Semua Bab Goodbye, my mate: Bab 231 - Bab 235

Leah's POVThe fluorescent buzz of the internet cafe felt like a swarm of gnats in my skull. I'd chosen this place for its stench of burnt coffee and desperation - the kind of hole where men hunched over screens, their dreams pickled in porn and energy drinks. The clerk at the counter was all greasy hair and nicotine fingers, his eyes widening when I leaned over, my shadow swallowing the glow of his monitor."Where's your boss?" I asked, letting my voice fray at the edges, a threadbare thing.He blinked, throat working. "Who're you? What d'you want with him?"I smiled, all teeth. "Tell him I’m pregnant with his child."The lie tasted like rust. The clerk's face went slack, a fish gasping on a dock. He bolted, chair screeching, toward a door marked STAFF ONLY. I followed, silent as a blade, my boots sinking into carpet sticky with spilled soda. The basement door swung open ahead, and a man's roar clawed up the stairs -

Leah's POVThe limousine door hissed open, releasing me into a hurricane of camera flashes. Miami's salt-rotten breeze tangled with the stench of money and gardenias as I stepped onto the crimson carpet, Rafael Laflamme's final creation clinging to my thighs like a lover's last breath. The dress was a funeral shroud in reverse - black silk devoured by blood-red crystals, cut low enough to make the paparazzi forget their own names. Four tall, dark male models flanked me, their hollow-cheeked perfection a living barricade. I'd chosen them for their vacant eyes. Men who looked at nothing saw nothing.Whispers followed like gnats. Who is she? I smiled behind the lace mask, its spiderweb patterns itching my scars. Let them wonder. Let them choke on their own curiosity.The ballroom swallowed us whole, chandeliers dripping light onto a thousand masks - feathers, gold leaf, animal snarls. I tasted champagne on the air, acidic and false. The first waltz began i