Chapter 99 Gone
Daxton
The moment Ashley opened the door, I caught her by the throat. She barely had the time to gasp, her words strangled as I walked her back with intense rage coursing through me.
A dangerous feeling that had been building since last night as I sat in the darkness with different dark thoughts coursing through my mind. Pointing a pistol at her head and watching the bullet pierce through her skull? Strangling her to death?
No. All of this was incomparable to the way I really wanted her to suffer.
I didn't need to ask Josh to find her location. I had driven her and picked her up in this Cabin so many times and knew exactly where to find her.
I could feel my eyes turning red as I tightened my grip around her neck. “I warned you,” I growled.
She tried to dislodge my fingers around her neck. “Daxton, please,” she begged, knocking off the table lamp as it shattered to the floor.
I wasn't listening. I wasn't thinking. I only saw red and wouldn't stop until I saw life slip out of her eye.
“Mum?”
I froze for a second, swinging my head towards the girl who hovered by the hallway, fear in her eyes as she clutched the edge of the doorframe.
“Do…I…need…to call the police or grandpa?” Her voice shook.
That was when my grip faltered around Ashley’s neck—only slightly but still hard enough to hurt. “No baby. Go to your room. We're only playing,” she choked out.
Simona flicked her eyes between Ashley and me, not moving. “It doesn't look like that to me,”
I dropped my hand from Ashley’s neck storming out of the Cabin while she followed after me. When I turned, she was wrapping a scarf around her neck—still gasping for breath. “My daughter thinks so highly of you and you have crashed—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I pointed a finger at her. “I don't care what your daughter thinks of me. What was the meaning of what you did last night?”
Ashley blinked like she was oblivious to what I meant before she smiled. She fucking smiled like this situation was exciting. Like I had not just tried to strangle her to death a minute ago.
I swore she knew how to get on my last nerves.
“The meaning of what I did? Maybe I just wanted to save an innocent woman and make her see you for who you truly are. A liar and a user,”
A scoff escaped me. Bullshit. Ashley wasn't the type to think about other people, everything she did last night was only for her own benefit.
“Liar? User? I’ve never lied told you a single lie,”
“Oh, you did. I confessed my feelings to you sixteen different times and you turned me down, mercilessly. Talmabout—Oh, I have no plans of falling in love with anyone or even dating anybody. But, look at you, popping out with some younger woman as a girlfriend, and to worsen things, she is Kian’s ex-wife!”
I stared at her like she had lost her mind. No, she clearly lost it. Dating and romantic connections had never been my thing in the past. With Verena, it was love at first sight and she made me feel things that I’ve never felt before.
“Holding something that I said as a teenager and using it against me now that I’m in my thirties is wild. And for the record, we both used each other and I was clear about that from the start,”
Ashley crossed her arms over her chest, rolling her eyes back. “You are never going to change the animosity I feel towards you. You ruined my life, used me, and pushed me into Ewan’s arms,”
“If you had never turned me down, we could have been so much together. That woman—Verena— is living the life that belongs to me and you expect me to stay calm about it and let you and her be happy?”
Verena is living the life that should have been hers? Nah, she had lost it and right now, I was speaking to a woman who should definitely be locked up in a mental institution.
“That was the reason for all the unnecessary shit you spilled at the reunion?”
She nodded—acting nonchalant about it. “Yes, my darling and if I see her again, I will gladly share more intimate details about what we shared in the past. I already told you, you can only be happy with me and not anyone else,”
I scoffed at the absurdity while she took a step closer to me, her expression switching into a sad one as her fingers bunched into my shirt. “Daxton, can't we be together? I'm a changed person and—”
I grabbed her wrist firmly and shoved her hard to the ground. She made me feel sick.
“I came here to give you a final warning. If you come around Verena one more time and breathe a word to her. I swear on my fucking life that I will kill you,”
Ashley was already scrambling to her feet, shaking the dust off her palm, and let out an annoying derisive laugh.
I took one final glance at her, ready to stalk off to my car when her next words made me halt in my step. “Have you told her about your mum, yet? Or do you want me to?”
Dread washed over me, the same time fury slammed into my chest as I turned to her only to find her smirking.
“Oh, I guess you haven’t told her yet,” she said with a mocked gasp.
My jaw tightened as I clenched my fist by my side—trying to rein in the anger coursing through me. “Shouldn’t you be running?” I tilted my head.
The smile on her face cracked, confusion slowly morphing her expression. “Running?”
A dark feeling curled into my chest as a slow sinister smile curled my lips. “I tipped off your location to Ewan. He should be here in the next three minutes,”
Her breath came in small ragged gasps, her fingers fluttering to her neck. “You did what?”
“I did my research concerning you and your married life with Ewan and I discovered something amazing—”
Her eyes pinged wide with fear.
“Contrary to the story you’ve been spreading around for cheap sympathy, you are not a victim of abuse. Ewan has never laid a hand on you. You cheated on him with his bodyguard and when he caught you, you stole his money and took off with Seth,” I smirked.
“And Seth played you, stole the money back, and left you stranded. Your daughter? She doesn’t have a heart condition and her real name is Dulce. You’ve been scamming everyone and you’re nothing but a pathetic fraud,”
Ashley’s reddened eyes glistened with tears. As a convoy of Black Mercedes drove towards the Cabin, she breathed hard, retreating with a curse tumbling out of her mouth. “Fuck you, Daxton Cooper. I hate you,” she pivoted and dashed straight into the woods.
But, it was too late. When I got into my car and glanced at my side mirror, she was already being dragged into the car.