The whole time Darius was being led to where Edward was waiting for him, I had been restless. Actually, I had been restless since when we began talking about the plan. It was a plan that could ruin everything we had worked for. If we caught him great, but if we failed, he was going to know that we had hacked into his system, he was going to know that we had been watching him and he was going to kick Kai out. If he did that, all what we had been doing for weeks would have gone down the drain.Kai had been very supportive. I didn't know how he had time to do his work and still had enough time to talk to me and cheer me up. I still didn't know if he was just being friendly or he was looking to get something more from me. But he hadn't just been friendly, he had helped to catch Darius. Now I was back home with Aria and Jace waiting for Edward and his men to bring in Darius. After the alarm had gone off, Darius' security team were alerted and the head of the security team instructed his
I had waited for weeks to give him that punch on the nose and just as I had expected, it felt really nice to hear that crashing sound beneath my fist, but I was not expecting to hear Caila retching behind me. That was what I was expecting and the reason I had not wanted her to be there while I was interrogating him.Despite the blood dripping from his nose across his shirt, I saw Darius shaking as a laugh erupted from his lips as he stared at Caila. “I always knew it. You're such a weak bitch and I just love fucking weak bitches, you should have just let me do what I wanted to do and maybe you would have...” Darius was laughing before I could stop her, Aria had crossed the room and thrown a punch to his stomach, so hard I could feel the air knocked out of his lungs. A punch that even I was proud of.“Don't you ever!” Aria shouted at him, shaking with anger and gave him a hard slap across the cheek as blood sputtered out of his mouth. “Don't you ever call her a bitch again or you'd lo
I was confused. Extremely confused that I had to leave Darius in the basement and come out to take in air. Maybe the stuffiness of the basement was making me slow, affecting my ability to understand.I just stood there for a moment, breathing in deeply, and letting the air brush over my face. I was trying to make sense of everything. I really needed to understand but the more I thought about it, the more it just kept getting complicated. I thought I had grasped everything but now it was feeling like I had missed a huge part of the puzzle. How was it possible that Darius had never been the one that had hacked into my system? But I had seen the evidence, right? Or was it just in my head? I had spent weeks chasing him, trying to get him but now my mind was clouded with confusion.Aria’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “He said he did not do that?” she asked again after I had explained what Darius had told me. I had told her about how he had said it so seriously and truthfully that I
The sound of birds were the sound that had woken up to and when I pulled the blind, the sun rays had warmed my face. It was the second morning I was waking up thrashing, screaming and crying because of nightmares, after what had happened with Darius. Aria and Jace had helped me achieve that and I was eternally grateful. Aria had been right too. After I had lost my control and leaped on Darius, I didn't know what I was doing but all I wanted was for him to stop coming at me, for him to get a taste of what he had put me through, for him to feel my anger.I was angry at Edward for lifting me and taking me out but Aria had told me that it would have been bad if I killed him. I would have been in a complicated situation and made Jace go through a lot of trouble, then I was going to be consumed with guilt for the rest of my life. It had been only a week since Jace had anonymously released an audio confession of Darius claiming to have assaulted and sexually harassed a lot of women. He ha
I sat across from Rita and after explaining what I had been doing for weeks and how Darius was now in prison paying for his crimes, she was speechless and that was a lot when it came to Rita. I had finally decided to meet her and I missed her presence, missed all my friends.“How is Caila?” she asked finally. “How is she now that it is over?”“Caila is great, she's better now and she's probably going to continue her art again,” I replied.“How about you?” Rita asked, concern on her face. I didn't know the correct way to answer the question. I wasn't sure how I felt but I knew that I felt better now that Darius was paying for his crime. “Really don't know but I would be okay.”“You and Jace, working together, that was surprising, you both made a great team,” Rita said with a smirk. “Who would have thought about that?”She was right but it wasn't something I wanted to agree to outside of my head. Jace had been cool while we were working together. He was not as annoying and didn't shout
Jace moved closer again, closing the space between us, the humor, gone away from his face replaced by desire. He was so close that I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. At this point, my heart was already racing at an irregular rate that I had no control of, my breaths had gone shallow, like if I breathed too sharply, I was going to shatter the moment.I knew I wanted it to kiss him and I knew he wanted it too but I was confused. The right thing to do was to step back, to push him away from him and tell him to respect boundaries or something to make him stop but I couldn't. He had never kissed me before and I wondered what he was going to taste like, how it was going to feel to have his lips on mine. The mere thought of it set the butterflies in my stomach off.His warm hand brushed a strand of hair from my face, but he didn't move away immediately - his fingers lingered at the back of my head, sending sharp shivers down my spine. Our eyes locked, and the air crackled with el
It was a Saturday morning and even though I had woken up earlier, I kept my eyes closed, hoping that the sleep was going to come back. I didn't go to the office and I slept really late.I didn't know when I had even slept the previous night. I had gotten into my room but was too pissed off to sleep - I was pissed off at Caila for always trying to do something stupid and dangerous every time, was also pissed at Jace for making me feel like kissing him was the best thing that had happened to me in a long while - it was, but it still pissed me. Especially the way I had just caved in without much hesitation, without fighting it, making it seem like I had been expecting it.I had even had another hot bath, hoping that I could sleep off when I was done but thoughts of Jace and the way he had kissed me kept floating around in my head before sleep could come. Even now, I couldn't stop thinking about the way he had kissed me breathlessly, the way he smelled and the taste of coffee on his lips
Jace had pulled a shocker on me and I was still stuck in the bliss of the moment as I dressed up in the dress he had gotten me for the evening. He had literally spent the whole of the morning and part of the afternoon with me at the cemetery. And that was the first time I had seen him get that vulnerable. Tell me about how he had lost his parents and siblings. Then how it was better to stay out of love because when you do and the person goes, your life would be ruined. And he wasn't wrong but the statement made me wonder if that was what made him to be the way he was. Even when he was with Caila all the time, he seemed to have one leg on the outside. He sounded like a pessimist that always waited for things to go wrong. When we got back from the cemetery, I wore the cloth he had gotten me for the afternoon, without him asking me to. I believed he wanted to take me somewhere else but he had just given me one of his cards and told me that I could do whatever I needed to do with it. Bu
THREE YEARS LATERSilent nightHoly night…… Was playing from the hidden speakers but the estate was anything but silent. The air outside was freezing cold with several inches of snow but the house was warm and cozy. The scent of pine from the Christmas trees and the sweet aroma of freshly baked gingerbread cookies filled the air. It was a perfect winter afternoon at the Sharpe estate. Bright twinkling lights surrounded the whole estate and snow was gently falling outside. Caila and Liam stood hand in hand at the entrance of the large room, looking at the scene before them. The warmth of the gathering reached them even from across the room, it was the sound of family chatter and laughter. Their son, Ronan, tugged at Caila's coat urging her to come with him."Momma, is Cacacia not ready yet?" he asked, his eyes wide with excitement which was amazing because had not seen her before. He had just heard his parents talk about her, telling him that he had a cousin.Caila smiled softly, b
CAILA'S POVI was finally going out on a real date with Liam after he had asked me out. It was also the first time that we would be a couple in the eyes of the public and not go out on dates in private places. I didn't want to feel nervous, I actually had no reason to be nervous but I was probably because it felt too official. He was downstairs talking to Jace about things I didn't care about and I was just here, delaying. Even though Jace never wanted me to “rush” out of the house, I still needed to give him and Aria that privacy now that they were becoming serious. But as he said, he wasn't pushing me out so I still had time to think about it and make proper plans.Well… let's do it. I brushed my hands over the evening dress that I wore and stepped out into the sitting room were he was waiting. When he saw me, he stood up and his eyes immediately looked onto mine and a small smile spread across his face, the kind that made my stomach do flips. “Hey,” he greeted, walking toward me
ARIA'S POVI loved Jace to the moon and back. I couldn't even imagine that there was a time when I hated him. He had also been very supportive of my plans. Soliel Vineyard was beginning to grow faster and the public assault on our image because of the video of Mr. Sleighman had stopped. He had also helped me in providing a means to help the people around the site of the company.Then he had stood in front of national TV to confirm how much he loved me. Now we were going to our first public event together. After the statement Jace had made in front of the court some days back, several investors had reached out to him to be a part of Sharpe Tech's success because he was now seen as trustworthy. The company's shares had also increased rapidly, and the clients they handled were now bigger and better than ever before because of this. So in less than a few weeks, Sharpe Tech was known as the greatest tech company in Europe.Seeing this as an achievement for his years of suffering and har
JACE'S POVAfter several weeks of waiting, Caila and I had finally signed off on the divorce papers, the finalization of our one-year arranged marriage contract, and just to make it official, I and Aria had also signed it off.The weight of keeping my love for Aria away from public eyes had been heavy for so long, but now, with marriage officially over, there was a strange sense of relief I was having. One thing was clear though, it was the realization that the moment the door to that chapter closed, my love for Aria was just beginning.I couldn’t imagine my life without Aria, it was just going to be incomplete. In the last few months, she’d become an essential part of my world, I did not even notice it at first but she was like a light I couldn’t ignore. Now, I was committed to making up for the past, for all the time that I had treated her and her sister lightly, now I wanted to give her everything I could. Because she deserved everything good.But I wasn’t entirely free from my pas
ARIA'S POV Now that everything was settling down and we were counting down to days to when we could finally take our relationship public, I and Jace were mostly indoors in each other's arms. I thought that my father's action was going to affect me for longer but it had not, and I knew it was as a result of Jace's consistent presence around me. I didn't have the spare time to think about Mr. Sleighman. Caila had Liam and she had been flashing the brightest of smiles and it was safe to say that she was okay.It was a Saturday morning and I was lying on Jace's chest and we had been like that since we woke up and Jace had not even complained. The only thing he did was place a kiss on my forehead, cheeks and lips from time to time. The change between this Jace and the one I met some months back was different, it was almost like there were two different people.“There has been a lot of change with you,” I said. “In what way exactly?” he asked.“The Jace I know wouldn't be lying on the b
CAILA'S POVWhen Liam stopped by the road side and came to open my side of the car door I was shocked. He had said we were going on a date, so my mind couldn't process the reason why we were stopping in the woods. But he told me to trust him, then held my hand and led me down the path. It wasn't long before he stopped in front of a lake where a boat was waiting. He turned it on and drove us to a lake house that was at the center of the lake. I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face when Liam took my hand and led me inside the cozy lake house. It was just the two of us… no distractions, no noise, no one else, just us. It was the kind of privacy we both needed at that point. I loved the atmosphere of the place already. “Watch your steps before you fall into the lake. There are crocodiles waiting,” Liam cautioned. “What?!” I screamed as I ran away from the side of the lake house and towards him. The last thing I needed was to get eaten by a crocodile. But when I held on
CAILA'S POVWe sat down in the dinning to eat breakfast together for the first time in a long while. It was two weeks after everything that happened. The men that Victor had dealings with were beginning to get caught and some of the victims of the trafficking were reconnecting back with their families. As I ate, I couldn't help but notice the tension in the air. Jace was eating slowly while Aria was flipping things around on her plate. She had been doing that since we began eating and I knew her too well to let it pass. “Do you want to keep doing that or do you want to tell me?” I asked her.“There's nothing really,” Aria mumbled. “Right!”“Okay, I didn't want to tell you about this earlier because I didn't want to affect our relationship again and I know how you Jace have been and...”“Just say it,”“Me and Jace have been having sex,” she replied. I stared at her, expecting her to continue to elaborate but it seemed like that was the only thing she wanted to say. For a moment, I
ARIA'S POV“Yes, I did it,” My father said immediately as I narrated what Jace told us to him. The way he even said it, with an air of authority like he didn't do anything wrong. “You know when I saw you walk in, I thought that you have finally seen that no one else but me should be CEO. And then you come and start talking about an old issue?”Jace, who had been leaning on the wall, grunted with disgust. “You would never be CEO again, you don't deserve it,” Jace said. My father turned and stared angrily at Jace. “You think you can come into my home and...” my father started to say but I cut him off.“Why?” I asked calmly. I could already see that he was gone past redemption at this point but I needed to be sure that he had some reasons. Some good reason that I was too blind to see. “You'd never understand,” he replied. “You'd never understand how sacrifices work. When you have to give things you love just to get what you need.” he said sadly. “Sacrifices? Love?” I scoffed as I got
CAILA'S POVI was happy when Victor was caught and sent to prison. It meant that my budding career was going to begin to progress more rapidly now that I had no one trying to bring me down. But then he had told me about how my father had decided to give me out to Victor Hayes. Victor Hayes! Someone that was known for human trafficking and other forms of violent crimes? It wasn't loud that Victor had been into all those things before but before agreeing to give me off like that, the least he would have done was to make sure he wasn't giving me to the wrong person. I was so pissed I didn't know how to react. Aria was quiet but I knew she was just as pissed off as I was. We wanted to go to his house immediately but Jace said we should go the next day when we were calmer, but I knew nothing was going to change even when we got calmer. Just then, my phone rang. The worry disappeared from my head for a second and my heart did a little flip when I saw that it was Liam. He had not called a