Thank you for reading another chapter and... happy New Year!!! 🎆🍾❤️ I hope that you will enjoy reading this story in the New Year as well 😅 I'm incredibly grateful for all your support, and please don't stop 😍 Thank you so much for every comment, review, and gem-vote 💎🥹 Have an amazing year 2024!!!
The next day, I stayed in bed until ten o'clock, which meant that I got up four hours later than I usually did, even on the weekends. It was hard to drag myself from under a comforting blanket and stand on my own two feet. Father didn't try to shorten my rest, not after he had seen me once I had returned home from the gala. His eyes were filled with deep concern and fear. He asked me about what had happened, but I didn't have the strength to explain. I might have tossed something like, “I'll deal with it on my own,” before heading straight to bed.I took a cool shower and got dressed. My chest was still tightened as if I were wearing a mental corset, three sizes too small to accommodate my body. Processing what I had learned was nearly unbearable. Darren had known my true identity. He had tried to use me, manipulate me, trick me...I sucked in a sharp breath, air scratching my lungs like broken glass. I shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if I hadn't read those letter
The silence that filled the room was heavy and devastating. I could feel my guts twisting as I carefully turned and analyzed every word my uncle had said. “Get rid of them… how?” I dared ask, although my voice was barely a whisper.Uncle stiffened, staying with his back to me. He remained motionless for almost a minute, a minute filled with unbearably long, suffocating seconds. Then his shoulders moved in a tense shrug. “We bribed some of them, forcing them to disappear on their own. Others needed… convincing.”Air escaped me in a violent blow. A second later, my eyes filled with tears. “How brutal was this ‘convincing’?” I could barely push those words through my throat as the bile rose there, threatening to block everything, my windpipes included.“No one died,” was all he said before walking to the smaller room adjoining his office. He stopped at the threshold and glanced over his shoulder. “Don't tell your father I've told you.” Then he stepped further and closed the door behind h
Felicia walked out of the kitchen carrying a steaming teapot. Then she carefully placed it on the table and slumped in the armchair opposite the sofa where Raven and I sat. She looked tired after walking a few steps between the kitchen and her living room, as if for her, boiling water had become as exhausting as running a marathon.I could see that Raven watched her closely, most likely catching all of the symptoms of… whatever kind of sickness drained her body. I shuddered at the thought of what must have been done to her to cause such a condition.“I studied to become a nurse, you know?” Felicia smiled wryly as her trembling hand reached for the teapot.“Let me,” I said, hurriedly grabbing the teapot and pouring the tea into our cups.“Thank you,” she muttered and pulled a strand of her dull hair behind her ear. “I met Alistair during my practice at the hospital. I didn't know who he was, and he even pretended to be a doctor just to trick me into giving him my number.” Her lips twit
My heart stumbled as I stared at the two, rage filling my veins. I had met Alistair Pearson once or twice when I had still been one of Doctor Rogers's patients. He hadn't changed since then. He was wearing an impeccable, well-tailored suit, charcoal this time. His reddish hair was, as always, kept short, emphasizing all the sharp lines of his handsome face. Even the smirk remained the same. Only his green eyes now betrayed more than before. Or perhaps it was my eyes that could see more of his true, despicable nature.Seeing Darren standing beside someone like Alistair chilled me to the bone, releasing all kinds of questions. How well had they known each other? Was I right in assuming that Darren was Alistair's friend? And... was Darren the friend whom Alistair called the night Felicia almost died?I released my breath and blinked, realizing that I should move before one of them noticed me staring. Engaging with either of them would have been far more stupid than my clubbing date with
DARRENIt was after midnight, but I was still in the office in Le Chevalier Noir. I sat by my wooden desk and stared at the laptop screen. I preferred this place over my fancy office at Eques Gold Corporation. The club was more quiet on weekdays, and I was desperate for quiet. It was the only thing that helped me contain the storm inside me.Grinding my teeth, I raised my head above the screen, looking at my friend-slash-partner. “I want a full report on Pearson, and I want it ASAP.” I tried to keep my voice even, but I could feel the claws of rage scratching their way out through my skin.Lucien gave me a meaningful look as he sprawled on the sofa. Still, he grabbed his phone and made a quick call, ordering his men to do what I told him to. The bastard found my anger amusing, and he had been acting this way from the moment he'd learned about my brief encounter with Ms. Hayes at the restaurant.“Don't make me wipe the smirk off your face with my fist,” I warned him.He straightened up
“Dylan Morgan was the last one we knew of, and he is now dead,” I told Lucien the next day as we sat in my other—more formal and elegant—office on the top floor of the Eques Gold Building.Lucien muttered a curse or two, his fists clenching. He was as engaged in the plan to send Hayes to jail as I was, and I knew that for him, another failure tasted just as bitter as the bitterness currently filling my mouth. He'd had an older half-brother who had been my father's assistant. He'd been on board that plane, sitting beside my father when it had blown up.“So that's it? Our final witness is gone, and there's no way to prove William Hayes's guilt?” He gritted his teeth as he stared at me.I exhaled sharply. “I'm running out of ideas. Dylan Morgan was the fourth one. Now all of those who claimed they saw Hayes at the airport are dead, and we have nothing.” Admitting it tensed every muscle in my body.A dry chuckle left him. “Not only did he kill your father and my bro but four other people,
LILLYI might have stopped breathing. No. Correction. I definitely wasn't breathing as I stared at Darren Knight and the hand he offered. Those women who surrounded me were now all turned toward him, each ready to replace me if I refused him. What the hell did he want from me? Was this some kind of trick? A part of his sick plan?Seconds passed, and I kept my gaze on him. My heart pounded as I hectically searched for the right solution. I knew that his gesture and my silence drew attention. This was not supposed to happen. I had never thought that he would decide to go anywhere near me. Him, openly asking for a private conversation with me was another thing I would have called ridiculous just a moment ago. And yet, he stood two feet away from me, smiling, as if our conversation were the most natural thing that could ever occur. Should I just… go with him? No matter how far we would go to have this “private talk,” we'd still be in a public place. He would never plan to harm me after su
My ribs shrunk, squeezing my lungs. My breathing became shallow—too shallow—providing too little oxygen to spread by my hectically pounding heart. I lowered my gaze and stared at my trembling hands. “Do you seriously expect me to look for evidence against my father?” I asked hoarsely.“I've never said that.” His tone hardened. “I want the truth.”Slowly, I met his gaze. “Do you? Because I believe there's only one thesis you are willing to accept.”A cold smirk appeared. “And you don't? Don't you want to find someone guilty—anyone who isn't your father?”I ground my teeth, slowly processing what he said, before questioning, “Would you accept that someone other than my father was responsible for planting the bomb in your father's plane?”He leaned back in his seat. “Depends on the evidence.”I let out a humorless chuckle. “This will get us nowhere.”“It will.” He locked his eyes on me. “I know it because you want to know for sure. You need the evidence just as much as I need it.”This c