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