Chapter 30
Distorted reality
“I have lived in Contard since the accident, but I’ve been to Tamwine multiple times, especially with Bianca,” Clara says.
“Now it makes so much sense why she was gone that much,” Paul huffs. “Fucking business meetings.”
Marshall and Bianca are so similar that I find myself wondering whether they are part of the same family, or not, especially when it comes to keeping secrets.
The only difference is that Marshall wanted the best for me, while Bianca has always been just an idiot set on a revenge that shouldn’t even involve her directly.
Which is, in fact, a very big difference.
But… they both killed some hearts, some too pure, others with a dark past. One is gone, even though I had his last words in my mind. He hurt too many human beings for him to have ended somewhere nice, but he also did some good in the end. I hope it counted for something.
However, there is one thing I don’t understand when it comes to Bianca.
How brainwashed could she have been to follow the crazy plans of her adoptive family to try to destroy some people who wronged them in Omar’s childhood?
Did she really care so much about an unscrupulous revenge and so little about our friendship and the relationship she had with Paul?
Was it all a manipulative game, or was it something real in our time spent together?
I told her everything, except about Anora. But other than that, she knew all the things about my life, about my way of thinking, about my intentions and pleasures.
I supposedly knew about her life, too, but how much of what she told me was true?
“That means that the motel room was indeed her fucking lab,” Lucas says.
“What lab? What are you even talking about?” Clara asks, confused.
My thoughts go back a couple of days ago, to when we entered that hotel room, surrounded by solutions and colourful bottles.
Everything was too well put together to have been arranged just when Lucas contacted her.
I knew that it was suspicious, but I was more scared of what I’d found out than of any other things that were happening right in front of my eyes.
And Lucas, most probably, was too absorbed by my presence to notice something. I thought he was an excellent manipulator who focused on every situation.
What happened to him? It’s probably his creations’ fault. They didn’t manage to let his brain manipulate other people with his own mind.
Considering that Bianca’s drugs were also part of this business of theirs, anything was possible.
“… and it is so frustrating that she fooled us so easily,” I start hearing what Lucas is talking about.
“I contacted her before coming here, so that means she knew absolutely everything from the very beginning. She knew our moves, but she stayed hidden in the shadows, knowing we’d need her.
How could she escape through my fingers that easily? ”
Lucas paces through the room with his hands in his curly hair, growling and swearing under his breath.
“Because it was all normal,” I tell him. “Don’t blame yourself. I’m to blame as much as you in this story, maybe even more. She played me for years…”
“Ok, let’s leave your whining behind and focus on what’s important at this moment. How do we lure her?” Blake asks, while cracking his hands and neck, giving me chills down my spine.
I can feel Anora glowing with a slow, burning rapture.
“Simple. We let her catch us with our guard down,” Lucas says, and looks at me with a smirk.
?
My thoughts fly to Cathal while Lucas and I take calculated steps through the town together.
I still haven’t seen his lifeless body, but I don’t think I want to do that.
I prefer to remember him as the elegant man, with a powerful empire and fear of nothing.
The man who thought he had everything at his feet, who seemed to have supreme control over this town, but who was, in fact, just a puppet controlled by more powerful people.
I don’t think he knew he was being manipulated. He was probably as clueless as we were and ended up tortured in a way hard to imagine. What kind of vicious people would do that?
Actually, wrong question. I already know the answer to it. We are walking right to it.
Clara told us the location where she had been with Bianca, and the one that attracted us the most was Abirr’s family holiday home, which was actually the house where Omar lived. We shall go directly to the source of it all, right?
I mustered my courage beside Lucas to turn ourselves in.
Lucas had enough people working for him to help us with an operation of such magnitude.
I tried to focus on the idea that only Bianca was corrupt, that Lucas was the only one who dictated the actions of his employees, and that we had people we could count on.
I hope we made the right choice.
Lucas told me how many people were actually helping us. He said that, if I wanted to truly notice the ones around us, I just had to watch and immerse myself in the passing details.
That’s what I start to do, while walking through the known streets.
I look above, close to the sky. I push aside the strong rays of the sun and the blossoming creepers that hang at the top floors of all buildings.
A sparkly object appears for a moment in the most unexpected place, then disappears in the next second, putting a smile on my lips.
Snipers.
I look carefully at more buildings. We are surrounded by them. That alone calms my soul for a moment, giving me a nice feeling of safety.
My gaze gets around us, at the people passing us by on the street. I’m looking for those clues that make a difference, no matter how small they are.
In addition to the empty and serious glares, I notice a fleeting smile from a man dressed in a suit, with an elegant hat, who winks at us for a second as he passes.
We are surrounded by Lucas’s protection. However, why do I still think about options where the ending is not a happy one?
With so many people around us, why does my mind create images where the others have an even bigger army? What if we experience a death as heartbreaking as Cathal’s? I get goosebumps only thinking about that, especially after the details the boys told us.
If we find and catch Bianca, would I be able to kill her with my own hands? I know deep in my heart that she was trouble from the beginning and that she could’ve manipulated our lives in an intoxicating way. Still, would I really be capable of doing such a cruel act as taking a life?
I told you so many times before how simple it is. You just have to leave your heart out of this when you’re doing it.
I think that’s my main problem. My heart is in everything that I do, no matter how bad the situation might be.
Then you just have to stay and watch. I don’t wanna vomit inside of you while watching you tremble with your hand on a knife in front of her heart.
I try to abstain from shivering now. I can easily imagine all the ways I can kill her and how you could do it. But what if I succumb? What if I pass out and you won’t take control in time?
Then your big fucking plans will all be in vain.
Don’t overanalyse useless details. Just think about Marshall and the gruesome way Bianca took his life.
Then, about the way she drugged Paul in order to take her revenge.
Your knife will stick easily in her. Ugh, and how amazing the sound of it penetrating her and reaching her heart would feel while you watch her…
Ok, enough. I don’t wanna start shivering with excitement and fear at the same time.
See? Easy.
I let her go and come back to the present.
I try to think about more positive thoughts. Like the fact that Lucas always had a tracking device stuck in his neck. His team always knew where he was. That’s why he always wanted to be with me.
Because I was safe with him.
The only time when his team lost track of him was when we were captured and brought deep underground through one of the town’s tunnels. They would’ve intervened to search for us, but Lucas was very strict with the rules he enforced.
They had to wait to be asked for help. To see that he really was in danger with no way out. Or just disappear from under their radar for more than four hours. Those were the rules.
Lucas needed to have a phone with him to communicate with them, but when he got out of the train, it just slipped from his pocket. He was lucky with… Cathal’s phone.
He finally managed to contact them and involve them in this complex operation.
I loved that he had a plan B from the beginning and didn’t only rely on my stupid plan. He knew it wasn’t gonna work, but he didn’t wanna disagree with my ideas.
“I like it when you smile, but I felt your state of mind drastically change in the last ten minutes,” Lucas laughs, bringing me back to reality.
My smile only gets bigger at his remark. I can feel my cheeks slowly turning red and my body overflowing with adoration for Lucas.
“Also,” he tells me, making me look at his phone, “they’re not just keeping an eye on us.”
That’s a pleasant surprise. My worries regarding Bianca disappear from inside of me while I’m watching the live footage on the phone’s screen.
She is in her motel room, with a towel over her head, and a man is waiting for her in bed.
I look at her as she slowly starts taking her bathrobe off.
My eyes get big when it reaches her boobs, and Lucas quickly closes the recording.
His cheeks get a red nuance from what he could’ve seen next.
Of course. That bitch is now relaxing after all she’s done. Better for us. This makes things easier.
I hope she has the worst sex in the history of it. For her to have the worst partner whose dick can’t get up. It wouldn’t be her first time, from what we were gossiping about her experiences before Paul.
At the same time, I hope Paul will never see that footage. I won’t be the first to torture her, and he’ll surely kill her.
Sooo, are you back to the blood? I’m glad. I would love to watch you do it. I would be proud of you for the first time in our lives.
For the moment, the plan remains the same, even after that footage. We go directly to Omar, where the reinforcements will be ready. When he opens the door, the team will wait for Lucas’s signal to immobilise whoever opens it and barge into the house to take the others prisoners.
Then, Bianca will be brought, and all will be put under questioning alongside Lucas’s complex devices, with which I’ll have so much fun. I wanna watch Bianca suffer. I won’t kill her directly, no. I have to get the adrenaline that can take me there.
That’s what I was telling you. And don’t forget that you promised to also let me play with her for a bit.
I hear a subtle sound when Lucas gets a notification. He looks down at his phone and then puts it back in the pocket of his pants.
“They’re ready. The entry is clear, and the enemy is home. The perfect day for a nourishing prey,” Lucas says with a smirk on his lips. “Now you’ll see what I really do and how good it feels to rid the world of poison. Are you ready?”
I inhale profoundly and try to remove the dark thoughts from the exterior of my being.
“Beside you, always,” I tell him.
He takes my hand once we get close to the house. We are ready to climb the stairs and knock on the door, like any other normal humans, but we don’t get a chance to do that. The door opens, and we freeze in place.
But she…
It makes absolutely no sense. The footage was clear, it was live…
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Lucas says, while making the secret sign for his team to intervene.
“Surprise! Uh, I couldn’t help myself.”
Something’s not right. Lucas’s fucking army should’ve been here before she even started talking.
No…
No, no, no…
My fears just became our reality.
We fucked up.
“I knew how satisfying it would be to watch your faces,” Bianca smirks.
Lucas doesn’t even manage to put himself in front of me when Bianca pulls out two guns from her back and shots both of us.
But, instead of bullets, they are some needles that stop directly in our necks.
I violently feel like I’m losing control over my feet, that I can’t move them. I can’t breathe properly, and my vision is getting blurry. I am losing the hold of Lucas’s hand, feeling it slipping through my fingers. Everything around me becomes darker, and I begin to lose touch with reality.
The last thing I hear before the abyss welcomes me with open arms is Lucas’s scream, whose voice fades away while he is calling my name, as he also falls into the darkness.