“I don’t understand. What do you want me to tell him when he picks up the phone?” I asked her as she handed the phone to call Damien with. “Tell him that the kidnappers told you something about him that you were shocked to find out about, and let him know that you’re shattered by what you have just found out. Because of the betrayal that you feel, you want to get a divorce from him,” she recited. “That’s not possible. We only got married yesterday,” I protested, shaking my head. “Besides, Damien is never going to believe that I want a divorce just like that.” “Oh, so you now know him more than I do?” she asked me with a glare that said she was daring me to answer to that. Defeated, I took the phone and dialed Damien’s number, placing it against my ear. It didn’t take over two seconds of the phone to ring before Damien picked up the phone. “Lauren, how are you doing? You don’t have to worry about anything. I’m doing everything I can to fi
I never thought I would have second thoughts about getting divorced from Damien at the last possible second, but the minute I took the pen and the papers from Katarina, they suddenly got too heavy to hold. “This does not mean that he’s going to get back together with you, Katarina,” I reminded her, and she laughed at my words. “I’m not necessarily going to get back together with him, even though I have plans to. I’m just trying to let you and him know that if I can’t have him, it’ll be almost impossible for anyone else to. Sign the papers.” I looked down at the paper, not sure what to do with myself except sign the papers just the way she wanted, but I had one more request to make. “You’re going to let me leave here with my mother, alive, and you’re never going to come looking for us if things don’t go your way. Give me your word on that, and I will sign them.” I was most likely going to get out of the area with my mother, probably to another
Damien's POVIt had been a full day since I had last talked to Lauren and she had asked for a divorce. The men that I had gathered to track where the call had been made from were barely doing anything but typing away at computers and telling me that they were getting closer. “What’s the update? Have you managed to track her yet?” I asked them, losing count of just how many times I had asked that question. “It’s only difficult right now because we have been picking signals from different cell phone towers. We’re trying to narrow it down,” they replied. Yes, Lauren had told me that she wanted a divorce, even when I told her to give me a sign to show if she was with the kidnappers or not, but it was still hard for me to come to terms with it. I had a bad feeling about everything. “Mr. Goldberg?” one of the agents walked into the office with a flat, brown envelope. “This came in for you.” I took the envelope and opened it as patiently as my hands would l
Damien's POV “She’s dead,” Katarina said to me after I asked her what had happened to Lauren and where she was, and her tears were flowing freely as she looked at me and gave me a pleading look. I was perfect at detecting lies, but it was hard to know what this one was. One thing I knew was that it couldn’t possibly be true. Lauren could not be dead. Things just didn’t work that way. “Stop messing around, Kate. This is not something you should be joking about. If you think for one second that I’m not going to pull the trigger, then you are surely mistaken,” I informed her, but that was just my way of letting her tell me the truth one more time so that it would sink in as it hadn’t. “None of this would have happened if you truly loved me, Damien,” she sobbed, but I didn’t care about any of that. “I made a small mistake that could have been fixed if we had just talked, but you walked away from me without listening to my side of the story.” “Katarina!” I
The screams that shot out of Katarina’s mouth were enough to deafen me as she held on to her right leg, which I had shot and was now bleeding against the tiles of my living room, but they were enough to assure me that I had hurt her as badly as I had meant to. “That’s not even nearly as close to the pain that you put Lauren through when you did all the things you did to her and her mother. Did you think she died on impact when you hit her with the truck?” I asked. My mind reeled with the images of Lauren struggling to breathe as pain overtook every part of her after being hit by the truck that Katarina had been behind the wheel of. “Ah!” she yelled, shaking her head as tears streamed down her face. “You cannot do this to me! You have to take me to the hospital!” “Tell me one thing, Katarina,” I said through her screams that I no longer wished to hear any more now. “You said you didn’t mean to kill her, and you only wanted to cause her some injuries,
Damien's POV “If you’re going to kill me, just go ahead and do it,” Katarina hissed in pain, grabbing onto her leg and squeezing it as a way to reduce the pain. “The more you tell me to kill you, the less I want to do it. If you prefer to die, you should know that I’m not going to give you that satisfaction,” I reminded her. She shook her head, taking deep breaths just as I stood up and took her hand to force her to stand. “Would you still like to get married to me? This is why you did all of that, after all,” I told her. Her eyes flew towards the glass of alcohol I had in my hand before looking back at me. “I think you’re drunk. Maybe you should sleep this off. Things don’t have to be like this between us. I’m sorry for everything I did, Damien. I’m going to do everything I can to find her body so that you can give her a proper funeral. Forget the wedding, I don’t need to get married to you.” “Begging is not going to change anything, K
“Miss Lauren Walter, we’re calling to inform you that your father has officially gone over two weeks without providing the payment for your father’s treatments. He’ll be taken off treatment in the next five days if the payment isn’t made.”“No, please. I—”The loud beep came, signalling that the woman on the other side of the phone had hung up.“Oh, God. No, no, no,” I muttered to myself, wiping my stray tears. “Fuck!”I walked back through the backdoor and into the kitchen of the restaurant where I worked as a waitress.I took shaky breaths, wiping the cold sweat off my forehead as I walked towards the manager’s office.“Come on in,” his gruff voice responded right after I knocked on the door.The door creaked open, revealing the man with his salt-and-pepper hair and matching moustache sitting behind his desk. There was a toothpick in his mouth and he sat almost lazily. The customized, illuminated nameplate on his table, which a lot of the staff laughed at behind his back, drew my at
“Lauren,” Shirley squeaked, both of them scrambling to cover themselves with the white sheets. “I can explain, it’s really not—” “I don’t know if I really want to listen to you explain why you’re in bed with my boyfriend, Shirley.” I shook my head, turning to Conrad with tear-filled eyes. “How could you do this to me?” He only sighed and looked away in response, leaving me unsure of knowing if he was remorseful. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Lauren, please.” Shirley attempted to stand up, but Conrad pulled the sheets back so he wouldn’t be naked. Shirley resorted to putting on her shirt and shorts. “Why…?” I questioned nobody in particular. This whole thing had just been thrown in my face and, as much as I needed answers, I didn’t want to hear much from them. “How long?” I said. “How long has this been going on?” “Three months,” Conrad was the one to reply now, his eyes fixated on me without an inkling of guilt. “Oh, God,” I collapsed against the door, squirming as Shirle