Chapter 91 Untitled Chapter

Chapter 91 Untitled Chapter
GIANNA

“You've always been photogenic, Gigi,” Colton said, stroking the side of my face with a single digit. His finger felt hot on my skin, and the fact that he was touching me repulsed me to no end.

“Leave her alone Colton, you sick monster! Your mother ought to be ashamed of a son like you. You disgust me,” Bridget yelled. Colton whirls on her with a menacing glare.

“I kill that whore myself; I doubt she feels anything now, not that she has any right to judge me even if she were alive,” he spat, making me flinch.

“You killed your mother?” Chloe whispered, voice trembling.

“She's not much of a mother to begin with, just an addict who will spread her legs for anyone who will get her, her next fix,” he spat.

“So I did her a favor and gave her what she loved most. It was a mercy she didn't deserve and an easy way for me to get rid of her, I didn't want the opposition to use her against me, not that it did any good in the end."

There was no remorse as he said this. It was as though he was a narrator of a story that had nothing to do with him.

“What kind of a monster are you?” Grams said with shocked horror. He grinned, contorting his scarred face.

“I will show you the kind of monster I am if you don't shut your fucking mouth and send that money right now, old woman.” He shot the ground near her feet.

“The next bullet that leaves this gun will be Chloe’s.” He jammed the gun against Chloe’s head, who was sobbing, her body trembling.

“Sixty million dollars, not a cent short.” Grams nodded and gave them her details all under Colton’s menacing glare. His wild eyes only marginally lose their maniacal glint when, after a few minutes, Vera announces that the money is sent.

If Bridget had sent him that amount, her business might suffer. Sixty million dollars is not a small amount of money. While she's extremely rich, her real wealth is in the amount of assets she has, properties, investments, and stocks.

That's my assumption, to be honest, even I don't know the extent of Gram's wealth.
Chloe exhaled shakily when Colton finally lifted his gun from her head.

Though she's still sobbing softly. Then as though he wasn't the one yelling and threatening me and my family. He turned to me and continued where he left off.

“I mean, just look at you; the camera caught every angle and expression so perfectly.”

“Colton, can we talk,” Benji said, cutting him off, Vera was beside him.

She was eyeing Colton cautiously like she knew he was unhinged. Colton's face contorted in irritation.

“Not right now.”

“But…” Benji insisted.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” he booms, standing over the slightly shorter man. “Are you fucking blind Benji? Can't you see I'm having an important conversation with Gigi? Whatever you want to say can't you wait until I'm done?” Benji physically shrunk in front of Colton.

“It's okay, it can wait. Carry on with your conversation, please,” Vera quickly replied, dragging Benji with her.

“Now, where was I? Ha, I was telling you how photogenic you are. Here, see this one? I especially like this one,” he said, pointing to another picture that flashed on the screen, baring the top of my breasts, my shoulders, and long half-braided hair, the other half loose and wavy, curly red tendrils framing my face.

“You looked like one of those professional porn stars, only much better.” He was right.

I looked like a porn star on a photo shoot; I remember the precise day this image was taken and who I was staring at with glassy eyes filled with lust. So this was what I looked like when I was aroused? I thought.

“To be honest, I didn't expect the results to be half this good, but the camera got it all. The world can now see the freaky desperate whore you truly are and not the sad, innocent princess you like to pretend to be,” he said loudly, chuckling as the others joined.

He'd already gotten his money but he had no intention of letting us go.

“This right now, what you're feeling, was exactly how I felt when you made my sex video public. The devastation you're currently feeling was how I felt when your grandmother robbed me of my dreams. It's a ‘bit’ extreme, isn't it,” he sneered.

I get it now what he meant earlier when he said. He would see if my stands remained the same.

So, this was my comeuppance? If I could laugh I would. While I agree that what I did was rash I know for a fact that I was the only one who was wronged in this relationship. How dare Colton act like he was a victim?

As I stared at the screen like a life-size statue, I couldn't decide what I was feeling; I guess if I were to describe it, I would say I was numb.

My brain was on a hiatus, and the only thing I was thinking of at that moment was my life, and my privacy as I knew it shattered all around me.

It was how I could have loved this man for over four years, had sex with him, slept beside him, and yet only now seeing him for who he truly was. A bitter self-serving asshole filled with hatred and envy for what others had and he didn't.

A loud chuckle makes my eyes focus back on the screen as people I don't know, strangers I've never talked to, strangers who know nothing about me, about my personal life discuss and talk about something that was supposed to be private.

Something they knew absolutely nothing about. They joke, judge, laugh, and chat about me. About Dane and Jax like they knew anything about any of us.

They criticized a moment that was very intimate, a moment where I was very vulnerable as though it was nothing.

They ruin the memory of that day for me. And it was a good memory. It was a moment I had accepted and embraced my needs as normal, even if I hadn't realized it back then until now.

There were more images of me, all pictures from the past, of me and Colton and our relationship. Of my family, my grams, my aunties and cousins, and the suicide of my mother.

So many pictures, most of which I didn't even know of. I didn't know when they were taken or by whom.

And that wasn't all; as Colton skipped from show to show, there were pictures of Dane and Jax too, of their past, their criminal records, the pictures of their victims, more and more.

At that moment that seemed to drag on forever as I sat there like a statue, eyes on a large screen; the only thing that was holding me together, the only thing that stopped me from shattering right then, was the fact that there wasn't a single image of me completely naked, yet.

I said yet because if I knew this new Colton, I knew this couldn't be all.

Though you could see that I was naked, they'd blurred all my private parts probably due to social media nudity policies.

To be honest, the pictures I've seen so far weren't as bad as the pictures he'd sent my family earlier today. But what makes this much worse is the fact that these were random strangers.

Despite all this, I was still numb, still waiting for the bomb to drop, waiting for my shock to give way to shame, anxiety, and fear.

The shame of strangers seeing intimate parts of me they have no business seeing and fear of criticism and condemnation.

“Someone took down the videos, Colton,” Benji said, startling me.

“How?” he yelled, his face contorted with rage.

He angrily stormed to where Vera and Benji were busy looking through her laptop; he grabbed at his shaved head and then yelled.

Whirling on the couple he raged on them, insulting them, calling them useless for letting the video get taken down. It was as though they were all afraid of him, as he slapped Vera around, calling her a stupid bitch.

She said something to him that instantly had him cackling, as though he was suffering from multiple personality disorder.

He kissed her cheek, which even I could see disgusted her, but she forced a smile on her face. Then, like he never left, he was suddenly back, breathing down my neck as he continued playing with my hair.

“It's a shame that a great video like that only stayed up on social media for an hour before it was taken down. I blame your family for that, Gigi; who else could have had the means to do that, hmm?”

I'm wondering the same thing. Though my family would do anything to get the video taken down, this was fast. But there's no way of knowing who did it.

“But I guess I'll just have to accept this one defeat, though I'll say it's not a total loss. Millions of people have already seen it.

“And there's more good news for you, or rather for me, but I'll share it with you,” he chuckled.

“Vera and Benny didn't just stop at social media. Guess what?” he whispered, kissing my cheeks.

“You're trending on the internet Gigi! Don't believe me? I will show you; I will just Google it,” he took out his phone, and after a few seconds of typing something, he shoved the screen in my face.

For a few seconds, I couldn't see a thing, only lewd sounds, and then I saw the writhing bodies. It was one of those porn websites.

I blink, shattering from the inside. The cold numbness crumbles as an overload of emotions crashes into me. My eyes focused on my face, then on Dane's and Jax’s, and my sight blurred.

Then, like a child who has won some great prizes and wanted to show off, Colton went around shoving this video in my friends and family's faces, laughing maniacally.

However, my family had the decency to shut their eyes and refuse to see it.

It didn't help in any way as all of a sudden, I couldn't breathe, my chest felt tight, and my mouth was dry as a desert. I couldn't breathe…I couldn't breathe.

I was hyperventilating. My sight was blurry as my chest rose and fell. I was dimly aware of voices calling my name, but I heard them; I couldn't breathe, couldn't see much.

There was more male laughter, but it was drowned out by so many voices screaming at me, telling me to breathe. There was a scream and scuffle; a gun fired up, heightening my anxiety.

“Benji, I told you he was fucking crazy. I didn't sign up for this shit, we're running out of time and all he cares about is getting his revenge. The cops will be here anytime soon. I don't want to go to jail, do you? We've already gotten the money, let's leave them here and go.”

“You fucking bitch. What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled.

“We're leaving, without you. I have had enough of your craziness and so have the others. This was supposed to be about money, not your vendetta. Benji? You, coming?” There were more arguments.

“Anna, take a deep breath. Breath, Gianna,” Bridget said softly.

Grams? I recognize her voice talking to me, reassuring me that I was okay, that everything is okay, that I should breathe. Her hands touch my face gently, stroking my back tenderly, and repeating the same thing.

“Breath Gianna, breath.” Finally, I did.

Inhaling like an asthma patient and exhaling once, twice, and a third time. Feeling my airways expand with every breath and the pressure lessen.

“You will get through this. You're stronger than this.” My eyes met the concerned eyes of Bridget, on her knees in front of me. I glanced at Chloe, who let out a sob, she was on her feet.

Not only her but also Aunt Layla is also free. They'd untied themselves. Aunt Layla was now cutting the ropes on Tessa quite as a mouse.

My eyes widened as I felt something slash through the ropes on my hands. There's a dagger in Grams hand with the hilt of a fox. I opened my mouth to ask where in the hell did she get a knife.

“Shhh,” she shushed me. I glance at where Colton and his men are. Vera and two other men are now pointing their guns at Colton and Benji.

Or, to be precise, on Colton, since she still expects Benji to join her—while Colton also points his gun at her, there's a body on the ground. It was Jimmy's. My stomach churned with nausea, but I forced it back.

“He's not letting us go, Anna. I could see it in his eyes,” Bridget whispered. I know she was right because I could see it too.

I hurriedly started helping Grams with the ropes around my feet despite feeling sick to my stomach.

“You fucking traitors. Without me, your plan would have failed; without me, we wouldn't have gotten this far and gotten the amount of money we do, and you dare to betray me?” I had just gotten free when suddenly there was a loud scuffle and curses then bang bang bang.

We all froze as we watched Vera and the other two men drop dead.

Aunt Layla, Chloe, and Tessa sat back on their chairs so fast that a chair screeched on the ground, which drew Colton's attention.