THE RECONCILIATION

Never gonna get this time back.
Just sitting here getting too high, I
Always gonna wonder why, I
Never get a chance to try, I
Spent too long in the backseat so
Gimme the keys to the caddie.

***

CHAPTER XXX

*****

THE ROOM HAD gone quiet at the loud slam of the door, each person forgetting about their own arguments for a second as they watched Araceli storm out of the office in surprise.

A beat had passed where they wondered what they should do before Daniel had sprung out of his seat towards the door in hopes of catching up to her before she disappeared somewhere in the maze like building.

Before he could reach the door, Morgan, the woman who had been beginning to pick away at the little patience he did have, spoke up in a snarky tone. “Great. Now look what you did.”

He turned to her, anger bubbling in his chest as he let go of the door handle. “What I did?” he hissed, pissed that she would even begin to blame him for something that had clearly been her fault. “You were the one interrogating her like she'd committed the worst crime possible.”

“And what did you do? Nothing. You just sat there and let it happen? This is the woman you supposedly care about,” she said, making Daniel consider for a moment wrapping his hand around her neck and squeezing the life out of her.

That was the thing with Daniel. When someone got on his nerves, his immediate thought wasn't to try and resolve the issue. It was always to get out as fast as possible or get rid of the person. For a second, he considered if Araceli had been right about him all along.

Though, he could never wrap his head around the thought of lifting a finger to hurt her. In his mind, it was such an absurd thing to even consider. Thinking about purposely hurting Araceli had the same effect on him as thinking about killing a child did. Or incest. It disgusted him so much, he didn't even want to think of the possibility.

He thought he had made that clear, but very obviously he hadn't. Not really if she felt that way around him.

“Can we not fight over the one person that needs the most help out of all of us?” Derek's voice had boomed across the room, making the two of them turn to him with a set glare.

“It's for her own wellbeing.”

“No, it's so the both of you can use her against each other,” he said, calling Morgan out on her bullshit with a frown on his lips. He then turned to look at Daniel. “Especially you,” he said, pointing a finger at him to which Daniel had the urge to snap clean off. These people pissed him the hell off. “Don't forget about the woman that gave you a child just because you're faced with your ex. She doesn't deserve that.”

Daniel couldn't help the anger that surged through his veins at Derek's words. He didn't like the implication of them. That he would suddenly forget Araceli, the only other woman he cared about apart from his mother, to bother about the ex-girlfriend he no longer cared for? It wasn't even that that made his finger itch for the gun in the waistband of his pants. It was the condescending tone he had used. As if Derek thought that he wasn't fully capable of properly caring for Araceli.

Just because he had let her slip from his care once and she ended up running to the two of them didn't mean he couldn't care for her. Daniel had been going through so much shit with his sister being sent to a psych ward, the place that he hated the most, the new baby he had been expecting and the problems their relationship had been developing. He had been going through so much and that was just a perfect opportunity for his enemies to get her.

That didn't mean that he couldn't protect her. That didn't mean that he didn't protect her.

He narrowed his eyes at him and took slow steps towards where he sat, but Derek didn't budge. Maybe a part him, thinking that he was older than Daniel felt like he wouldn't hurt him. He was wrong. While Derek had some form of human compassion in him, Daniel lacked most of it. What people never understood was that while he remained calm most of the time, it didn't mean he wasn't crazy.

“You think you can care for her better than I can?” he asked, his voice dangerously low as he placed both his hands on Derek's desk and looked him dead in the eye.

Morgan, who stood at the side, couldn't help the nervous sweat that was beginning to break out along her forehead. If one of them pulled out a gun, it could be the end for all of them. What's worse was that Araceli wasn't even there to help diffuse the situation if one arose.

“I don't think anything,” Derek said, rolling his eyes at Daniel. A part of him couldn't comprehend the fact that time had past and Daniel was no longer the seventeen year old boy he used to know. “All I know is that we're all here for one common purpose and it's because the safety of the woman who just ran out of this office in tears is being threatened and the only thing the both of you can do is fight over who made her cry the most.”

Daniel wanted a reason to pull out his gun and shoot Derek square in the forehead, but he had none. Derek had a point. While had intended on going after her to make sure she was okay, Morgan had pissed him off so much, his priorities had been skewed. What if something bad had happened to her while she was out there and all he could do was exchange petty words with a woman he couldn't care any less about?

“So what now?” Morgan asked from behind him, noting how the tension in the room was slowly starting to ease. It was obvious then to the both of them, the kind of power Araceli had over him. Even the smallest mention of her without saying her name had the power to calm him down. Even if it was just a little bit.

“Ideally, since we all have a common interest in mind we should be working together to reach it,” Derek said, making brief eye contact with his wife before looking back at Daniel who had backed up, “This meeting was supposed to be about her, but now it's flipped on its head and turned into something about the two of you's unresolved past. So the best thing I see fit to do is to resolve it.”

“What?” The both of them couldn't help but stare at him as if he was in the process of growing a second head.

“Here and now,” he continued, ignoring the death glares he was receiving. “Go downstairs the both of you and talk it out. I don't want to see either of you back here until you're the best of friends,” he said, his eyes glinting with some form of humour.

Morgan folded her arms over her chest and frowned at the tone he was using to talk to them. It was almost patronising. As if now that Daniel was here, he saw them both as kids. “I'm not a fucking child, Derek,” she hissed, to which he narrowed his eyes at.

“Then stop acting like one,” he said, all humour gone from his voice as he gave her a cold stare that reminded her of the beginning of their relationship. “Get the fuck out.”

He was definitely getting head tonight.

“And Araceli?” Daniel asked, unable to take her off his mind.

“She's most likely fine. She knows the place well,” Daniel said, waving a nonchalant hand at him. Noticing the unimpressed look on Daniel's face, he made sure to reassure him. “If she's not back in the next five minutes, I'll go check on her.” To his words, Daniel just nodded, knowing that it was the best he could get. If Derek had wanted to hurt her, he would have done it a long while ago before he was even in the picture. “Now go,” he said, making the two look at each other with contempt.

Morgan gestured towards the office door, a sarcastic smile on her face as she spoke. “Assholes first.”

And to that, Daniel shamelessly walked past first because he was an asshole and he knew that. And he made sure that everyone else knew that as well so when they inevitably got hurt, all he had to say was "I warned you". Did that apply to Araceli too?

Morgan had the mind to not join the lift with him and instead wait for another one, but they were on the forty-fifth floor. The descent and ascent was going to take unnecessary time and the faster they got this over with, the faster she could could get back to Derek.

They both stepped into the lift and pressed the bottom for the ground floor, silently waiting for the lift doors to ping open.

Before that could happen, Morgan turned to Daniel and spoke up. “Do you even care about her at all?” she asked, not needing to specify on who 'her' was for him to know what she was talking about.

He turned to her, his eyes narrowed in a deadly glare that only had her staring at him with a blank face. He surely couldn't hate her for asking.

“Do you even care about Derek at all?” he mocked before rolling his eyes eyes turning away. “Stupid fucking question.”

He pressed the bottom for the first floor a couple more times as if it was going to make the lift get there any faster. At this point, Morgan couldn't care any less because whether they were outside or in an elevator, nothing was going to stop the fight that was about to ensue.

“Unsurprising that he is yet again acting like a hormonal teenage girl because when doesn't he?” she said, putting on the voice of a male TV show host to mock him. “And quite like a hormonal teenage girl, he is also holding unnecessary grudges.”

Daniel would have laughed if it wasn't for the fact that he was seething with unkempt rage. He turned to her, his usual cold brown eyes now alive with rage.

“Grudges?” he hissed, “You shot me.”

“And you survived, didn't you?”

He glared at the nonchalant look on her face for a while before shaking his head and turning away. The only other person that had made him this angry once was Araceli and she had the fact that he loved her to protect her from that rage. He had no such feelings towards Morgan so if he allowed himself to get too angry, he may actually kill her and then that would lead to a lot of issues between him and Derek that he was not about to start having.

Plus, Araceli liked Morgen for some reason so he would let her live.

He found it weird how his girlfriend was close with his ex-girlfriend. Or well, maybe now they were both his exes. He also couldn't wrap his head around calling Araceli his ex. She wasn't his ex. No matter whatever the fuck her dumbass was saying.

“What else were you expecting from me, anyway?” Morgan asked, tired of the tense silence where she felt like he was judging the hell out of her. Maybe he had a right to. “You didn't seriously think I was going to wait for you, right?” She laughed. “That I was going to run into your arms after years of not hearing a peep from you. After years of thinking you were dead. I mourned you only to find out from other people that didn't mean as much to you as I apparently did that you were alive and kicking,” she hissed, every word that left her mouth dripping with accusations and venom.

Daniel said nothing for a while as the lift pinged open on the first floor and the both of them made there way out the office block. He waited for the sliding doors to close behind them as they stood on the empty pavement before he let out a bitter chuckle and spoke.

“You don't know anything. You don't know half of the shit I went through for you.”

“Then tell me!” she yelled, making him briefly glance to her. “I can't read your fucking mind! Don't make me feel guilty for shit I don't even fucking know.”

“You know that thing?” he began, his voice coming off sarcastic as Morgan rolled her eyes because what else had she been expecting? A straight answer? “That thing that people get taken away to when they attempt suicide? That's supposed to help them? You know the place? The mental asylum?” he nodded his head condescendingly as he glared at her. It didn't make sense, how sarcastic his voice was yet his eyes were filled with so much hatred. “Well, guess what? I attempted suicide which I assume you know since you were the one that called for an ambulance. So you know where I went to that whole year you heard nothing from me? That's right, a fucking mental asylum. That's why I couldn't reach you. Ask anybody and they would tell you that. Why didn't he tell you that?”

Despite the fact that she was pissed at the tone he used, she couldn't help but be a small bit impressed. It was the longest she had heard Daniel speak and somehow, he had managed to make the entire thing sarcastic. This was what Araceli had to live with? She wondered how Teo would turn out when he grew up with a father like Daniel.

“Was Derek just supposed to know about every bad thing that happens to you?” she asked to which he chuckled as he held a cigarette to his lips and lit it.

“It's common fucking sense, sweetheart.”

“There's no point in dwelling on it anymore.” She focused her fierce, green eyes on him. “I don't know if you noticed but I'm happily married now and you've got a whole child to take care of so do that instead of obsessing over my life. Focus on the woman you claim to care about.”

Daniel glared at her, the anger he felt at her words reaching an all time high. Was he not allowed to be angry at these people for attempting to kill him? Could he not be angry at these people when it felt like him and her were fighting for the love of Araceli? Did it have to always be because they thought he still had feelings for her?

He wasn't too big on emotions and the terminology that followed it, but why did they constantly have to invalidate the justifiable hatred and betrayal he felt towards them?

“You really don't get it, do you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes as he searched his head for a way to put it so she could finally understand just how little he wanted to do with her. “I would rather kill myself than ever try and rekindle any sort of relationship with you. Nobody's obsessed with you. I just want to know why you still hate me even though you fucking shot me.”

“Because the first time I see you after how many fucking years, it's because your stupid fucking father kidnapped and bought me for you,” she yelled, tears filling her eyes as she remembered the events that had only happened six years ago. “I thought you knew that. I thought you were in on that. That's why I fucking hated you. And then when you finally rejected me, he sent me down to his whorehouse so he could make money from me being raped. You know what he told me? He said I had to give him back his money somehow because I was damaged goods. I thought you knew that that's why I fucking hated you.”

She knew that Daniel was innocent in the whole thing. Now she knew, but back then she hadn't. And even though she knew now that he was never involved, it didn't stop her brain and her trauma from still associating him with what had happened to her. She had been denied a childhood and a family because of him, whether he was innocent in it or not.

“And I tried to explain I didn't know!” he yelled, hating the sound of his voice when he did so. It was a painful reminder that he cared and to him, caring was a weakness. Yet there he was caring anyway. “I tried to explain everything and help you get out. I would've helped, but you shot me.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” she asked, her voice quiet and breaking as he watched, in anger, as the tears trailed down her cheek. He didn't think she had a reason to cry.

“I surrendered for fuck sakes!” he exclaimed, taking a step back from her as she flinched at his tone. “Who surrenders when they try to kill someone? I begged you. I told you I wasn't involved and you still pulled the trigger because you wanted to,” he shook his head and laughed before taking a long drag of his cigarette. “Not even that,” he said, “You were too much of a coward to do it yourself so you made your boyfriend do it instead.”

“I was hurt, Daniel!” she yelled right back wiping aggressively at her cheeks. “Not only were you my boyfriend, you were my best friend. You were the only person I had that cared about me. I was hurt and you were the only person that defended me! They had genuinely made me believe that you were in on the whole thing and seeing you made me so fucking angry. I was so hurt. I wasn't thinking straight, I just wanted to hurt you back.”

“All the shit I went through,” he muttered, pacing up and down the pathway as he took another drag of his cigarette. “All the fucked up shit I went through for nothing.”

Morgan could tell that he was losing it and despite all the hurt she was feeling, she couldn't help the concern that she felt for him.

“Daniel—” she called, reaching her hand out to touch him, but he stepped away from her, almost as if repulsed from her touch.

“Don't,” he warned, yet he didn't sound angry. Well he did, but not at her. She watched him with slight worry as he dropped his cigarette onto the ground and used his foot to put it out. “This shit isn't working anymore,” he muttered, “None of this shit is working. I need her.”

He began to walk away and back into the apartment complex, leaving Morgan behind as she watched stunned after him. Coning back to her senses, she walked in after him and jogged until she had caught up with him.

“Need who?”

“Araceli,” he answered, not caring that he was telling her. “I need her.”

He pressed the button for the elevator, making the doors slide open instantly as nobody had used it since they had left. They both stepped back onto it and let the doors slide close as Morgan pressed the floor number they were headed up to. It was clear that Daniel wasn't going to do it. He didn't remember and from how he was staring off into one direction without moving, he was out of it.

Had their conversation unlocked the trauma he had been hiding?

“I can see that you're not in a very good place right now,” Morgan begin, snapping Daniel out of his trance as he tuned back in to listen to her, “so I just need verbal confirmation from you that you won't lose your shit and end up killing me in here.” Instead of responding, he focused his intense eyes on her in a harsh glare which only made her chuckle. “By all means, you have very pretty eyes, Daniel, but that doesn't give me the answer I'm looking for.”

“I won't kill you.” Yet.

“Good, because Derek would kill you if you did,” she said, making him snort in disbelief as he cracked his knuckles at the thought.

“No, he fucking wouldn't.” But he wished he'd try it. It'd give him a reason to kill him which was something he really wanted to do in that moment. It wasnt actually a want to kill Derek specifically but more rather just a want to kill in general.

He was bloodthirsty again and it really came as no surprise. Just because he had calmed down a little for the last two years didn't mean he had changed. He was the same devil that everybody knew and feared and he decided that it was about time he came back from his hiatus and showed the world what it had been missing for the past two years.

There were a lot of people he wanted to take out one by one, the main person being his own father but he had a special plan for Lucien. He was going to leave that one for last.

Instead, he was going to start going after his enemies. Picking them off one by one and doing it in such a way that the next person on his list knew that they were going to be dead within the week. He was going to purge the world of evil. And he was going to start with the people that had a hand in Araceli's kidnapping.

No, even better. He was going to start with the people that had planned her accident and almost had her killed. The Ivanovs. He was going to kill them all and then anybody else that tried to get in the way of him.

In that elevator, next to an unknowing Morgan, he planned a massacre.

“You know she held you.”

Daniel, now oddly calm, turned to Morgan in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

She frowned as the memory came to her, but forced herself to retell the story that even though he was there for, she believed he wouldn't remember.

“When I shot you,” she began, taking a shaky breath. There was never a safe time to ever remind Daniel of that time. Especially when he was like this and unpredictable. She glanced at him briefly before looking back down at her hands. “We wanted to take her away from there with us so we could at least make sure she was safe, you know? But she didn't want to go. She sat there and cradled you as you bled out and we considered just forcefully taking her with us, but we couldn't. We were so sure you were dead. I mean, we shot you in a critical place, but she didn't give up. She just sat there, crying, talking to you as she tried to stop the blood loss. We thought she was going to die there with you, but... I guess they came in time.”

Daniel hadn't been sure what to say in response. He had hazy memories from that time and he knew Araceli was in them, but he didn't know that she had done all of that. He didn't remember much of that, but it made sense.

Something that nobody knew was that he had been fond of Araceli for longer than their relationship began. He seemed to have developed out of nowhere. Just once he had set his eyes on her after he left the hospital, he wanted her but he did nothing about it because she was only a minor and he would've turned twenty soon.

Now it made sense to him. There was a strong bond one formed with the person that was closest to them at their death. And even though he hadn't died, in didn't make it any less of a near death experience and that whole time, Araceli had been there with him, holding him, giving him warmth, giving him company. When he was most vulnerable, she protected him as if she was his guardian angel.

She was his guardian angel. She gave him protection. Maybe not physically, but spiritually she did. She took his soul and wiped it clean. Everyone treated Daniel tough as if he could handle everything, but she treated him delicately as if he was sensitive - when she wasn't pissed - and that was what he really needed.

“They said that if I had lost even a little more blood, I would have been dead.”

“So she saved you,” Morgan said, her heart fluttering at the story because it had been a touching one. A part of her believed that if he had memories of that, when there relationship started it may have been a lot less toxic. Better for the both of them. “I know she blamed herself. She probably still does. She probably feels like she owes you, but I was the one that shot the bullet and she was the one that made sure you survived. You owe her your life.”

“I owe her more than just that. Everything that belongs to me is hers.”

All this story did was remind Daniel that no matter what went down, Araceli had to remain safe. Everybody else could literally die. Go up in flames, but as long as Araceli and their son were okay, then nothing else mattered.

That's probably what they didn't realise with him. They thought that he couldn't love. That he was incapable of feeling anything, but it wasn't true. Daniel could love. And when he loved, he loved so deeply and passionately that often times the flames consumed him but he didn't care. Once he fell for someone so deeply, he was willing to set himself on fire a million times to make sure she stayed warm.

People saw love as a weakness, but when you fell for the right person, you only got stronger. Now that he had Araceli back, all his enemies needed to start running.

The door pinged open on the forty-fifth floor, allowing the two to step out of the confined box of the lift into the open office space. Daniel scanned his eyes around the space, frowning when he hadn't set his eyes on Araceli before turning to the shorter woman beside him and sneering.

“I still don't like you by the way.”

“Ditto.”

“Who the fuck still says that?” he asked, scrunching his nose in disgust as Morgan walked ahead of him.

“Me. Do you have a problem?”

“I have a problem with everything you fucking do,” he muttered, making her stop at the door and turn to him.

She placed a finger on her chin as if thinking. “Hmm,” she hummed. “It's giving... obsessive.”

“It's giving... shut the fuck up,” he mocked, make her eyes sparkle with humour as she wound him up. It was so easy to annoy him.

Instead of saying anything in response, she held open the office door and gestured for him to walk in. “Assholes first.” And without shame, Daniel walked in confidently, his heart only coming to a rest once he had set eyes on Araceli sitting across from Derek by his desk.

He knew he shouldn't have, but he couldn't help the way his mind filled itself with images of bending her over his desk. It had been a long time since he had done that if he said so himself, but instead of rushing her so he could do just that, he wrapped his arm around her waist when she sat beside him and let her socialise as much as her heart desired.

Araceli was nothing like him. She was loving, and sweet and sensitive and he wasn't going to let the way he lived his life get in the way of that. As he watched the way her eyes sparkled and filled with joy when she talked to Morgan and Derek, he couldn't help but swear that he would do anything to make sure that sparkle didn't die.

He'd move mountains for her.

*****

Okay, so honestly yous aren't the ones I'm ranting about because yall get it BUT STILL

Lemme get this off my chest rq.

HOW TF do people give Araceli shit over still being hooked on Daniel in book one when it's been five years and some of yall still aren't over your ex. Like wtf? Yall be giving her shit and whatever when she's always had deep feelings for him and everything that happened was so abrupt like of course she's still gonna have feelings for him

And then on top of that, do yall really think Araceli is mentally stable right now? Lmao because if you do, I'm about to prove you wrong.

Like she went through this extremely traumatic event while being pregnant with all them pregnancy hormones and that and then also the postpartum hormones as well and then having to raise a child on top of that BY HERSELF MIND YOU and yall wanna think that she's just magically healed from all of her trauma? Like, and I'm not trying to say that she doesn't do dumb shit but like still just stop it

And maybe I am a little biased and if I am I apologise, because Ara is my baby and I think I know her more because I know every tiny detail of her backstory but I also know where this story is going to go and you guys don't, but like be a little patient with her.

Judge her actions, not her trauma, or her story or her character. I mean, actually judge her character as well because some of yall may not like who she is and that's fine. People don't always get along.

I guess the main people I've got an issue with is people from the first book because some of them really do be going crazy in them comments. Like someone literally said that they didn't even know who her character was but they hoped she died and its just sooooo annoying because, yeah, I know Ara has done some dumb shit but Daniel has done some genuinely horrible things and Ara still receives so much more hate than him from readers just because they feel second hand embarrassment.

Like I know she should have left...... but maybe he also shouldn't have treated her badly?? Like you can hold more than one person accountable???

It's like they hate her more for not harming anybody but being embarrassing than they hate Daniel for harming a whole load of people, but being sexy when he does it. Like it just makes no sense and I'm not going to try and make it make sense.

I've tried to change Araceli so many times so people like her more, but I realised that no matter what she does someone's just going to hate her for simply existing and honestly, that's not my problem anymore.

This isn't me trying to say that you can't criticise her. You totally can. She makes mistakes and she makes them for a reason. Like what she said to Daniel was totally wrong and all of you were holding her accountable which I want. That's good.

All I ask is that some people take time to recognise when their criticism goes beyond criticism to just general hatred of her. And if you hate the main character, there's no way you're going to enjoy the story because *spoiler alert* she wins in the end.

Anyways, I don't know why I posted this here. You guys are genuinely so good with holding Ara and Danny accountable without hating either of them. It's more rather the people from the first book that don't even intend on reading the full story that are out of pocket. But anyways, I hope you liked that chapter. With this rant, you've probably forgotten what even happened lmao sorry bout that.

See yall next week though.