•ELIJAH•"I've sorted out your desk and cleared all your scheduled meetings that had to be held this month, Sir. What else do you want me to do before you leave?" "I want you to call Abigail and tell her that she will be receiving an amount of fifty-five thousand dollars as allowance monthly on the 2nd. Please do not try to argue with her if she demands more. Give her whatever money that she wants.""Yes, Sir. I will do that." Emily nodded as I packed up the work stuff that I was going to need in Detroit. My flight was leaving in an hour, and Emily was helping me to get ready. I trusted her to take care of things during my absence and make sure that Abigail got everything that she wanted to avoid any drama."I have booked your flight and also booked a villa for you in Detroit where you will be staying for the next three weeks. Is there anything else that you need me to do, Sir?" She asked as she got up from the chair. "That will be all, Emily. Thank you." I smiled at her. "If Abig
•ETHAN•"Hey baby, I want to go out and get a few clothes at the mall before we start working on site tomorrow. Are you going to need anything?" Darla asked when she found me working on my laptop in the living room. "No, babe, I'm good. Didn't you bring enough clothes with you?" It sort of came as a surprise because she came with extra luggage for extra clothes that she wasn't even going to wear during our 3-week stay before going home for a week and coming back again. "I feel like they are old," she groaned as she wrapped her arms around my neck. "Fine. But come back as soon as you can so that we can see what we can do about the building plans. I think we might be able to print them out from the laptop since we had pictures of them taken for an email, remember?" "Oh, yes!" She squealed in disbelief. "Gosh, what would I ever do without you?" She kissed my cheek from the back. "When I come back, I might have to thank you properly and do to you whatever you want me to do." I blush
•DARLA•"Get off me!" I pushed Rowen off me after he kissed me in public without my permission. It made me so angry how stubborn he was and didn't want to listen to me. After he stole the building plans, showed up outside my hotel suite, and kissed me, I didn't want to see his face again. "Don't you ever do that again, do you understand me?" I snapped. "I am a married woman!" "I just wanted to make you understand that I did everything that I did because I want you, Darla. I've wanted you for as long as I can remember. I waited for years for you." He answered. "I don't care if you waited millennia for me, but I won't allow you to disrespect my husband because if you think that I could ever leave him to be with you, then you have to think again, Rowen." Even when I shouted at him, he remained calm as he closed the gap between us and looked me in the eyes."I could never ask you to leave anyone to be with me, Darla. I just won't stop showing you my love because you're now married a
•ABIGAIL•"Oh, my God, she's pregnant?""Yes, and she moved in with us about two days ago." "Those are great news, Poppy! I'm sure Mother is over the moon and can't wait to hold the baby in her arms." "You bet!" They both laughed. "She's over the moon!" I was heading upstairs to my room when I heard Poppy and Harper talking in the living room. I scoffed when I realized that Harper, the spoilt brat, was back home. I wasn't even in the mood to face her after my date with Alec. Harper was one of the people I least preferred to sit in the same room with for more than a second. I tried to tiptoe my way upstairs so that they wouldn't know that I was back home, but when my heel made a clinking sound on the staircase, I swore under my breath and wished that I could evaporate myself from the house. "Abigail, hey!" Poppy called out for me when they saw me trying to escape to my room. I turned around with a surprised look on my face as if I didn't hear them talking and celebrating my preg
•DARLA•I grunted as I took the flowers and the locket box and threw them inside the restroom's rubbish bin. I was tired and didn't want to entertain Rowen's and Elijah's games anymore. I was done with them and didn't want anything to do with them anymore. Not when it was compromising my relationship with Ethan and everything that we worked hard for together.But when I walked to the door and remembered the necklace in the locket box, I turned around, took it out of the box, and threw the box away. I didn't want to think about it as I slipped the necklace into my jean's back pocket and headed back to work."Darla, are you okay?" Ethan asked during our lunch break. I was sitting alone in the contour when he sat down next to me. "I'm fine," I smiled at him and leaned for a kiss. "I was just thinking about the kids and if they were okay. We didn't call them today before we left home." "Yeah, I miss them too," he chuckled softly as he took a bite of my hamburger. "We will video call
•DARLA•In the morning, when I woke up and didn't find Ethan next to me, my heart sank that he had spent a night in the living room and didn't come back to bed late at night. I sat up on the bed after making it and took a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts and process everything that happened last night before deciding on what to do. I was afraid of losing him when I was slowly growing on him. He was an important part of my life and didn't want to hurt him in any way. I thought of something that I'd do to make it up to him and make him understand that I wasn't going anywhere.I knew that Ethan loved keeping journals and using them to express his thoughts daily before bed, so I opened his drawer to see if he had enough pages for me to get him another journal and other things that he would appreciate. But something that I saw on the last page caught my eye, and I forgot the reason I opened his journal. My heart raced while reading, praying that he didn't barge inside the roo
•ABIGAIL•"That piece of shit and old rag. Who does she think she is? I'm going to show her who I am and what I do to people who take me for granted and want to humiliate me in front of a crowd," I muttered under my breath as I headed to the third floor to Zara's bedroom in the morning. "She has started a war with me that she won't win. Oh, I am going to show her the devil in person. She doesn't know me. She will know me today," I muttered as I angrily banged outside her door. She pissed me off last night to the point where I couldn't sleep, thinking about her and the remarks she made about Elijah and that stupid bitch, Sonia. "Who is it? Do you want to break my door down?!" She asked outside the door. But when a man who could very much be Elijah's age showed up at the door, I was stunned and almost laughed. Zara pushed the guy from the door and stood at the entrance with her nightgown barely covering her body. "Abigail, what are you doing here so early in the morning? Don't you
•AMELIA•"I'm sorry, Amee. You and I had a good time, but I can't do this anymore. I've realized that I'm not cut out for a committed relationship. With my job and trying to get my first house, everything just feels overwhelming. I hope you understand." 'I hope you understand?' I internally scoffed as I looked at him. I couldn't believe that he used such a lame excuse to break up with me on my birthday. Of all days. "So, you decided to come to my house and tell me all that shit? Do you realize that today is my birthday and you just decided to come here and dump me? You couldn't have done it any other day?" I scolded him."Oh, I didn't know." He chuckled. "Happy birthday, babe!" He leaned forward to kiss me, but I pushed him and closed the front door on his face. I rolled my eyes, scoffed, and headed upstairs to my bedroom, and was about to call Darla when I thought that she probably had a lot going on and didn't have time to talk with me about another boy who broke up with me. But
•ELIJAH•"I think we should get Mom the Italian food that she loves. It would really mean a lot to her. Especially now." I said on the phone to Poppy. "Okay. Send me your location. I'll just request an Uber to get me there, and we will drive back home together." "You're not home?" I asked as I hopped out of my car, locked it, and headed to the hotel's restaurant. The whole idea of going there was to get my Mom something. Even though we had a lot of hiccups together, she was still my mother, and being there for her was important to me more than anything."I went out. I just needed some air. And Elijah," she paused and sighed. "Yes?" "I'm sorry about our fight. I didn't mean to upset you that day. I was just trying to help you and Abigail to be happy again. I really loved her for you, but if that upset you, I'm very sorry." I was surprised by her apology because everyone at home knew that she didn't apologize for anything. She had always been the nonchalant one, which is why I n
•ABIGAIL•Scolding, I walked out of the bathroom, slammed the door behind me, put on my clothes, and left his bedroom.When I got downstairs in the living room, Poppy was waiting for me. She had a smirk on her face while her hands were folded on her chest. "Did we get lucky?" She wiggled her eyebrows, clearly implying something else. "No, Poppy. Your brother is no longer in love with me. After everything that I've given him, the years we've been together, he's in love with Darla. He wants Darla, and not me." My voice broke as she leaned closer and wrapped her arms around me. "Oh, Abi. I'm so sorry," she comforted me. "You just have to give him time. He will turn around and realize that he will be making a mistake by leaving you." "I can't wait for him to see that, Poppy. Not when he has told me that he loves her, and not me. I can't force him to fall in love with me again. I can't." "But you can wait for him. You can give him time, I mean. He can't leave you, he won't." I leaned
•ABIGAIL•"So what's the plan now? Are we going to stop looking for Harper and keep her from getting us in trouble? I don't want her to ambush us at the last minute and put all our work in vain." I looked at Diego and sighed. He just knew how to stress me when all I wanted was to ignore my problems and pretend that they didn't even exist. "What do you want us to do? I can't waste my time looking for her. We are going back to Atlanta, and I'm going to get back what she took from me. That's the plan.""She's alive, Abigail. Doesn't that scare you? If she shows up and tells everyone what we did to her, you won't even get a chance to get whatever she stole from you. Do you realize that, or you just don't care?" "She won't tell anyone anything, Diego. You have to relax your mind and trust me. I've known her for years, and after what I did to her, she knows better than to mess with me again." "She might just get us in trouble, and I don't want to go to jail. Not because of you." I glan
•DARLA•"Hello?" I yawned. "Darla, it's Anna." She sobbed on the phone, causing me to sit up on the bed. "I'm in the hospital with Charlotte. She was admitted from a headache, and the doctor said they found a tumor in her brain, and now they have to operate on her." "What? Did they tell you when they're going to operate on her?" I asked as I got up from the bed. "They're doing that right now. I called you because -" She paused and cried. "- because I don't have the money to pay for the hospital bill. I don't know what to do or who to ask for help. Please, is there anything you can do for her?" "Of course, Anna. Please send me your location and I'll be there as soon as I can." "Thank you, Darla. I don't know what I could've done without you. I'll see you soon." I hung up the call and quickly went to the bathroom to take a shower. When I was done, I went to the kids' room and found them with Ethan, dressing them up after their baths. "I have to go and see my aunt in the hospital.
•HARPER•I took labored breaths as I tried to get off the rope from my wrists. Every twist and turn felt like thorns in my hands, but I couldn't stop when I heard the sounds of hyenas nearby. I was dripping with blood, so I was sure that the scent of it would draw them closer, and they'd get tempted to eat me. My voice was already dry and hoarse from screaming all day for help. Even on the verge of death, I hoped that my soul wouldn't give up the fight in the middle of nowhere. "Help..." I muttered under my breath when I heard a car outside the building. I wasn't sure if it was Abigail or not, but if it wasn't her, I had to take my chances and find help. If I was meant to die, then I was better off dying where my mother would find me rather than going on for years and not knowing what even happened to me. "Help!" I screamed when the car stopped, and footsteps were getting closer to where I was. But after exhausting my last strength, someone walked in with a torch and blinded me
•ELIJAH•'Fuck,' I muttered under my breath as I inspected my swelled eye in the bathroom.That motherfucker punched me right in the eye and it was just starting to hurt. I quickly looked for first aid in the bathroom cabinet so that I could treat it myself. I took antihistamine eye drops to reduce the discomfort and then went back to my bed to lie down just a bit. I hoped that the swelling would be a bit reduced in the morning since I had to go to my office.I was about to fall asleep when my cell rang next to me, and I quickly picked it up when I saw that it was Billy. "Yes?" I answered the call as I sat up on the bed."The hand is not real. It doesn't belong to Miss Harper or anyone. Just a mannequin hand with realistic makeup. I don't even think that Abigail knew that." I stood up to my feet and was flabbergasted. Harper was alive, and that meant that someone else took her. Either to save her since Abigail had left her to die or was going to ask for ransom before they could b
•DARLA•"Am I interrupting something?" Ethan asked as he walked inside the cabin restaurant, and I froze in my steps for a moment. I was so shocked that I didn't know what to say. I wondered for a second how he even found me and came at the moment when I couldn't even make up a lie for what he saw. "Ethan, hey." Elijah greeted him and extended his hand for a handshake. But he just looked at it and walked toward me.He looked pissed and I had no idea what he would do when he looked like that. "You said Amelia called and asked for you to come over to her place because her man was giving her some trouble. So, where is she?" He asked as he looked down at me. "Ethan, this is not what you think. I can explain. You don't have to be irrational," I answered as I tried to grab his hand, but he wouldn't take it. "Irrational?!" He snapped. "Bitch, I'm not the one lying so that I can go and see my ex behind your back! You left the kids with me just so that you can come here and dine with him,
•ABIGAIL•"Hey, where are you? I went to your place just a while ago and couldn't find you." Kathrine asked on the phone when I arrived at my hotel suite with Diego. "I just went for a short vacation. Is everything okay?" I asked as I changed into comfortable clothing. I didn't want to tell my sister that I was in Detroit to sort out my problem with Harper because she was obviously going to tell me that she told me so. "Jason came here to my bar asking for you. I didn't know what to say to him. Is there anything I need to know, Abi? You know that I'm your sister and can help you with anything. I just hate that someone from the police is busy going around asking about you.""Did he tell you what he wanted with me?" I sighed as I leaned against the dressing table. "He didn't say anything, but I'm sure we both know what he wanted. Elijah could be the one who sent him. I hope you made sure that nothing could lead to you. They can't ever find Harper's body." "I know, Kat." I groaned a
•ELIJAH•"Sir?" "Yes, Billy?" "I think I found her." "You did? Where is she? Is she okay?" I was so happy when he told me that he had found her. "I found a body." "What?" "I found a hand. I think it belongs to Miss Harper. Abigail and her bodyguard just left, and I decided to inspect the place. I think they left her here after they killed her. I'm not sure if it's her hand, but I'll take whatever I can get and do DNA tests." My whole world shattered, and I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how I was going to tell my Mom the news. They were going to break her apart. But since Billy wasn't even sure that the hand belonged to Harper, I was going to wait until DNA tests proved otherwise. I hung up the call and turned to Darla at the bench. I didn't want to leave her just yet, but it seemed like I didn't have a choice. "Seems like I have to be on my way home now." She got up from the bench and looked at me. "It's alright, I hope they will find your sister." "I think they'v