Fated To Three, Betrayed By All… Until She Rose.-Chapter 62: A fucking liar.

Leilani.

Today, it snowed. And I didn’t even realize that we’d scaled through to mid-November until I got out to find the white flurries sitting pretty on top of my car. But because it wasn’t anything heavy, I got in and drove off to the company, only to arrive and find that I had mail sitting pretty and waiting for me.

It was from my family.

And it was a court summon.

When I saw this, I smirked, immediately called my lawyer, Adrian Crete, and asked him to counter sue. His response was quick, and by lunch break, he’d reached them and gotten back to me. And they’d given him the response I’d hoped to hear.

It was brief. It was funny. But it was what I’d been expecting. They’d simply said; "Fuck you."

When I heard this news, I couldn’t contain my laughter. Even Jarek seemed to be having so much fun acting as our spectator.

Lowkey, we’ve been trying to get insiders into the house to tamper with the house’s CCTV and get the footage of what happened on the afternoon grandma died... and the other on the day Chalice accused me of pushing her down the stairs.

But even up until now, we’ve not neared success. It was disappointing.

"Down to earth, princess!" Jarek drawled as he clinked his glass against mine, a smile tugging at his lips as he watched me closely. "What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?"

I shook my head dismissively, my face flaring up with heat at his choice of words. I know I should be used to his way with words by now, but for some reason, I wasn’t. They still gave me butterflies. Still made my toes tingle.

And this was the worst possible time for my toes to be tingling.

"I don’t know how we’ll get that footage." I finally said, exhaling deeply. "It’s not realistic to think we can just walk into the house and ask for it. And even if we ask for it, Chalice will get them destroyed before we even lay our hands on them."

"That’s if it hasn’t been destroyed by now."

That was another thing I feared but hoped to be wrong. But now, having someone else voice out my thoughts this loudly made a tremor run up my spine. I shuddered. "I hope not."

"Me too."

A sudden silence descended upon us, one that was only shattered a few minutes later when Jarek spoke up. He said; "Don’t think about it too much."

I sighed. "I try not to."

"Well, that aside. That gala that was postponed some weeks ago is next week. Will you still attend it with me?"

That made my ears perk up. I set down my fork and raised my head slowly to meet his gaze, and with something akin to hope taking root deep inside of me, I whispered; "Yes."

"It’s an opportunity to pitch our ideas to new clients. Though, I don’t think we need more with the influx of people we’ve had over the week. But if you don’t want to leave even scraps for the Stormborn brothers, then you have to pitch them even to the smallest of the smallest companies we have left in NYC. Good luck." He said, and with that, went back to eating his meal like he hadn’t just dropped a literal bomb.

I let the words hang in the air between us. Not quite missing the hidden meaning behind his words. He simply meant: I should clap back with it. That I should start my revenge scheme with something that drastic.

I smiled at him but said nothing... and deep down, I already knew what I needed to do.

And trust me, it was exactly the hidden meaning behind his words.

—

Zevran.

My brothers and I sat across from each other, in my office, mulling over the strange emails popping up on our computer screens all of a sudden.

Everyone was pulling out of our recent project. And that was the best way to put it.

My heart raced when an email from the Landry’s popped on my screen, and I didn’t even need to open it to already know what the contents were. I growled, slamming my fist against the table as I snapped;

"What’s happening?!"

"I swear I have no idea!" Caelum yelled.

"What has gotten into everybody?" Karl piped in.

AndI swear, I had a bad feeling about it. I feared that it was probably karma or maybe there was someone sabotaging us.

Enraged and with trembling fingers, I quickly typed back a response to Landry’s team. It read;

’Hello Sir,

While I understand that you’re calling off our project due to some ’personal reasons’, I’d like you to remember that in our contract, there’s a clause in’5.2.1. that states that you’ll be made to pay a breach of contract penalty of 10 million dollars, for breaking

off the agreement without prior notice.’

His response came quickly. He simply said; ’Okay."

And you see, that’s been the thing with all of them since the beginning of today. It felt as though they’d all gone for a meeting and decided to pull out their shares from our ongoing project, uncaring about the penalty they would be made to pay for doing such. And if it continues like this, by the end of today, we may become underfunded.

My heart raced.

"Hey boys!" Chalice’s voice suddenly rang through the silence in the air as she waltzed in in a red bandage dress, and stilettos that were so high, they could pass for a mountain—to insects.

She held up her hands containing paper bags and paper bags of food and squealed; "I brought you lunch!"

But I didn’t stir. I didn’t even turn to acknowledge her. If you ask me, I’d say I still wasn’t convinced that she moved on so quickly from the loss of her child which she’d been so ’distraught’ about.

She placed the bags on the table and came over to plant kisses on each of our lips. She squealed; "You guys don’t seem very excited to see me."

"We’re very busy right now." Caelum answered quickly— too quickly, you’d know he was reassuring her.

Just then a bright idea popped up in my head. I turned to Chalice and flashed her a wry smile. I drawled; "We’re having some issues right now with the company. Some of our major shareholders are pulling out their shares from our recent investment..."

She gasped, her eyes widening in surprise as she slapped her hand over her mouth. "What happened?"

"That we don’t know. But I am beginning to think that TRAGUS isn’t up to par. Hence, the reason they’re backing out. Can you give us insights on what to do about it?"

Now, before I go further, I’d like to remind y’all that it is winter. The weather is about -6°c. But as soon as I asked Chalice that question, she broke out into fits of sweat. Her hands trembled as she peeked into my computer to have a ’glance’ of whatever I was looking at.

Kael and Caelum raised their heads to meet my gaze and then they turned to Chalice.

Kael asked; "You’re a software engineer and developer right?"

"Right!" She snapped, sporting a smile that was too broad and too stiff to be true.

"Then you should be able to help us... even if it’s only a little, right?"

"Right." She said again, but now, tears were already beginning to stream down her face.

I shook my head and turned away from her, already getting my answer. I drawled; "I don’t think you’re well. Are you okay?"

Chalice sniffled but she didn’t hesitate to plant a kiss on my cheek. She sighed. "I’ve just got something in my eye. And I’ve been a nervous wreck for days now. Don’t mind me."

But I did mind her.

And I knew that she was a fucking liar.