Chapter 3 : Bad things again.

Cassandra bit her lips and carefully slipped away from the bed while her eyes were urgently looking for her dress.

She almost pulled all of her hair when she tried to calm herself. Her soul almost left the body after the shock, and once again she screamed in silence. 

“Fuck. Shit. Asshole. You have sex with your friend’s boyfriend?”

It's easy to spot her dress among the cluttered clothes on the luxurious carpet that covered the floor. The red burgundy pieces laid there a few feet from the bed.

Her leg gave up when she felt the cold air. She was completely naked.

"Damn, great Casandra. Are you satisfied with this shameless act?" She continued. “Freedom? Bad and wild? Screw you.”

She talked to herself then wrapped herself with a white towel under the bed. Before she could move her foot the sound of beeping at the door froze her. She opened her ears wide and held her breath.

A light step was heard in the silent room.

Getting nervous, she quickly picked up the clothes and her hands were now almost getting stepped on by a red stiletto that stopped it’s step when it's owner saw her.

Casandra slowly raises her body, in her head she is thinking hard how to face Rachel, how to explain things, how to apologize for the mistake she made.

“Rachel...I-”. But her eyes instantly see a pair of eyes with fierce glare on an unknown face.

Cassandra's body jerks back. She tries to stay calm and wonder how to explain in words, but even after time passes there still no sound was heard in the room.

The woman's eyebrows were raised a bit, scanning her face and looking Cassandra up and down. 

Bitch.Slut.Foxxy.

Those words were not heard from the woman's mouth but Casandra can read from her eyes. Casandra gulped and she took a step back when the woman took a step forward to her.

A group of men with black suits were appearing at her back. Each of them are not normal.

'They clearly showed that they were skilled enough to make me disappear without a trace and no one would know what happened to me.' Cassandra kept the thought to herself.

Cassandra was lost at words, but her mind kept finding a way to overcome this crisis. 

‘Who is this woman? She obviously is not Rachel’ she talks to herself.

“You.” The woman eyed Casandra. “Why are you so pathetic and shameless to bite something that is far from your league.”

Casandra cannot understand how a perfect ladylike, in that age was so terrible in words.

“Excuse me?” Casandra holds her breath.

“How dare you.” Rowena Anderson's words were firm, not loud and almost whispered but full of disgust and anger.

“How dare you sleep with someone's fiance. Have you not been born with pride?” She said. “Or at least, with a brain?”

Casandra struggled to find words to explain but everything was unclear and her mind was blanked the moment the words fiancee came out.

“I..didn’t...know.” Finally, the best words were chosen. The cliche and lame words that kept repeating from human mouths from time to time.

“Huh. Ridiculous. You have been dating this idiot son of mine for months. And What? You didn’t know?”

'Son? No wonder she was infuriated'. Cassandra thought to herself. 

“I just met him last night and I didn't even know him before.” I am not lying, Cassandra eyes stare back at the disgusted glare towards her.

Rowena Anderson reached out her hand and a woman appeared from behind giving her an envelope. She flipped it upside down, and plenty of pictures were cluttered on the floor.

Cassandra reaches one to look, that's not her. She thought. “It’s Rachel but she looked like me.”

From the head to the toe, Rachel and Cassandra were alike physically but they're definitely different if you have known them long enough.   

“Why did she dress like me? No, she acts like me?” Cassandra brow arched. She was wondering herself, digging and racking her brain to get some clue. To understand the situation.

Rowena Anderson lost her patience. The lady in front of her was indifferent towards her.

“Leave. Don't come near him again.” 

“Sshhh--” Cassandra put a finger on her own lips, now looking for her phone. She wants to use her brain for thinking. She can’t focus on the raging old lady who thinks highly of herself that she can degrade other people as she likes.

Rowena speaks again this time louder but Cassandra, for the second time puts a finger on her own lips, asks her to shut up and show her palm to ask her to wait a bit. Rowena looks at the hand, with her eyes narrowed and her brows look furiate.

The bodyguards, the secretary all think that Cassandra will die soon, she just slapped the pride of the old tiger.

Cassandra found her phone, the first thing she saw was the text message she received from Rachel. “I sold you off. Sorry.”

“This bitch still dared to say sorry and be honest with it?”

Cassandra looked back behind her shoulder, and somehow she saw the reflection on the black glass window.

The man was smiling under the soft and silky duvet. His eyes still closed tight but he heard everything and felt amused by the drama. His back was facing them but his ears were clear as the sky.

‘You awake? fucking asshole? Get up and explain to your mother’ Cassandra wanted to shout and kick the man out of the bed but Cassandra saw herself from the mirror near the main door. She looked ridiculous, mess from the hot night and she felt her blood boiling.

'hot sex? Screw freedom and dignity' She thought and furiate with herself. 

Her soul recovers from the loss, her eyes change and now she looks directly at the old woman that keeps looking down on her.

‘Slap -’

Cassandra get a slap. The sound of the lady's hand touching Cassandra's face was loud. 

It tooks a moment, Cassandra blew the hair from her face. The stung from the slap set her eyes clearer.

“Bitch.” At that moment, Cassandra cursed out towards Rachel. But Rowena thought Cassandra spit the word to her face. She lifted her hand, aiming to slap for the second time.

Cassandra caught that slender hand, it was slim and small and no difference with her own hand but yet, Cassandra was stronger. She tosses Rowena hand to the side, unintentionally the energy from her anger makes Rowena stumble and almost fall.

“I received the first one as it was my fault to sleep with someone's fiance”. She said it softly but clearly. “But not the second time. All of this was a misunderstanding and I am too lazy to explain it to someone who didn’t bother to know the truth.”

Cassandra collected all her clothes from the floor, walk to the bathroom. She dresses herself and after a while. She looks straight into Rowena's eyes. 

Rowena was speechless, for the first time in years she couldn't find a word to curse, or even to shout. It was not because she was afraid but rather, she saw her younger version of her in that woman.

"Now, if you could please deliver my message to this blessed son of yours. Who has sent from heaven to the best mother in this world." Her sarcasm remark stopped there.

"Don't use a woman to counter another woman, it's not just pathetic, it's also annoying and useless." 

Cassandra knew Rachel, she had a bad temper but she was always straightforward. She had a dream, she wants to head up, move forward to be a real model. And be someone who could perform on a big stage with thousands of eyes following her steps. 

Her instinct told her, this man must be using her but Rachel must be scared and decide to fall back, pull herself from the unexpected danger. 

The calm demeanor and solitude she showed Rowena, was from the thousands of days she had been through humiliation, sinister remarks and being ignored as human. 

She is also not a porcelain who is being groomed as a pretty vesel, being appreciated, be liked but would crumble to pieces when it is crushed to hard floor. 

Cassandra's soul made from a metal, she had burned in fire, being hammered with the reality of life. She can bend, melt, break but she also can back into shape as it burns again and hammers again into the mold she chooses to. 

Before she opened the door to get out from the suite, Cassandra took a breath, to ease her anger a bit she turned back and looked at the black glass window where she saw the man staring back at her through the reflection. 

She showed her left fist, instead of showing her middle finger she let her inder finger out. 

Liam thought it was cute he chuckled, but then his brows arched. 

Cassandra took out a scissor with her finger from her right fist. Bring the finger scissor to the index finger, cut it out and move it like throwing it off. 

He felt insulted but in a cute way. 

"Cut and throw my big brother away? Aren't you satisfied with him all night?" Liam whispered to himself and saw the strong lady that shut her mother away with her strong demeanor faded behind the closed door. 

***

Latisha rearranged her coffee mixture, she wiped the marble counter and stopped when Cassandra showed her face on the door.

“You are early. It was only lunch time. We thought you would not get back until the sun goes down?” Renee, who put the closed sign at the door, came and sat beside Cassandra. She can sense that something bad happen.

The not normal 'bad'. Cassandra never really had a chance to be in peace. Bitter taste keep followed her, but this times Cassandra looked terrible.

Cassandra gave a bitter smile, she choose a seat at the centre of the cafe and told them everything from the moment she set foot on the sky bar last night until the moment she left the luxurious suite just now.

Latisha's eyes were wide open but Cassandra never thought it could be any wider than she saw now. Renee suddenly goes to the counter looking for things.

“I saw the knife around here, where is it?” Curses and vulgar words flowed out like a song from her mouth.

Cassandra felt so much better after telling them everything. They gave her encouraging words, planning on dragging Rachel, threatening her. Then her phone rang and an unknown number appeared.

"Hello…"

Silent. 

"Yes, I'm Cassandra Morgan". 

"..." No words but a sobbing was heard. 

"Hello? Are you alright?" 

"Sister… what should I do?" sobbing again. It took a while before the young girl spoke again. 

"Mother is dying. I.. I don't know what to do. Men.. Some uncles want me to sign the paper. They want to sell the house. They.. We need a guardian. They're gonna take Kenzie and Milly… sister Sisie…"

A sound of crushing was heard when she suddenly stood. Her elbow nudges the cup and falls to the floor. 

"Sister… help me, help us.” The sobbing was loud and clear. 

Cassandra muttered Sisie, was a name her mother used to call her when she was kid. 

She looks at Latisha and Renee. "My mother was dying". 

Gasps and sighs were heard.