Darkest Deception (Deception Series)

35

“Ambrose!” Helia’s loud voice booms through the living room.

Mom glances up from her breakfast and scowls. “Who is that maniac shouting this early in the morning?”

Abandoning my food, I head to the front door and step out into the bright early morning. The sun is blazing down, burning my skin through my clothes. It feels wrong to feel the rays of the sun when London is all about gloomy clouds and rain.

Helia stands under the sun, fuming, with crazed eyes and a heaving chest, his suit jacket crumpled at his feet as if he threw it in a fit. His sleeves are messily rolled up to his elbows, and his hair is unruly.

He shakes papers in front of my face. “What the fuck is this?”

Helia left in the morning, just as I expected. I emailed him that same morning asking for leave for a week, and now, a week later, I have sent him a resignation letter.

He’s holding it in his hand right now.

His eyes look so angry I would think he might light me on fire just with that look alone.

“My resignation letter?” Indifference paints my face.

Funnily enough, there was no one watching me do yoga for the past week, there was no feeling of being watched, no one disturbing my peace anymore.

And yet, I felt empty.

“Why?” He steps closer, but I take a step to the left and walk down the steps, standing away from him.

He follows me.

“Why did you resign?” He stands in front of me again, panic clear in his voice, his eyes searching mine for answers that he won’t find.

“I don’t want the job anymore.” I shrug.

He blinks. His mouth opens, then closes.

“Was it because of me?” Anguish laces his voice.

I finally look at him, actually look at him. “What does it matter anymore? I have stopped fighting, and you got what you want. Aren’t you happy you won?”

He shakes his head frantically. He drops the papers and reaches for my hands, but I step back. He takes one more step closer to me and cradles my face, but I look the side.

I ignore the skip of my heart at his touch. I ignore my foolish organ calling out to him, wanting to be back in his warm, secure arms.

“Look at me, baby, please,” he begs.

Helia begs. I never expected someone like him to beg like this, to ask me to look at him. With his power, his brutal energy and strength, he could force me to do so, but he isn’t. He needs to know he fucked up and killed whatever I felt sizzling between us.

That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?

With his lies, his manipulating ways, he got what he wanted in the end.

I can’t allow myself to weaken at the new nickname he has chosen for me now.

I won’t allow him to win the final battle.

I take a step back and out of his hold, and his hands drop to his side.

“Leave, Helia. I have places to go.” With that, I turn around and head back into my house, awaiting an email that I should be receiving this week.

That email is my only hope now.

“Ambrose! Come back, baby. Please! You can’t walk away from me like this! Ambrose, listen to me!” Helia shouts from behind me, but I shut the door, my heart aching at his voice calling out to me.

Why now?

“Ambrose, please!” He cries out.

Why couldn’t he have been more open with me?

“Ambrose!” He screams, his voice so pained.

I know we hated each other, but now I feel something much more. Something that has me almost destroying myself for a mere moment in his arms. For just one last kiss. For one last touch from him.

Because I’m addicted. To him. To his eyes. To his hold. To everything that reminds me of him.

“This dress is beautiful, isn’t it?”

I blankly look at the figure-hugging golden dress. It has full sleeves and a sweetheart neckline. It reaches the floor, embellished with beautifully encrusted yellow diamonds, and with each movement of mine, I can hear the dazzling diamonds clink.

Why does it feel like I am cheating on Helia?

“You will have every head turning.” Mom smiles at me, her eyes moving over the glittering dress in awe.

She’s pushing her dreams onto me.

“Mum, please. I don’t want this. What good will it do—” My head whips to the side with a crazy burn.

She slapped me.

I look back at her, and she’s still smiling, her eyes wide, looking around the boutique.

“You will stay quiet, and you will—”

The bells ring above the door at the entrance.

My whole being freezes as I watch a figure walk straight at us.

Not a figure. Helia. In a black suit.

And he looks livid. His eyes are trained on my mother, and with each step he takes, my heart buzzes with excitement. He’s here.

But then the hope shatters, knowing all I did was push him away from me.

Why would he come here to save me? To help me?

I open my mouth, but before I can get any words out, I watch the scene play out in front of me in slow motion.

Mum turns around, and that same second, Helia grabs her neck and pins her up against the wall. Her legs lift off the ground as he bares his teeth at her, his eyes murderous, his hold tightening until her face turns red.

The sales assistants all freeze in their place, fearing for their own lives as they watch this play out.

Thankfully, there are no other customers. Mum booked it for me in advance.

“Helia,” I whisper, my eyes wide.

“You touched her. You raised your hand against your own daughter?!” Helia screams in her face, but she just shakes her head. “Do you know what I do to people who harm the woman I love?”

Everything stops.

He loves … me? Ambrose?

It cannot be. I heard wrong. I know I did.

“I don’t let them live a second longer.”

No. He will kill her. In broad daylight.

“Helia, stop.” I rush towards them, pulling his arm, but he isn’t listening.

His eyes are trained on my mother, who is slowly turning blue from the sheer force of one of his hands pinning her to the wall.

Sweat breaks out on the back of my neck.

He won’t listen. He’s not in his right mind.

I need to do something. Fast.

I look around the boutique, trying to find something, anything to stop him, but what?

“Ow!” I instantly bend down low, my hand rubbing over my knee, acting like I hurt myself.

Helia’s head snaps to me. He lets go of Mum instantly and rushes to me. Grabbing hold of my face, he looks panicked between my face and my knee with me on the floor.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

Fuck. I can’t let myself get this weak.

“I hurt myself, my leg,” I murmur, pointing to my knee, watching my mother out of the corner of my eye gasping for air, holding her neck.

I shouldn’t have helped her, but I did.

“It’s okay, I’ll fix it.” Sliding an arm under my knees and shoulder, he lifts me off the ground, making me yelp. I wrap my arms around his neck and freak out when he starts to walk out the door.

“Helia! My dress, I haven’t paid for it!”

“They can add it to my tab,” he snaps.

I gasp, looking back at the employees who are rushing towards my mother, who is glaring at me.

“It’s a two-million-pound dress, Helia,” I protest.

He stops in the middle of the road, glancing down at me with such intensity it makes my stomach burn in desire.

He has looked at me like that when I was on my knees for him with his cock in my mouth.

With possessiveness.

“That’s nothing to me, Ambrose.”

An hour later, I am in a gold diamond dress in Helia’s home, on his sofa, when I should be angry and running away at the first chance I get.

Why am I so weak for this man?

He betrayed me.

How will he feel when he finds out that I am building a case against him and it’s only a matter of time before it is officially announced? I was going to drop it until he revealed the part of himself he kept tucked away.

I hear footsteps behind me then here he is, holding a first aid kit. Lifting my legs on the couch, I wrap my arms around my knees and look away from him.

“Let me see your leg.”

I continue to look away from him, at the small dresser pushed against his far-right wall.

Was he born here?

“Ambrose, let me see your knee.”

I don’t know anything about him before he came to Glamorous.

“Ambrose, this is the last time. Let me see your knee.”

He will hate me again. It’s only a matter of time.

That thought fills my eyes with tears.

I want that, don’t I? Then why does everything in me ache at the thought?

A shout leaves me when I am lifted off the sofa, then placed back down in Helia’s lap, my legs stretched over on the sofa.

“Look at me.” He turns my chin towards him, but I look away. “Fine, your anger is justified. Just let me look at where you hurt yourself, that’s all. I’ll leave you alone after.”

I don’t move. My heart is burning up in flames and all that will remain are ashes.

Helia lifts my dress himself, bunching the expensive dress like a flimsy little gown at my thighs. When he sees no injury on my knee, he sighs.

I see his head drop back on the sofa from my peripheral vision.

“You drive me crazy,” he murmurs, running his big warm hands on my legs, raising goosebumps. My body temperature skyrockets.

“You did that to protect your mother? Why?”

I climb off his lap and give him my back. “Give me a change of clothes,” I murmur, watching the door, spotting something fly right past the window wall of the living room.

Within a couple of minutes, I am changed into black sweatpants that I had to roll a couple of times and a big t-shirt that engulfs me and makes me feel like I am small.

I walk out of the small bedroom next to the poolroom, passing the staircase to the front door. As soon as I am out, a wave of fresh air hits me.

A glittering orange sunset covers the entire sky, as if the sun was a couple of miles away from the Earth and it lit everything on fire. The tall trees are each touched with a speck of gold, and the sight reminds me of Helia’s eyes when he smiles at me.

Helia stands with his back to me with Blaze on his shoulder. He looks over at me with a small smile and nods for me to follow him.

I don’t move for a couple of minutes and watch his figure retreating into the forest, but then realise that it will get dark soon. I don’t know anything around here, and Helia is my best bet.

I could stay in the house, but somehow, being with Helia feels safer than being alone in a big glass mansion in the middle of the woods.

So I quickly catch up to him. Twigs break under our feet, and we have to push branches out of our faces, making flies and some grasshoppers taking flight. Amongst the chaos of taking a walk in the forest, a certain calmness washes over me.

It feels like I was on fire my whole life and being in Helia’s silent presence threw ice cold water on me, dimming my madness.

“I was eleven years old when I got this scar on my eye.” Helia voice travels back to me. He doesn’t turn around, and Blaze doesn’t caw either.

He’s sharing a part of himself with me today.

Why does that make me want to cry?

“Me and my sister… We were homeless for a couple of years. Our mother abandoned us, and we barely scraped by. We weren’t able to pay rent, due to us being too young to work, so we got kicked out of our house and lived inside an abandoned warehouse.”

There is not a single ounce of emotion in his voice, but when I glance at his hands, they are in his trouser pockets, clenched into fists.

“My sister used to disappear for days sometimes. Maybe one day or maybe a whole month. She used to take drugs and often passed out. I didn’t know then, but it’s not hard to put the pieces together now.”

There is a pause, leaves rustle, and a quiet chirp of a bird hits my ears.

“She brought her boyfriend back one day.”

I see him swallow and another pause follows.

“They got drunk together at the warehouse with me beside them. He saw me and decided my eyes were something to possess, something he wanted. His excuse for wanting to carve out my eye? That he gave us food and money, and that made us his possessions.”

How could a child understand how fucked up that is? How did he survive being on streets?

Just thinking about a younger Helia, bleeding, crying, and unable to go anywhere makes me want to bawl my eyes out.

“I was bleeding for days on those winter nights, feeling every burn, every ripped open skin around my eye, fearing I would lose sight in this eye, or worse, lose it altogether. It’s crazy how I never once feared for my life while being homeless, but those days were the worst. He made me feel like I was beneath him, as did every single man in London, but he also thought he had the right to do as he pleased.”

Tears well up in my eyes as I imagine Helia bleeding on the streets, his skin ripped open around his eye, fearing for his life.

Oh Lord.

“Aren’t we all slaves to our desires? Why do some feel like they have the right to act upon their sick imaginations and some don’t?” Helia stops just as the sound of water fills the silence. Like a fountain or a waterfall.

“The only difference is they think money can hide their sick mentalities,” he says quietly.

I come to a stop right next to Helia, and when I glance down, my mouth drops open with a loud gasp.

There is a waterfall to the left, a big drop to the ground, and a beautiful sunset right in front of me. A couple of birds take flight, and here, life feels simple.

Everything feels like it can be accomplished.

Reaching my hand out, I grab Helia’s hand without looking at him and give it a small squeeze before letting it go.

I can’t give him too much hope.

“Blaze, have anything to say to make Ambrose forgive me?”

Blaze caws loudly and shoots up to the sky. My eyes follow him with a smile, watching him do hoops and caw happily.

“I hope the presents I sent to your home aren’t too small.”

I don’t reply, emotions choking me.

“Would you at least look at me? I can’t bear to not have your eyes on me.”

I lose all resolve and finally slide my gaze from the waterfall beneath me to Helia’s emerald eyes.

And they take my breath away.

So does his smile.

His jet-black hair has never looked more beautiful. Even now, just seeing him in front of me, I feel my heart throb in need of him.

I should hate him and push him away, but can I truly move past it?

He says he loves me but to the extent of killing people for me?

What does one call that?

Such dangerous love?

Madness?

The little presents Helia was talking about?

They are diamond necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. All in silver and green emerald diamond set in green velvet boxes. With not a single note. I huff at how arrogant he is to assume I will know who these are from straight away.

“Can you place these in my room, please?” I ask the maid on my way to my bedroom.

The next morning, a small bouquet of white roses arrives, and at first, I think it’s something small enough to throw in the trash. I don’t keep any of that around the house, but then I see it.

Small diamonds placed right in the middle of the twelve roses. When looked closely, they are each possibly worth over twenty grand each. I would know, I have requested a set with these diamonds this for Aurora once.

Again. No note.

Helia: Did you like this one?

Me: You think my value is just ￡240k?

That resulted in something even bigger delivered to my home.

“Who is this person who keeps sending you all these gifts? Have I met him or her?”

I don’t answer my mother as I open the black velvet box and gasp.

A key. Not just any key.

An emerald-coloured Ferrari LaFerrari. Parked outside my home.

Helia:Do you like this?

I can’t even reply to this because within just a couple of days, he has sent millions of pounds worth of gifts to my home, taking it seriously when I said he can never win me. But if he keeps spending money on me like this, it will make him go broke at this point.

Me:Stop it. It’s too much.

Helia:Do you forgive me then?

Me: No. Nothing was worth my forgiveness.

Helia: What do you want? Me on my knees?

Me:No.

Helia:Tell me what you want, and I will make it happen.

I have no reply to that. I wish to forget everything, to erase myself and live as I felt in the moment at the waterfall near his home. I felt free. Free from the responsibilities. Does that mean I feel at home and free when I’m with Helia?

That when he is with me, no one can ever harm as they always did?

“Ambrose, what happened to the Madden sisters?”

“What?” My head snaps up when I walk into the living room.

“What is the news saying?” She turns the volume up.

“Recently reported is the death of the three daughters of Fox Madden, the owner of Madden Pharmaceuticals, one of Britain’s richest man. He is now grieving the loss of his three daughters. This case is being investigated by officials. Initial reports confirm that the murder took place the night Hayes Lanon was appointed the deputy leader of Labour party. Now onto the heist that has been successfully carried out in the art gallery of London…”

My ears start to ring.

What has Helia done?