They take me to the base, only to bring me back to the shady place with the hooded figures a few days later, repeating the tiresome process again and again.

They even put me on the alter once and I saw that golden-hairer boy again, watching from behind his hiding spot as if he wanted to keep reminding himself, torturing himself of the terror happening around him, only to end up helplessly crying for not being able to do anything. I was almost tempted to rat him out but there was a sickening satisfaction in knowing that while there were people who suffered, there were also people who bled over others suffering. And this boy was someone who the leaders in the hoods cherished. It gave me sadistic pleasure to know they were destroying their own prized possession while their delusions made them believe they were doing it all for him.

I wasn't an imbecile to not realize they were bringing me here repeatedly as a tactic to scare me, so I'd simply laughed hysterically when they'd put me on the altar. They were furious and they did not kill me, hoping to end me when I'd truly be terrified one day. But oh, do they know, by that time, they would be terrified of me.

~ from the journal entries of Daisy.

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☘︎ Axᴇʟ Hᴇʀɴᴀɴᴅᴇᴢ ☘︎

Morning routines aren't for everyone; specifically not for someone who loves sleep more than the entire human race.

Namely, my wife.

The runaway refused to wake up even after everyone else—including the jet crew—travelling to New York were ready with their suitcases. So, I'd simply lifted her up in her pajamas instead of disrupting her more, carried her to the car and placed her on the passenger seat, copied the same process with the jet once we were at the tarmac. She'd slept off for nearly the entire flight, only to wake up an hour prior to the horror of the realization that she was not dressed appropriately to land in New York. I told her it wasn't an issue but if she wished, she still had an hour to freshen up and get ready. However, from what I knew of my wife based on observing her routine in the past months is that; an hour wasn't enough. She took baths itself that ran more than an hour.

Which is why, when the jet had landed and the chopper taking us to the mansion in the middle of Manhattan waited for us at the tarmac, Eve was just out of shower in a soft-pink silk and lace corset-top and off-white skirt with wet hair sticking to her bare face. She'd hurriedly grabbed a glittery pouch and a pair of strappy heels from the suitcase I'd packed with her clothes from the closet and things she'd thrown around in our room back in Bali. The heels would've taken time to tie around her legs so she nearly ran to the waiting helicopter bare-feet. I'd sighed, picked her up again and put her in the backseat beside me. What was I going to do with this woman?

Though the hurry had been for vain, considering the boy who'd swapped with the pilot, taking over flying the aircraft because he was bored. I'd have strongly refused, were it not for the aviation certificate he'd shown me and the fact that if he crashed, it would provide me an appropriate excuse to leave him stranded at a remote island, away from my wife. The only reason Nikolai Romano is still around is because Eve said to let him stay with us until his sister arrived. On a better note, Victoria could handle a chopper effortlessly too, if things were to go wrong. They both sat in the front now.

Eve, on the other hand, has her mini-skirt clad legs on my lap, working on tying up the complicated straps of her heels with a scowl. The sole of her feet occasionally slides up and down my thigh—unintentionally or intentionally considering the vixen she is, I couldn't quite tell—and I curse myself internally the thousandth time for mindlessly grabbing her legs and putting them on my lap, telling her to tie them that way, because she'd bemoaned dramatically about backpain and old age, despite being just twenty-five. My fists clench and unclench, leashing the urge to tie up those straps for her, run my fingers up the smooth skin of her thighs—

As if on cue, Eve cranes her neck to listen clearly to whatever the kid Nikolai was spewing, making the scent of her surround my senses wholly. I couldn't even clear my head enough to listen on what they were speaking.

I shut my eyes. This is torturous.

"....good at flying a chopper too now?" Eve is saying.

Focus.

"My love, there's nothing I'm not good at." Drawls the male voice from the pilot's seat of the chopper, navigating the aircraft effortlessly towards our destination pre-set on the GPS. 

My eyes open, narrow at the back of the kid's head, fists clenching. My love?

Eve rolls her eyes, diverting her attention back to her complicated footwear. Good.

Gaze drilling onto the back of the kid's head, my hands absent-mindedly move towards Eve's, taking the straps of her heels from her.

"I'll do it. You can do whatever it is you wish to do with that, if you want." Not meeting her eyes, I point at the glittery pouch she'd bought along, while deftly working on tying up the silk straps in a zig-zag way from her ankle to up around her thighs. My fingers brush occasionally over her bare skin and I've to grit my teeth, stopping myself from letting them linger.

"What a sweet husband you are being right now, Charming. And here I thought you took on a life oath to run every time you see me." From my peripheral, I can almost see her squinting her eyes at me, despite the wicked grin.

Silently, I tug at the next knot of her heel's strap a little harder, making that smart mouth hold back a gasp at the way they press against her skin. Grinning wider a minute later, she shakes her head, picks up the pouch.

By the time I'm done with her heels, I'm not quite certain how I'd made it with my restraint in check, but I let a small smile tug at my accomplishment.

"It's done—"

Looking up, my words freeze at the sight of her applying a glossy thing over her lips. . .the same lips I kissed a week ago. . .

The coat of her lipgloss fills me with the sudden, maddening urge to smear them with my thumb or lick them with my tongue. This woman has turned me into an unknown specimen teetering on the edge of control with a single kiss.

As though she can hear my inappropriate thoughts, her twinkling eyes meet mine, deviousness glinting in them. In a movement so quick I barely register what happened, she leans forward, smacks her lips on my cheek, wipes the lipgloss stain off my skin with her thumb and then moves back smugly. "Thank you, husband."

The haze in my brain does not quite clear as the chopper lands smoothly at the helipad in the mansion's ginormous yard and everyone start getting out. It doesn't clear even when I've descended the chopper alongside Eve.

Though my attention does sharpen to blades the moment I notice my grandfather standing a few feet away from the helipad in his pristine suit, waiting for us. There's another man next to him who seems to be in his late forties, wearing a suit himself, his champagne eyes taking us in. I instantly recognize him as my grandfather's friend and a business tycoon.

David Vitallis.

Beside me, Eve goes utterly still.

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☘︎ Eᴠᴇ Kᴀᴠɪɴsᴋʏ ☘︎

Oftentimes than not, a person manifests what they constantly think about—positive or negative, success or doom.

If you think regularly that the universe is against you, the universe eventually will become against you. If you obsess over a family you never met, perhaps you eventually will meet them. Like I said, you manifest what you constantly think.

The living proof of it stood in front of me now; suit-clad, salt-pepper haired, sharp facial featured, champagne eyed monster in the form of a human.

David Vitallis. My step-father.

The man who stole me from my mother when I was a new-born and sent me to the base with the help of my maternal grandfather. The people who destroyed my biological father to the point of suicide, sold his elder son with his late wife in the guise of adoption and then forced my mother into marrying another man and birthing his child.

Two peas in a pod, two monsters of a hive. It made sense why the both of them were two of the top members who established the secret society. It was far from a bluff when I mentioned my biological family to be a mess.

I smother the fury and voidness trying to enrapture me in its crescendo, putting on the fakest of smiles as David Vitallis steps forward to greet Axel and I, extending his hand to my husband.

My arm involuntarily tighten around Axel's at the prospect of the monster coming anywhere near my man. Oblivious to the matter, Axel shakes hand with David Vitallis with the blankest expression to ever grace the planet before those eyes flicker to me with a hint of concern, his gaze holding question in them, as if asking me whether everything was fine.

So he did notice the uneasiness I've been trying to conceal?

The thought immediately has the power to divert my hyper-focus from the cursed presence of my step-father and focus on my husband. I shrug, winking at him in assurance. Axel's stare remains locked on my face, scanning my features quietly, then reluctantly nodding in understanding.

From the corner of my eyes, I notice the amoeba grandfather observing the entire interaction. Out of spite, I turn to him and flash him a fake smile too. The old man frowns the slightest, then looks away.

"The lawyer is waiting inside. We should get going." Arthur Hernandez announces.

From thereon, it's a series of events happening; we get into the awaiting cars, scale the entirety of the never-ending grounds of the estate to stop in front of a three-story modern architectured mansion in the middle, enter the place to be greeted by elegant interior bathed in shades of black and grey topped with onyx wood and marble accents, meet a middle-aged man who introduces himself as the Hernandez family's attorney.

The attorney guides us to a study while David excuses himself after a rather heated call with his security details. Nikolai ventures out to 'explore' the house considering the handover of the will was a family affair and he wasn't allowed to be there. The entire tiresome process of reading the will continues until we're finally at the signing part.

"I hope you wouldn't make me regret handing you the inheritance, the way your parents did, Axel." Arthur Hernandez admonishes, his pen looming over the signature line, those familial grey eyes peering up at his grandson with accusatory intent.

Axel's expression remains stoic as he meets his grandfather's gaze, though I sense the tension in his shoulder. He wasn't incapable of speaking back, but he did so out of respect for his elder who didn't deserve it. This entire time, the old mutation of a human being has been throwing jabs left and right about it being a mistake to handover the inheritance to Axel. One more time, and I'll stab him. Given his age, the old crone was going to die soon either ways, I'd simply fasten the inevitable.

Though now, I simply step up closer to Axel's side and pass the amoeba a sickeningly sweet smile. "Perhaps it's the old age that must've contributed to partial amnesia but Axel isn't his parents. He's an entirely different individual, isn't he?"

Axel looks my way but I keep my attention fixed on the amoeba as he shifts his gaze to me, the crow's feet at the edges of his eyes straining as they narrow the slightest bit, observing for a minute too long. The strange glimmer of suspicion mixed with recognition in his eyes put me on alert, as if he knows something I don't. But it washes away quicker than it appeared.

Ignoring the words, Arthur Hernandez lowers his withered hand and signs the document.

Thus, the law firm Axel had wanted to start a legal war against Michael, finally being handed to him. Along with billions worth of real estates and businesses and stocks—excluding the ones the amoeba grandfather still owns under his name—ranging from medieval ages to present time, throwing light on how old money the family wealth really was.

Victoria and I share a look from across the room, strangely communicating with our eyes how this was for the better. Axel working on taking down Michael will ultimately help us in focusing on tracking down the main members and ending them, without constantly mulling over what Michael was planning. Besides, from what Victoria had told me, just like I had my revenge, Axel's revenge has always been destroying Michael to avenge his brother's death.

I'm about to congratulate Axel for acquiring the law firm, but he gets occupied with the attorney, finishing up remaining paperwork.

Instead of staying and being the subject of the amoeba grandfather's scrutiny—which made far from any sense—I venture outside the study.

My eyes take in the many picture frames lining the rich grey walls of the endless hallways, moments in time captured behind encased glass. Nearly all of them were of a boy with brown hair and champagne eyes, images captured through his growing years. Lykas Vitallis. My half-brother, younger than me by a year, who shared a mother with me.

I skim my fingers through the frames, watching them transform from a toddler version grinning at the camera with a toothless smile, slumped dramatically down on the floor. To him standing on his feet in a neat uniform with a school bag and water bottle around his neck, holding two fingers up in a 'cheese', flashing a wide toothy smile. It goes on to a taller middle-school version of him playing soccer in a field, to him hugging a red sports car as though it was his most treasured possession, to him throwing up a graduation cap. Through every picture, his bright smile never wavers as if it's a part of him, like the sun who cannot be stripped of its rays and warmth.

Lykas' existence had always irked me. With a father who was too controlling of his son's every decision in life and a mother too drowned in her own miseries to be part of her son's life, how had he managed to stay so jovial? There wasn't a chance Lykas didn't know of his father's misdeeds given how he ran the Vitallis & Co since completing his business degree. There was no way he hadn't had the littlest of inkling. And if he did, how dare he smile with such warmth, ignoring that his father has been stripping hundreds of people from their own smiles?

My fists clench at my sides as a sardonic smile takes over my lips. He was no better than David Vitallis if he's been turning a blind eye to his father's crimes. For a person ignoring a wrong is just as responsible as the person committing the wrong.

My footsteps halt at the last picture frame, the only family photo of Lykas with his parents by his side. It seemed to be from a company event. David Vitallis had his palm clasped on his son's shoulder while Heather Vitallis had her head downcast, staring down at her feet. Confusion swirls within me when I notice Lykas. He had a smile in this picture too but something about it was forced, sad almost—

"For reputation's sake or not, I'm not attending your event. Neither is Jenna, Dad." States a firm but strangely comforting voice, making me realize I'd ventured too deep into the house while tracing the frames.

The stillness taking over my form is unwelcome, rage blinding my soul. You manifest what you constantly think about, remember?

I know I shouldn't be doing it. Yet for a reason I can't quite fathom, I'm unable to stop my feet from taking a step after another until I'm in the range where I can see the ongoing confrontation.

The two tall silhouettes are nearly identical replicas of each other, if only it weren't for the fact that while David Vitallis was nearing his fiftees and his features despite the beauty of them didn't quite hide the cruelty within his soul, Lykas' features emanated youth and warmth and playfulness. Unlike his father who was dressed like a strict businessman with his hair gelled and combed-back, Lykas' hair was a disheveled mess, he wore a deep brown shirt and black pants, a black sweater haphazardly tied below his neckline, as though he'd planned to wear it over the shirt but abandoned it half-way and decided to just hang it around, but somehow he managed to pull off the entire attire effortlessly. Mom would've approved of the fashion sense.

"Are you her bitch now?" David Vitallis crowds his son's space, eyes burning with fury. "Do you speak for her?"

Lykas' eyes shine with mirth, hands tucked into the pockets of his pants, "It's amusing you think my woman isn't capable enough to put you in your place by herself. She can, she has and she will." He takes a step forward, meeting his father's angry gaze. "The only reason I'm speaking to you, Dad, is because I don't ever want her to be in your presence or be bothered by you. Jenna's time and attention is too precious to be disrupted by your bothersome presence, I'd rather she spend it on me. And. . ." As if to spite David further, Lykas flashes him a cheshire cat grin. "Oh, the honor it would be to be her bitch."

Infurated, David Vitallis goes to grab the back of his son's neck in a raged madness and my eyes sharpen at the action.

Lykas simply dodges his advance, steps back. Done with the conversation, he turns around to leave, waving his fingers in the air in a mock goodbye. "Adiós, Dad. My time and attention is precious as well and I rather spend it on Jenna too."

Then Lykas is leaving and weirdly, a smile threatens to slip past my mouth. Frowning at the urge, I shake my head and turn around to leave only to come face-to-face with Arthur Hernandez observing me from a distance.

The old man's eyes glint with curiosity, with a sharpness that reflects his age. I'm vaguely certain he'd possibly caught me eavesdropping, but when he doesn't point it, I refrain from justifying my actions, brushing it off instead.

I pass the umpteenth fake smile to the amoeba and attempt to walk past, only to halt abruptly at his next words.

"You were Michael Lee Voroski's fiancé before you married my grandson, right?"

I whip around slowly, without attracting any suspicion, before nodding. It was better to stick to the truth. Every other news article from Japan displayed my and Michael's engagement in vivid details. Even if I lied, he'd find out.

"Yes. But then it didn't work out and I realized I was in love with Axel. We ended it on a cordial note." I stick to the story Axel and I had agreed on when we first signed the marriage contract.

Arthur Hernandez continues watching me in that strange accusatory way of his before dropping a bomb that has me freezing completely.

"That's good to know. Because Michael Lee Voroski will be attending the event you and Axel will attend."

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R.i.p Eve, because Michael
is never good news 🤪

What did y'all think of the chapter? The choppper and strappy heels scene? Eve seeing Lykas? Views on the amoeba grandfather?👀

If there's any doubt in the storyline so far, lemme know and I'll try my best to clear the confusion so you're not lost going forward!🤧🫂