Some thirty minutes later, Arthur steps into the quiet restaurant downtown, scanning the room quickly before heading toward the private booths at the back.The dim lighting and soft atmosphere offer a level of privacy he needs for this meeting.Millicent had insisted on a booth, keeping her profile low, and for once, Arthur agreed. The last thing they need is more public attention, especially with the scandal she’s already stirred up. They cannot afford to have more wrong presumptions with the one on ground causing a lot of issues already.If they are caught together, he won’t be surprised to wake up and see on the news as top news and headlines that the couple had met and planned to get back together or something like they have reinstated their marriage, bye bye to Bethany or corny headlines just like that.It will be infuriating for him but it will be heartbreaking to see and watch Bethany listen to that bull crap.As he approaches the booth, Millicent is already seated, sunglasses
Sienna paces in her small apartment, disturbed by the silence pressing down on her.A whole day and a couple of hours have passed since she last heard from Charles. She thought revealing herself to him or at least Daisy would stir things up, force some kind of reaction from the family.But nothing has come.No calls, no messages, nothing.She feels like a ghost, haunting the edges of their lives while being completely ignored. And being ignored is not what she has been looking forward to being. She wants to be seen and recognized as the one who reveals what kind of a monster John is but now his family is paying her no heed.Her phone sits on the table, taunting her, just like it had the day before. She stares at it, her mind racing. She can’t just wait around anymore. If she’s going to get what she wants, she has to act.Taking a deep breath, Sienna picks up her phone and dials Daisy’s number. It rings once, twice… but there’s no answer. She frowns, biting her lip in frustration.Is D
Daisy sits beside Quinn’s hospital bed, her heart heavy with worry and every other apprehensive emotion. The mixture of everything that’s going on is unhealthy for a forty year old woman. She holds her daughter’s limp hand, gently stroking it as if her touch alone could heal the wounds life has dealt them.The rhythmic beeping of the machines fills the room, but all Daisy can focus on is the phone in her lap because of the number that had called her earlier.Her thumb hovers over the screen, debating whether to call back. She had tried to push it aside, to ignore the questions clawing at her mind, but something about that call gnaws at her.She needs to know the truth. She needs answers. She claims to be John’s daughter after all, she needs to know if it’s true enough to know what the next step is.The bed had been cold all night.She glances down at Quinn, her voice soft and filled with regret. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’ve failed you in so many ways. I’ve failed everyone.”Quinn do
The emergency responders move quickly, but their grim expressions don’t need to tell Daisy everything she already knows.Sienna lies still on the cold apartment floor, her blood soaking into the tiles. One of the paramedics turns to Daisy, who now stands nearby, trembling, her mind in a fog. Someone had wrapped a blanket around her since she had been trembling heavily just before.“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The paramedic says gently, but his words still hit Daisy like a punch to the chest. “She’s gone.”And yet something still lingered. Isn’t it just a little bit fishy that the day she reveals herself as his daughter, she turns up dead? And the same man supposedly killed her mum, because why will a dying person lie about something as grave as a murder? If he killed the mother, he could have killed the daughter too, right?Daisy swallows hard, her mind spinning. Everything around her feels distant, muffled, as if she’s trapped in a nightmare. She can’t make sense of anything. Sienna is dead.
Bethany walks briskly through the hospital corridors, her heels tapping lightly against the tiled floor. Her heart is heavy as she approaches Quinn’s room. She had been meaning to visit sooner but got caught up in her responsibilities at the office, not even including the throng of people still protesting outside, calling her names and even hurling things at her staff. Well, she took care of those ones and no one dared throw anything.It'll all soon be over anyway, it’s just abuse of power by someone mature enough to know better than that. She has absolute trust in Arthur.Which is why she left her company, although Jade had nagged her into a cap, change of clothes and a face mask, and then made her leave through the back. Something had nagged at her all morning, and she felt compelled to check on Quinn since the state she left her the previous day hadn’t been one she got to say bye for.And she is yet to find out why Quinn had insisted on seeing her.As she reaches the room, one of t
At the police station, Detectives Marsh and Officer Halloway sit in a small, dimly lit briefing room, reviewing the latest updates on Sienna Minton’s case. Marsh, the older and more experienced of the two, taps his pen against the table rhythmically, his mind already at the crime scene before they’ve even left the station.“We’ve been assigned to this one.” Marsh says, sliding the case file across the table toward Halloway. “Get familiar with it. We’re heading to the scene once we get authorization.”Halloway, younger and still relatively new to homicide investigations, nods as he picks up the file. “What do we know so far sir?”“Victim’s name is Sienna Minton.” Marsh begins, leaning back in his chair. “Found dead in her apartment. Blunt force trauma to the back of the head. She managed to reach out to Daisy Worth through her phone before she died, asking for help. We need to keep an eye out for that phone at the scene since there is no record of one being found there when the body wa
*Previous day.**Few minutes to Sienna’s tragedy.*John Worth stumbles down the narrow staircase after shoving Sienna away from him just seconds before, his feet dragging as if they’re weighted down by a stone, one that is as heavy and real as the one that has just hit him. His breath comes in sharp, uneven gasps, and he grips the banister tightly to steady himself. His mind is a whirlwind, the revealing that Sienna is his daughter colliding with the horrifying truth that she now knows what he did to Anita.No young girl, much less a child to the victim, should know about things like that.Struggling and finally reaching the bottom of the stairs, John nearly trips as he staggers toward his car, his drunken haze starting to clear from his eyes. He should not have had so much drinks with Kevin before but that man had kept insisting while chattering on and on about plans when his company is restored.Fumbling for his car keys, he manages to unlock the door and slumps into the driver’s sea
Kevin Fitzpatrick walks into the towering glass building of Unique Auditing with a feeling of purpose. His steps are confident as opposed to the ones he had when he had been thrown out of Campbell, as he makes his way through the lobby, exchanging nods with a few familiar faces, but he wastes no time in heading straight for the elevator. His destination is clear, being a supposed VVIP here, he is headed to the top floor, the CEO’s office.The elevator doors slide shut, and Kevin feels the weight of the briefcase in his hand. It’s not just paperwork, it’s a lot of leverages, plans, and promises and even threats and evidences that could change the future of the entire Campbell Conglomerate, not in an exactly positive way, that is.As the elevator rises, he reflects on the slight game he’s playing. He’s already secured John Worth’s company, and now it’s time to report on the progress to the one who is sponsoring all of his current lifestyle, safe to say his current boss.The elevator ding
It takes about an hour.One long, slow, silent hour between the couple.Bethany stubbornly keeps her back turned toward Arthur, stewing in her own complicated swirl of already fake anger and her pride not wanting to speak first.Bethany tries.God, she tries to stay mad at him but...For a full hour, she gives Arthur the full on, patented silent treatment, staring stubbornly at the wall on the other side of thr bed, answering in one word grunts if he so much as breathes too loudly so he’ll catch himself from disturbing her ‘sleep’.But she’s very terrible at it.She’s always been terrible at it when it came to people she loved.She cracks before the sixty minute mark, because when she finally turns her head, awkwardly and carefully because of the neck brace, she sees him sitting at the very edge of her hospital bed.Not looking at her.Not doing anything visible to her.Just… sitting there by the bedside.Palms flat on the mattress. Head bowed.Like he’s waiting to be sentenced. He do
The hallway is dim and seemingly never ending. Just like is her job to do this once in a while, she is going to do it once again before clocking out of work for the day.Ana Yang walks briskly down the sterile, silver lit corridor of Unique Auditing’s private floor. Her heels click sharply against the marble tile, echoing between the glass walls and chrome doors, ignoring everyone she meets on her way since she has one single focus in mind, do this and get the hell out of here.She clutches a thick folder to her chest, filled with updates, invoices, coded communications. The usual weapons of their currently losing war, she’ll be dropping off the file with the ceo before leaving.Ahead of her, the double doors to the CEO's office loom like the gates of some modern day hell.She swipes her keycard.The lock clicks and the doors swing open.Inside, the room is dim, only thin shafts of light cutting across the floor from narrow windows.And, as always, the swivel chair behind the vast mah
The fourth day in the hospital after the blast seemed just as bleak as the first three days that had come and gone, waiting for Bethany to wake up and open her eyes to absolutely no avail.Arthur hasn’t left her side. Not once, making sure to make sure that she is attended to every single time and cleaning her unconscious body every morning and night.The nurses have stopped trying to convince him to take a break and go home or something. At this point, he’s more permanent than the IV drip standing by her bedside. Martha comes and goes, bringing fresh clothes, home cooked meals that Arthur barely touches, whispered encouragements he barely hears but nods smilingly at anyway, the old woman already has too much on her neck so Arthur always manages to persuade her to go back home as well each time.He sits beside her now, as he has for four days, one hand curled over Bethany’s motionless fingers, holding them as though he is using his body’s warmth to remind her of the way back to him, b
Time slows.Bethany’s fingers brush the handle of the driver’s side door just as the second beep-beep fades into the air. A bird chirps from the lamp post above the lot. The wheels of a nearby shopping cart squeal as someone exits the pharmacy across the road. Arthur opens his mouth to say something…And the world erupts.BOOM.It’s not just a noise., it’s a force. A living, monstrous thing that tears through air, glass, and metal like paper. The car explodes in a big explosion of fire and shrapnel, its roof splitting, hurling into the sky. The windshield vaporizes in a white hot flash and for the person standing right next to the explosion...Bethany is thrown violently backward. Not a stumble. Not a fall. She is launched into the air like a ragdoll and what goes up, always comes down.Her body hits the ground very hard. The sound is sickening, skin on pavement, ribs crunching, skull cracking and the audible sound of all of it.Then stillness.Alarms scream in every direction. The
The man walks in front of the station like he’s trying not to walk into a landmine, slow, tentative steps. He stops at the top of the stairs, takes one deep sigh, rubs his weak looking eyes and takes the few more steps into the building.He does not take big strides and no waving hands. Just quiet, precise steps through the front doors of the Precinct, wearing a weather beaten hoodie and jeans that have seen better years. His eyes are the kind that don’t blink enough, too haunted to remember how.Or at least that is what it looks like to whoever cares to give him a glance.At the front desk, Officer Laney gives him the once over. She’s halfway through sipping her third iced latte when she asks, “Can I help you sir?”The man doesn’t answer at first, first choosing to check if she is a police officer since she is in civilian clothes, then seeing her badge in her hands, he sighs audibly before responding, saying…“I need to talk to someone. Someone in charge of a particular case here.”L
Rumors begin less than three days later.Apparently, grabbing a cup of coffee with a beautiful female Major is grounds for rumors, and even people whom you don’t know who begin to study your every move. The rumors, with truths in them however, rage on the barracks.They spread like heat on dry bush. Fast, wild and pretty much unstoppable. A Major seen sneaking smiles at a Lieutenant during drills, the same Lieutenant caught slipping out of the officer's quarters too early in the morning.Chara doesn’t as much as flinch when she hears then, she’s pretty much used to the weight of judgment.Chara doesn’t pretend to care, not at all.She keeps her chin high, her stride sharp like the boss lady that she is, like no one dares say it to her face, because they really do not dare say it to her face.But Mason hears it.He hears them and unlike Chara with her own steely indifference, he is not indifferent to it.And it gets harder to ignore, mostly because it is not all about him but her.Mason
It is a new day on the barracks, the morning frills are done and so are evening ones, it’s just past the time for everyone to have dinner but someone is not headed to the cafeteria for food.The knock on the door announces his arrival to his caller.Major Chara’s office is dimly lit but bright enough fir the time of the day, considering she is in the male fields, she knows just how to be careful enough to not have too much light on, not too much to help the stalkers peek through the window at her perfectly figured body. She’s currently halfway through dressing, uniform pants already snug around her waist, boots laced to perfection, but her shirt still hanging on the back of a chair.“Come in,” Chara calls, her voice calm.She doesn’t bother rushing. She knows exactly who it is and why she has sent for him.The door opens, and then nothing.No footsteps. No greeting.Just silence from who it is that stands at the door.Private First Lieutenant Mason Campbell.She turns slightly, still
The courtroom is brightly lit, smells like polished wood and paper and different, different smells of perfumes and cologne.It's still early in the morning, the sun barely slanting through the tall and somewhat dusty windows, but the room is already full, a lot of people seem to be quite interested in the case and other than that, there are also students who have come to just witness one and some other purposeful individuals, albeit, the courtroom is filled. The silence is thick, every cough or chair scrape feeling louder than it should because every sound that is not inevitable is not allowed in the court, it should always be bone silent and they all try to keep to the rule, although the silence can feel a bit suffocating but they can’t help it.At the defense table, John Worth stands stiffly, his head cast downwards staring at his feet or at the floor, either, wearing the same annoyingly orange jumper he has worn to every hearing in the past week.His hands rest by his sides, fisted
Detective Reynolds has never hated walking down this damned hallway more than he actually does now, with what he knows his mission it, he does not look forward to the next few minutes since he’ll be walking down the same hall again.The keys jingle in his hand, cold metal biting into his palm as he squeezes it more than he should, causing himself pain. He passes the front desk, the vending machines, the bulletin board with the crooked missing persons flyer... all of it feeling a little more annoying than usual.For the first time in a very long time, he regrets his job and for once wishes that he was in a position of power to refute the corrupt order that he is about to go ahead and act out. He had spoken to Daisy Worth just some minutes ago before he decided to accept his fate and do as ordered unless he wanted to risk his job, and even if he does risk his job for the sake of his integrity, the five bastards will still get released anyway so there is basically no point dragging out t