Marlene Telegram Novels & Stories

Her bones knew. That letter wasn’t Brielle’s voice. It was a smothered echo of the girl she loved—filtered, sanitized, and scripted. Her vision blurred with angry tears. She dialed the only person who might still believe her. Marlene picked up on the second ring. “Talia?” The voice was tired. Raw. “I need to read the letter Brielle left you,” Talia said, breath shallow. No preamble. No time. Marlene paused. “I don’t know, sweetheart. It’s probably just going to make you sad all over again.”

How I still have her number saved, I don’t know. Curious, I checked to see what it said. “Hey, baby, I can see you right now. I'm at the same venue as you," the message from Mariella read. What was she doing here? I had hoped for some peace and clarity, but it seemed like another drama was unfolding. Another message came in, and as I checked it, I saw that she had sent a photo of herself wearing a sleeveless dress that revealed her cleavage. The caption read, "Come to mama, look down to your right," accompanied by a wink face emoji.

There were several unread Line messages on the home screen of the phone, including the ones sent by Elizabeth last night, the performance schedule sent by Caroline, and a Line message sent by Karissa. Charlotte clicked directly into Line, before even clicking into a specific chat box, she saw Karissa's Line message: "Charlene, Mr. Romero from the Splendid Group has sent you a Yamaha AR195, take a look..."

"Then calls with Tokyo. Then a site visit." It's day four of this routine. I’ve been showing up at Sinclair Technologies at 7:47 AM with coffee she might not drink. "I'll just leave it, then." Marlene takes the cup but doesn't move toward Elena's office. Instead, she studies me for a while before speaking. "Mr. Kane, can I ask you something?" "Of course." "Why coffee?" "I'm sorry?" "Why not flowers? Or jewelry? Some grand gestures men like you usually make when you're trying to win someone back."

Damn it. His mobile communicator emitted a sharp acoustic alert, and he nearly dropped the hardware as his fingers scrambled frantically to verify if the transmission originated from Finn's network. An immediate, heavy wave of pure disappointment settled within his chest cavity as his vision decoded the incoming data from Mariana, who was demanding a tactical update on how the evening meal had progressed.

“Terra Seca will burn to its foundations. And I’ll be here to blow on the ashes.” “And your reward?” the man reminded her, his voice smooth as poisoned silk. “Dawson doesn’t forget his friends. The agreed amount, deposited in an account in the Caymans. Far from this… place.” “This place,” Marlene replied, looking around at the dark, dusty room and the faded photographs of a family that no longer existed, “stopped being my home a long time ago. It belonged to Joseph. All I want is enough money to disappear and never look back.”

Panicking about what I did wrong only made me make more mistakes, which didn’t help anyone. Yesterday, I’d come into the office, even though I never worked on weekends, and found someone who could work with Aaron and his boy. I felt good about the match, too. I’d sent off the emails to all the right people, and I was proud of myself for going the extra mile and doing something right. “Morning,” I said brightly to Marlene, who was in the office for a change. “I feel like we never see each other,” Marlene said. She had long brown hair so thin that her ponytail was only as thick as my finger, and everything about her was small and delicate. Everything but her attitude.

And then Julian said from inside the room, with the timing of a man who had been specifically designed to test my patience, "The Berlin contact just sent something. You both need to see this." Darion closed his eyes for exactly one second. I pressed my lips together. "We are not finished," he said quietly. To me. Only to me. "No," I agreed. "We are not." We went back inside. On the screen, Maren's message was three lines long. The ten day window was not ten days anymore. It was four.

she said, reaching for it. I turned the screen toward myself. The conversation was still open. It was a text thread with an unsaved number with no photo. The first message I saw was Daniella’s. I heard Marceline is dead. Is it true? Below it was the reply, timestamped only minutes ago.

Single message from an outside number I didn't recognize. I opened it. Four words. “We need to talk.” The sender ID resolved after a three second delay. Elder Maren.