventually stopped applying altogether.

The menial freelance jobs I managed to get barely covered the basics for Aidan and me. Juggling work and motherhood was exhausting, especially since I didn’t know anyone who could help make things even a little easier.

"Mama, look!" Aidan’s voice jolted me out of my thoughts. I glanced up to see what he was pointing at and smiled when I saw a butterfly flutter past—an unmistakable sign that spring was fast approaching.

"It’s beautiful, baby," I gushed, earning a series of soft chuckles from him that made my heart clench with emotion.

Once we were a safe distance from the road, I let him go so he could skip away and try to chase the butterfly.

To think he was the product of a one-night stand with a stranger I didn't even remember— a heated mistake.

Who would have thought I would end up knocked up from my first one-night stand? Flashes of that night in the bar replayed in my head. The only thing I remembered from that night was that I was drugged, and I ended up in the car of some rich dude.

“I hope you don’t come back home one day, pregnant and all alone.”

I cringed as I remembered Taylor’s last words to me. The irony of it all was not lost on me. I was a single mother with no job, and I had never felt as alone as I have in the past four years.

Oh, how right you were, Tay!

"Ugh!" I groaned as I bumped into a man, my mind returning to the present.

"Hey, watch it!" he called out grumpily as he bent down to pick up the newspaper that had scattered everywhere.

"I'm so sorry!" I whispered, bending down to help him collect the papers. "Aidan, wait up!" I called to my son so he wouldn’t wander too far away.

"It’s fine, miss. Leave it!" The newsagent's voice was stern. I almost listened, but suddenly the headline caught my attention.

A HOUSEKEEPER WHO WORKED FOR THE HAWTHORNES FOUND DEAD IN THE FAMILY’S POOL.

"You have to pay for that," the newsagent's gruff voice sliced through the air. Aidan rushed back to my side, looking at the man with wide, innocent eyes.

"UM, I am sorry," I said simply, handing him back the newspaper. I forced a tight-lipped smile and picked up the duffel bag, walking past him to avoid any further interaction.

I couldn’t even afford a silly newspaper.

I was only a few blocks away from my apartment, but the headline I had just read filled my head with troubling thoughts.

The Hawthornes were the same people my sister worked for, and sometimes I wonder whether they had a hand in her death. There had been reports of missing maids from the house since then but…

"Hold up!" the newsagent said, interrupting my train of thought and walking up to me. He handed me a newspaper. "It's all soiled now, here, you keep it."

"I... thank you!" I barely whispered as I took the newspaper from him and watched him walk away. I tucked the newspaper into the duffel bag and made a mental note to read it when I got home.

Holding Aidan, I dragged the bag until we reached my apartment. I dropped the duffel bag on the floor and searched my purse for the house key when a glint caught my eye by the corner of the door.

I furrowed my brows in confusion as I picked it up. I opened the envelope to find a letter that read:

FINAL NOTICE!

I groaned loudly, "Could this day get any worse?"

The house rent had been due for six months now, and I knew I was treading on thin ice.

I opened the door, allowing Aidan to trot inside as I dragged the duffel bag filled with clothes into the apartment.

"Mrs. Burrow will have to pay me extra," I murmured to myself, even though that seemed very unlikely.

The apartment was dark. I hadn’t paid the electricity bill, so there was no way to have any power.

"Bills! Bills! Bills!" I groaned in exasperation for the thousandth time that day. How did it get so hard?

"I've never stopped you from living your ridiculous lifestyle because I thought you needed space to get over it, but you're twenty-one years old, with no job, no money, yet somehow, you manage to party every single day. It’s just us, Valentina. What would you do if I weren’t here? Hooking? Robbery? Cocaine?"

Taylor's words from four years ago jabbed me in the heart like a spear.

If I could turn back the hand of the clock, I would. I'd tell Taylor how much I loved her and how much I appreciated all her efforts, but I was four years too late. I was never going to see my sister again!

A soft sob caught in the back of my throat.

I walked over to draw the curtains open so that the daylight could seep in. The apartment was not the fanciest or most comfortable in south London, but it was manageable. There was a small center table and couch in the middle of what I had made a living room. In the corner was a dingy old mattress and a rusty old fridge that Liam had given me.

I smiled at the thought of Liam. He was Taylor's friend. The details of their friendship, I do not know.

When I found out I was pregnant. I was a wreck, and the weight of it all pushed me to attempt suicide twice. If not for Liam, who helped me with the rent for the first two years and even paid the hospital bill when Aidan was born, I don’t know what I would have done. But eventually, I had to ask him to stop. I started to feel like a leech, especially knowing he had his own struggles to deal with.

Aidan began playing with his toy car, and I yanked the duffel bag with me into the bathroom, where I began sorting them. The earlier I started washing them, the earlier they dried and the earlier they dried, the faster I could get them to Mrs burrow and the faster I got it to her, the faster I could get my money.

As I overturned the clothes on the floor, the newspaper fell out, and I picked it up. I sat down by the edge of the bathtub to read the full content of the headline.

Sabrina Baker, a housekeeper who tended to the CEO of the Hawthorne group, was found dead in a pool. Sources said that she was sleepwalking and fell inside a pool. She was found the following day and...

"Who just sleepwalks into a pool?" I exclaimed to no one in particular.

This was just too creepy.

The rumors were always there yet people still applied for the position. Didn't they value their lives?

This was the thought that careened through my mind as I sorted the clothes out carefully.

Bright colors here. Plain whites there. Neutral colors there.

"Mama?" Aidan's voice rang out as he came to meet me in the bathroom. My head looked up at him as I tried to turn on the faucet.

"Yes baby," I answered, returning my gaze to the faucet.

"I'm hungry."

Aidan's voice was soft. I looked at him and his bright blue eyes pierced through me. i could only imagine that he was the spitting image of whoever his father was, because the only feature he got from me was his icy blue orbs. His black hair and rosy cheeks were a stark contrast to my brown hair and pale skin.

I sighed heavily and dropped the laundry I was sorting out. "Let me see what we have," I said to him as I ruffled his little hair.

I made my way into the makeshift kitchen and checked the fridge but was hit by the stale stench of the leftover sandwich.

Just great! Now, there was no dinner.

I grabbed the house keys. "Wait here for me baby. Mama's going to bring you food."