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Chapter Five
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2025-08-11 05:39:20Thora's POV
It all gets messy
I sat still in the cold hospital chair, my heart pounding heavily as I watched the unconscious Luke struggling to breathe through the oxygen mask.
Watching his chest rising weekly sent chills down my spine.
“Why did you do that, you idiot?” I whispered softly, squeezing his hands softly.
I brushed his hair softly, my red eyes screaming sleep and exhaustion.
You didn’t have to take that bullet. You didn’t have to make this real.
The nurse came in and checked his vitals. I went cold. The fear wouldn't allow me to flinch.
I was supposed to protect him, now I dragged him into this madness.
I told him to send a guard and not come by himself and play superhero. Damn…
“You look awful.”
His eyes blinked warmly. I leaned forward, frozen.
He's alive. Thank God. I want to kiss him now, like, damn!
“You got shot and you’re cracking jokes?” I managed to force a smile through the tears.
“I couldn’t let you die. That wasn’t in the contract.” He chuckled. “And besides, you should be thanking me…”
“Shut up…”
He looked at me with his glowing eyes, and dropped the silliest message I've heard in years.
“Marry me.”
What? I'm not sure I heard him well. Did he say marry me? No, he didn't.
“Pardon?”
“I said marry me. I love you.”
I blinked in shock. My heart skipped a beat.
“What?”
“No contracts. No fake anything. Marry me.”
“You’re high on meds.” I scoffed.
The drugs must have gotten to his medulla. Let me get the nurse.
Marry who?! Like of all times, it's now! No. I can't… I won't.
“Maybe. But I’m also in love with you.” He grinned. I feel like slapping those words in his mouth.
In love with who?
Like I was shocked!
I didn't answer him, I just left. I can't stand another heartbreak. No, I've got enough.
Back home, the TV blared across my room, the headlines screaming.
“Quentin Allen Jackson; arrested this morning in connection to financial crimes dating back six years…”
I calmly read everything, digesting each word. Although, financial crimes, that's new…
“Guess karma finally had a deal with him.” I smirked. It's been a long night. I need to rest this morning. Avis was already asleep, she needs rest.
“You’ve been granted full custody of Avis.” My phone pinged with a message.
Oh thank God! It was our family lawyer.
It's done. Finally, I can now live in peace.
I watched the video of how he was dragged out of court. I couldn't attend the proceedings. I just couldn't stand to see his face.
However, he said something in that video, mom told me too.
“...It’s not over. Ask your billionaire what he’s hiding.”
I want peace. I want this whole thing over already. I'm sick and tired of fighting here and there and him saying it's not over or Luke was hiding something, put me to work.
He gave me an assignment.
I ransacked the house, going through Quentin's old things, the ones I kept.
Don't know why, maybe it's fate.
I looked through old archives, scrolling for hours into Luke's public records, and I found nothing. So frustrating.
However, the entire thing changed when I found it. Just one thing, and that's all.
I froze with a gasp. It was a photo, five years ago. I saw it online, Luke and Quentin, together, shaking hands at a gala.
“No. No, no, no…”
I can't believe this. Hope my eyes aren't deceiving me.
I zoomed in. It's them, I'm sure. They were smiling, standing too close for strangers.
Damn you Luke!
You said you wanted to ruin him. But you knew him.
How dare you?
I flung the tablet across the room.
I waited for another day, boiling and fuming all day. I wish I could just strangle both of them.
Aargh!!!
Later, I stormed into the hospital room. I had gotten a printed copy of the photo.
“Yo… why the long face…”
“What is this? Explain it!” I shoved the photo in his face, my hands trembling in anger.
“Uhm, it looks like a photo. Anything else?” He replied. Damn, I need to grab his neck. I need to strangle him already.!!
“Don’t play dumb, you know him. You knew him…”
Jeez!!!
“Yes. Years ago. One deal. That’s it. And I told you we once crossed paths right?”
“You did what? You didn’t think that mattered?”
He struggled to sit up, it didn't even bother me.
“I didn’t use you.”
Guilty conscience. Did I ask if you used me?
“But you used this. You used me to bring him down.” I cried and threw the photo in his face.
“You weren’t a pawn. You were the weapon.”
What?! And I was even beginning to love him? Oh God? Why do I always get it wrong at this?
“You want me to marry you right? That’s not love.”
He doesn't feel my words, he doesn't feel my pain. I need to break something; his head.
“No. It’s revenge. Love just happened along the way.”
He just talks without even thinking.
Like I was shocked. So this was all a game to him right?
“You know what, I need air.”
“I’m not sorry for what I did. But I am sorry you found out this way.” He tried to explain. Oh! Now you're sorry. I thought it happened along the way?
Silly bastard.
I walked out, leaving the photo on the floor with him.
He saved me. He used me. He proposed. And now I don’t know if any of it was ever real…
Bab terbaru
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 43
Thora’s POVBefore anybody informed me, I had the feeling that something had gone wrong.It wasn’t dramatic. No screaming telephone calls or irruption of news. Nothing but a slight chest tightness which I could not get to leave even with the slowest breathing.The morning felt… off.Avis dropped her cereal, and did not cry. She simply gazed at the milk on the table and as though it betrayed her. I got it cleaned up, kissed her hair, and said it was all all right. I felt my hands trembling noticeably.I don’t usually notice.That’s how I knew.My cell phone rang when Avis was polishing her teeth.One word, a message of my lawyer.We’re seeing movement. Don’t react publicly. Call me when you’re alone.Movement.I bent against the counter and shut my eyes. Quentin never moved loudly. He pushed things in and stood back and left gravity to finish the job.“Mom?” Avis made a call using toothpaste foam. “Can you tie my shoe today? The double knot.”Naturally, I replied, trying to make my voi
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 42
Quentin’s POVQuentin Palmer never threw things.It was the original deception people had made about him that he was angry and loud, sloppy and reckless. It didn’t. Anger sharpened him. It slackened his movements, reduced his vision, divested everything that was not necessary.That is why, when the call came, when his lawyer altered his intonation in the middle of a sentence, Quentin did not raise his voice. He didn’t curse. He didn’t even interrupt.He listened.Luke had provided a sworn statement.Luke had broken rank.Quentin terminated the call in a polite manner and assured to go through the documents and laid the phone down with caution. Sitting in his office, looking the city a mile beyond the glass wall, he sat very still as the map which he had previously possessed had.Luke.Of all people.At one point Quentin had thought that his brother could never cross him because Luke did not agree with all that he did but did not like enmity as much as he did injustice. The only langua
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 41
Thora’s POVThis call was during my laundry.Something other than dramatic, no sirens, no shrieking. Only when my phone vibrated on the counter of the kitchen, the screen flashed the name of my lawyer.For a second, I didn’t answer.That is what is weird about trauma. Part of you is always preparing to get bad news, even when you are awaiting the news. I was holding a small sock in my hand and looking at the phone as though it were a snake.Avis then, laughing in the living room, something cheerful and reckless, which made my limbs conscious of my location.I picked up.My lawyer, Thora, I can hear it in your voice, said and I could hear it. “I need you to sit down.”I already was.“What happened?” I asked.This morning Luke Palmer made a sworn statement.The air seemed to thin.“A statement?” I repeated.“Yes. Voluntary. Detailed. On record.”My fingers were curled in the fabric of the sock. “About what?”I heard a silence, long enough to frighten me.“About Quentin,” she said. “And
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 40
Quentin’s POVThe first sign wasn’t the call.It was the silence before it.Quentin spotted it immediately he entered his office, how people were halting their conversation too fast, how eyes were sinking rather than rising with him. Respect was no such word. Fear didn’t either.This was something else.He dropped his briefcase with pain and unbuttoned his coat with the slowest pain. Language was control and he had mastered the language. Panic was loud. He refused to be loud.Cancel my ten o’clock, he said to his assistant and did not look at her.She did not give a reply at once.That was the second sign.“Did you hear me?” he asked.“Yes,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “I already did.”He looked up then.Her hands were shaking.Quentin narrowed his eyes. “Why?”She swallowed. “Because Cara Whitman is here.”His jaw tightened. She does not arrive here without warning.The assistant said that she was not here on your behalf. “She’s here for Luke.”The name fell like a single strand o
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 39
Thora’s POVLuke made no response when he shut the door. And he only stood, as though he dared the wrong word would wipe me out of existence.My silence with him was so terrible that I could have shouted more.You need not have come, I said at length.“I know,” he replied. “But I did.”That answer in itself was everything and nothing simultaneously.I went to the kitchen, where I needed space, movement. My legs were stiff as they did not believe the ground. Luke was at my heels, but paused a few feet back, to avoid coming too near me, as though he were going up to something delicate, and sharp.I filled my glass of water, and the hands shook masterfully enough to vex.You may sit, I said, without turning round.“I’m fine.”Of course he was. Luke has always been okay until he was not.I was standing on the counter and looking at the wall. The note was folded next to my phone, and it was a loaded weapon that neither of us had yet owned.Did you think I was going to fail to come? he ques
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 38
Thora’s POVLuke made no response when he shut the door. And he only stood, as though he dared the wrong word would wipe me out of existence.My silence with him was so terrible that I could have shouted more.You need not have come, I said at length.“I know,” he replied. “But I did.”That answer in itself was everything and nothing simultaneously.I went to the kitchen, where I needed space, movement. My legs were stiff as they did not believe the ground. Luke was at my heels, but paused a few feet back, to avoid coming too near me, as though he were going up to something delicate, and sharp.I filled my glass of water, and the hands shook masterfully enough to vex.You may sit, I said, without turning round.“I’m fine.”Of course he was. Luke has always been okay until he was not.I was standing on the counter and looking at the wall. The note was folded next to my phone, and it was a loaded weapon that neither of us had yet owned.Did you think I was going to fail to come? he ques
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