Lauren's POV “Are you serious?!” Alice exclaimed after I shared my plans for the next day with her. I looked at her for a moment to see the absolute horror on her face as she looked at me and possibly hoped for me to go back on my word. “I’ll die anyway,” I told her with a shrug. “I have leukemia. I don’t believe Jameson is going to get me to see a doctor and keep my treatment going—” “But that does not give you the opening to just take your own life when you want to,” she interrupted. “Yes, there’s a lot going on right now, but you have to live. The people who have died so far, do you think they would want this decision for you?” I didn’t think too much about the answer before I scoffed. “They’re both dead. There’s nothing they could say to change my mind.” “We can get through this together,” she suggested. “We can plan an escape. All you have to do is pretend to follow whatever instructions that Jameson gives you. He’s not going to find out.” I
Lauren's POV “What are you doing?! This is not what we agreed on!” I screamed at Jameson as he now aimed the gun at me. If he was doing it to get me to keep quiet and stop yelling at me, he was making a mistake. He had just attempted to take away the one person who had made me willing to go on a little longer. “You’ll be next if you do not turn around and get in the car. You have tested my patience for long enough,” he said. “You thought I was stupid enough to believe that you wouldn’t make an attempt to run away?” I turned to look at Alice, who was on the ground with her blood pooling at her stomach. She was squirming in pain, and that was enough assurance for me to argue with Jameson to get her to stay alive. “You have to take her to the hospital,” I said, my voice panicked. I knew that Jameson could not kill me. Not then, at least. He was a man of few words and more action, but he had not made an active attempt to kill me even with every opportunity he h
Lauren's POV I did not notice that I had let go of Shirley’s hands out of shock until she raised her hands to her face and started to cry harder. I stared at her, trying to turn her words in my head into something else so that what she had just said would not be true. “Jameson?” I asked, my voice low and soft as if he was right in front of the door, listening in on us. “He…he made you lose your baby?” “He didn’t make me lose the baby, Lauren.” She shook her head, sniffling. “He killed the baby. I felt it all. The pain of having the growing child taken out of me, and the knowledge of who had done it.” I had made a big mistake. I had messed it all up. I had brought Jameson right to their doorstep, and I had agreed to mend his relationship with Conrad. I turned back to Shirley with a frown on my face. “Does Conrad know what his father did?” I asked. Shirley was quick to shake her head in response to my question, almost as if Conrad’s knowledge of what his
Lauren's POV “Conrad, don’t!” I called out sharply, trying hard to grab a hold of his hand before he could reach Jameson and make things even worse. I was too late. His hand slipped out of mine and he was now punching his father on the face. “Where is uncle Damien!?” He demanded, punching Jameson in the face one more time for good measure. “What…” Jameson looked in my direction as he trailed off, finally coming to terms with the fact that I had told Conrad the truth. “What have you done?!” He headed in my direction as he asked the question, bucking as if he wanted to hit me. Before he could reach me, though, Conrad stopped in front of me and stared at his father. “You haven’t given me an answer to my question. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, but your reaction tells me that she was right. You killed him,” Conrad said the last few words with a broken voice. He was hurt, and I looked at Jameson to figure out if he felt anything at all about
Lauren's POV “Damien?” I said into the phone, and this was enough for the entire room to go silent as they looked at me in confusion and tried to find out if I was really talking to Damien over the phone. “Lauren, where are you? If you’re with Jameson, I need you to get out of there,” he instructed me. I knew just how bad things could get and how bad they had gotten in the past when I didn’t listen to him. This time, I was not going to take any chances. And I sure as hell would not let Shirley go down as well. “we need to leave,” I said as I turned to her, my heart pounding hard and fast in my chest as she got off the couch and approached me, confused. “Who are you with? Where are you? You have to tell me immediately,” Damien said on the other side of the phone as I grabbed Shirley by the hand. She looked at me, obviously scared, but I blinked at her to assure her that everything was going to be fine. “Conrad’s house,” I responded. As I he
Lauren's POV The screech of tires and the deafening crunch of metal hit me like a dreadful punch in the gut. One second, I was gripping the edge of my seat as Damien’s driver drove us toward safety, and the next, our car was spinning out of control, thrown off course by the violent impact. My heart pounded in my ears as I tried to make sense of the chaos through Shirley’s terrified screams. “What the hell just happened?!” Conrad’s voice was tense, his words tinged with panic. The car finally came to a halt with smoke seeping through the hood. I could hear Shirley’s soft whimper beside Conrad as he held her and tried to keep her grounded, a quiet sound that cut through the loud ringing in my ears. Before I could fully register what had happened, the doors of the car that had hit us flew open, and men spilled out, their footsteps heavy and fast as they approached us. My breath caught in my throat as I noticed the glint of metal in their hands—guns. They were clo
Lauren's POV “What do you suggest we do about this?” Conrad asked, staring at Damien. It was evident, the fear looming in the car and hovering above us after the phone call from Matteo. It was no use trying to hide it. The situation was terrifying. Damien grinded his teeth as the doctor cleaned the wound in his back, unable to give an answer to Conrad even if he wanted to. “We should all run away,” Shirley suggested, making us all turn heads in her direction as she continued. “How long and how far is this man willing to pursue us! If we all go to separate places—me and Conrad, then you and Lauren—he wouldn’t even know the people he wants to go for.” In response, Damien sighed and shook his head. “I wish things were really that easy, Shirley. That family is unhinged, if I do say so myself since I know what kind of a person my brother is. Matteo will stop at nothing to get his revenge. There is no running away.” “Besides,” he continued after a moment of tense
Lauren's POV I opened my eyes to find it dark outside. My head was brewing with a mild ache that seemed to get worse as I sat up to an empty bed. With a frown, I looked around at the bedroom one more time to find Damien, but he was obviously not there. “Have you seen Damien?” I asked as soon as I saw Shirley in the hallway walking towards the stairs. “We had lunch together. I think he’s in the garden with Conrad,” she answered. With a nod, I walked down the stairs with her and into the garden at the back of the house. Conrad and Damien stopped talking as they looked up and found me approaching. “I slept in so late,” I said, sitting beside Damien. “I missed lunch.” “If you’re hungry, I can get the chef to make something for you. I had the staff come over here to work,” Damien announced. I shook my head in response. “I’m not very hungry, honestly,” I said. As we all sat there, I couldn’t help but notice how neither of them had said a
6 MONTHS LATER “What are you doing?” I laughed as Damien pulled me out of bed that evening and practically sat me down in front of the vanity to brush my hair and get me ready. “The dinner’s in one hour,” he reminded. “I don’t want to be late for this.” I frowned and turned around to face him, prompting him to stop brushing my hair. “So, you’re worried about family dinners all of a sudden? You know, the last time we had this, you seemed like you would have been better off dead than being there.” “People change.” He shrugged, a grin sitting on his face that made me realize that there was something he wasn’t telling me. I couldn’t drill him about it because I had a secret of mine. I took the brush from his hand and started to do it myself when he placed a kiss on my cheek. “I love you,” he said. I had gotten used to his random love confessions whenever he felt the need to say it. It had been six months since…well, everything. I moved back fr
“Lauren, are you okay?” Damien asked as he opened the door to the house where he was staying later that night. Instead of giving him an answer, I pushed myself into his arms and broke down in tears. That might, I cried all the tears that I had refused to cry the whole time. Every emotion that I had refused to let out and express, all of it was on the ground around. And Damien just let me. “You’re fine, you’re fine,” he told me in sweet whispers as he led me to the bedroom and set me down on the bed. He held me there for as long as he possibly could. “He was doing that to them for years. Shirley and I were friends—best friends—in high school, and I didn’t even notice. How could I not notice what she was going through at the time?” I asked when I had no more tears left. “What do you mean? What was she going through?” Damien asked, sounding confused as he stared at me and waited for me to recollect and gather myself. “Her father was taking advantage of
I had spent two more nights in the hotel biting my nails anxiously as I waited for any update from Jameson about Shirley’s father and if he had been caught. I spent those days wondering if he knew now that she was dead, and if he felt guilty about being a big factor in it. It was no surprise that I jumped and snatched my phone from the nightstand when his name flashed on my screen one evening while I was forcing myself to close my eyes and go to sleep. “Lauren, I need you to help me identify the bastard,” his voice boomed coolly into the phone when I picked it up. “I might be a bit sorry for him if he’s not the one and I got the wrong guy. I’ve taken matters into my hands right now.” “I’m coming. I’m coming right now. Send me the address,” I rambled. His words sent a new rush to me, the sleep that was eluding me long forgotten as I got up and dashed out of bed and started gettingready to leave. When Jameson hung up, a quick text from his numbe
I stared at the unopened email that had been scheduled to be sent to me by Shirley. Several questions whirled in my head as I sat on the edge of my bed, not sure what to do or even whether to do anything at all. Had she planned to send that, knowing what she would do to herself? Was she going to apologize in the email? Was I even ready to open it? “Oh, Shirley.” I shook my head with a defeated sigh. God knew I loved her with everything I had in me, but she went ahead to stab me in the back. And even at that, I still loved and cared about her. Was Katarina’s death really all that drove her to do what she did? The more questions I had, the clearer it became to me that the answers I needed, along with closure, were trapped in that email message that I had refused to open. Finally, I clicked on the bold letters that showed the subject of the email, and it came into full view, to the detriment of my heart. To: LAUREN. Subject: I’M SORRY… ‘By the tim
I didn’t know how long I stood there, watching Conrad choke on his tears above Shirley’s body. My heart broke for him, and I could feel Damien’s rigid body standing beside me. “Let’s go,” Conrad finally said as he got up and used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his tears. “We need to take her away and give her a funeral. She may have done horrible things, but she was not entirely a horrible person.” Conrad turned to me with a faint smile on his face. “Are you coming, too?” I froze as my mind whirled with thoughts upon thoughts. I hadn’t thought about the funeral, going to it. I didn’t even think that I would be leaving Beverly Hills that soon after just getting there. “I don’t think I should. I mean, I just moved here. Leaving would be difficult,” I said. “I’m not asking you to leave Beverly Hills permanently, Lauren,” he argued. “I just want you to attend the funeral and return. I know you don’t want to be there, especially after everything she did to you
I opened my eyes the next morning the most satisfied I had been in the past few days. There was a small smile on my face as I snuggled even deeper into Damien’s chest. It felt like leaving was something to not even be thought about. “Good morning,” he said, his voice startling me as he kissed me on the head. “Did you sleep good?” “I did,” I answered as I finally got the strength to sit up, getting a good view of him. Before I could say a word, there was a knock on my door. I got out of bed after a moment and opened the door to find Maria standing there with a Tupperware container in her hands and an apologetic smile on her face. “Can I come in?” She asked. At first, I considered shaking my head and telling her that it wasn’t the best time for her to come in, but I decided against it. I stepped aside for her to walk in, which she did. I took note of how she looked around in the living room as if trying to find something. “Why are you here this early, Maria?
My feet were glued to the ground, my mouth gaping open without much consciousness as I still tried to get more air in my lungs. I didn’t know whether it was Damien’s presence or the fact that I had finally stopped moving, but my lungs didn’t seem to be allowing much air. “I came as soon as I could,” he said, glancing at Melissa. “She didn’t want to let me in.” “Of course I didn’t let you in!” Melissa scoffed apologetically as she now helped me move forward. “You think I hand the keys to anyrandom man who walks in here and claims to know a tenant?” Without paying any more mind to her, Damien approached me and got me out of her arms. I had half a mind to collapse into his touch and break down, but I held myself upright as Melissa helped me open the door. “Are you going to be okay?” She asked me, still looking worried for me. “What even happened to you?” “Just a little run, I’m fine. As soon as I drink water, I’ll be fine. Thank you,” I said. She took
Damien hung up the phone without another word. I didn’t know what to do with that response or the lack of it. I fell into the couch and had to stop myself from crying. Had he finally gotten sick and tired of my constant back and forth with him? I didn’t even get the chance to tell him just how much I loved him. What was the point of doing it anyway? Nothing was going to get fixed that way. “Hey, are you okay?” Fred placed a gentle hand on my shoulder after a while of me sitting and staring at nothing. I jumped at the suddenness. “I said your food is ready. Let’s go.” We walked into the kitchen, where he had spread garlic bread and toast with sunny side up eggs. A pot of coffee was brewing on the counter as we both sat. Fred let me dig into the food, but I couldn’t shake off the effect that his long and hard stare had on me. “Is there something you want to talk about?” I engaged, letting him know I could tell that he was staring. “Oh, um.” He cleared
“Lauren?” I grunted, turning around and waking up as I heard my name. Fred shook me awake, and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was my phone in front of my face. “What is it?” I asked, sitting up on the couch where I had fallen asleep after arguing with Fred about where to sleep since he wanted me to take the bed for him to take the couch. “Your phone is ringing. I just walked by and saw it,” he said, handing me the phone. I rubbed my eyes, trying to focus on the screen of the phone and the caller ID when the phone stopped ringing. I looked up at Fred who has his arms crossed and was leaning against the door which led to the kitchen. “Aren’t you going to call who it is back? It could be an emergency, especially after what happened yesterday.” All of a sudden, I was reminded of the yesterday’s incident and what I had witnessed. A headache was brewing in my head now, and I grabbed the phone as tightly as I could. I wasn’t sure I was r