Chapter 19 Live like you are dead
"These bruises, how did you get it?" Eric asked. For some reason, Lilac looked at him with an expression Eric could swear was disbelief. Was she bothered that he touched her hair? This thought made him frown. Wasn't this woman obsessed with him? Now she has a problem with him touching her?
Lilac saw him gesture to her neck and she raised her hand to touch them. Realizing what he was talking about, she looked away.
"I had an accident," she answered.
"What kind of accident gets you strangled?" Eric asked but she did not answer.
"It seems you want me to figure it out myself," he sneered and turned away.
Lilac looked out the window the rest of the journey. When they arrived at the private island, she quietly got off. She looked around and noticed that the rest for eh black family just arrived. Their luggages where being handled as they all got into different cars. Lilac felt utterly uncomfortable. She was not sure what car to join.
Before she could think too deeply, Eric opened the back seat door and basically shoved her inside.
"Sir, they are here," she heard a guard whisper the moment Eric enter the back seat after her.
Eric nodded and immediately turned to Lilac.
"While you are here, be absolutely quiet as though you don't exist, do you understand?" He asked and Lilac gave a little nod before looking out the window. The car stopped by a small cabin and the door opened on her side.
Lilac took that as her cue and walked out. She closed the door and the car drove off leaving her there with her small luggage.
Lilac looked around the detached cabin before walking inside. It was fit with all the needed modern amenities she could ever need, even a kitchen.
She wanted to look around some more but suddenly paused as her eyes scanned the living room. She was not sure if this house was bugged. What if there were people listening or watching?
Lilac entered one of the bedrooms and closed the door. She sat on the bed with a shaky hand.
When she recalled her dream, she started to wonder about the man she had thrown overboard. He had come to stop her from throwing the crates away. Was it possible he did not work for Micheal? When Lilac thought reapply, she realized he ha not confirmed if he did work for Micheal when she had said he did.
"I just want to do my job," is what he had said. Could it be he meant on the ship? For Eric?
Lilac felt her head spin. If Eric could set her up, does that mean he knew her family was planning something or he always had plans to do so?
Lilac crawled into bed and folded into a ball. What was she to do now? It was clear she had not died when June had thrown her into the sea in her last life. That meant she was not sure when she would die.
She did not feel safe here. If her dreams had taught her anything, it was that all those words work for the black family only work for the black family, not her. She recalled how they had watched her thrash in the water without any moving a muscle.
A low chuckle left Lilac's throat. This family never saw her as one of them. She was not safe with them. Anything could happen.
Lilac quickly took out her laptop and phone and begun arranging her finances. She moved money to accounts her parents did not even know about. When looking at her account balance she almost laughed. The wife of Eric Black and a daughter of the heart family and she only had a little over two hundred thousand dollars in her bank account. For many those as a lot, but for Lilac who was living with the wealthy, it looked like mockery to her.
Eric's family has given her some shares after she had married him. But they were conditional. When she divorced him, she would have to return it. They also gave her some property, but she did not dare use it.
When she thought about it, where did the dividends form the shares go all these years? The shares was one thing she had kept from her family because she feared what they would do with it.
She tried to recall. Yes, Lilac sighed in relief. She was at least not completely stupid. She still had that foreign account her late grandfather had opened for her.
Lilac quickly logged into the account to confirm how much was in there. When she received the amount back, her mouth fell open. Three thousand? Three thousand? How?
She immediately downloaded the transaction history.
Her eyes span through rows and rows of empty transactions.
So she had not even paid rve a single cent of dividends all these years. The next moment, Lilac heard the door to the living room open. The moment she got up, she realized she had been busy all afternoon and now the sun was low in the sky.
"Who is it?" She asked cautiously as she approached the living room. She was not sure who it was but when she saw Eric taking off his jacket in the living room, she froze as her heart fell.
"Who did you think it would be?" Eric asked, "A burglar? Who thinks a burger is attacking and still calls out to them?"
His voice was cold and full of mockery.
"It would have been better to meet a burger," Lilac said and turned away to leave.
"No dinner?" He asked, his words stoping her in her steps.
"You want me to cook for you?" lilac asked incredulously.
"Didn't you always cook? What? After throwing a tantrum for a divorce, you no longer wish to?" He asked and Lilac realized she really did used to cook. But why did it seem like ages ago to her?
Was it because she was living a new life or because he only stepped into their home once every four to six months? She bet it was the latter.
The was always so nervous any time he came around, she tried hard to get into his good books and even learnt how to cook. Lilac felt like a fool. Why cook for someone who wants to kill you?
She turned around and left again.
"You have an army of staff. I am sure someone will make sure their boss does not starve," she said and returned to her room, slamming the door behind her.
Lilac realized she had barely slept these two days and yet, she could not sleep. Better to say, she did not dare to sleep.
She stared at her foreign account for a bit before she closed down her computer. There was a knock on her door a while later.
"Come over for dinner. You might need to meet the Harold family tomorrow, so eat so you don't faint there," he said and walked away. As his steps receded, lilac felt her blood run cold and her hair stand on it's ends.
The Harold family. That name sounded familiar. Images flashed though her head suddenly, causing pain to tear through her skull.
"Did I not tell you to live like you are dead!" She heard Eric shout. She saw an image of his bloodshot eyes as he held her by the neck strangling her.
The next second the image changed to a scene not being pushed into a lake. People laughed on the shore. Water filled lungs, it was utter pain.
The scene changed again to aericcs cold eyes looking down at her from the staircase of their home.
"Why wouldn't you let me go!" Lilac shouted.
"You killed a person, Lilac. Just to keep our marriage, you killed a person. You can forget getting out of this marriage alive!" Eric answered before the images ended and Lilac found herself back in the room on the carpet gasping for breath.