Chapter 85 Eliminating witnesses

Chapter 85 Eliminating witnesses
Kayla’s POV

The mansion was too quiet. The kind of silence that pressed against your eardrums and made your thoughts louder than they should ever be. I sat alone in the grand living room with only a bottle of expensive whiskey for company. The curtains were half open and the city lights outside flickered at me like they were mocking how miserable I felt inside.

My glass was already half empty. I poured more. The liquid rushed and hit the bottom with a soft sound as though it understood what I needed from it.

I raised the glass and drank. The alcohol burned down my throat, spreading a warm numbness through my chest. I welcomed it. I wanted more. I wanted enough to erase the memory of the commissioner’s voice, the investigator’s death, the hotel room he never walked out of, and the reality that the only lead I had was gone forever.

“This is insane” I whispered to myself as I leaned back.

My head felt heavy. My shoulders too. Everything in my life felt like it had doubled in weight overnight. I looked at the large mirror across from me and I almost laughed. I looked pathetic. My makeup was smudged. My hair was messy. My eyes were tired and swollen from crying earlier in the car after leaving Vivian’s workplace.

Vivian Ward.

Just thinking her name made my stomach twist with hatred and fear. She was behind everything. I knew it. I felt it deep in my bones. The private investigator who suddenly ended up dead in a hotel. All of them were strings, and Vivian was the one pulling each one until it snapped.

“If she is eliminating witnesses” I whispered shakily, “then who is next”

My heart thumped loudly. Louder than the silence. Louder than reason. I imagined Vivian’s eyes, cold and victorious, as she watched me fall next. What if she already planned it? What if all she was waiting for was the right moment to strike me?

I tilted my head back and drank again, swallowing the fear before it swallowed me. The alcohol was the only thing stopping my hands from trembling.

Another part of me felt angry. Furious even. I was the CEO of Brooks Atelier. I had survived betrayals, business wars, and losing a husband to another woman. Yet, here I was with a bottle in my hand, crying over a private investigator I barely knew personally but whose death hurt more than I expected.

It was not just his death. It was everything at once.

Ashton.

His name slipped into my consciousness and immediately everything felt worse. Just the thought of him suddenly showing up in that fashion center sent a cold pain through my chest. He said he was there to close a deal. He said it calmly. Too calmly. Like it was nothing. Like he did not see how much that scene killed me.

Was he mine in the first place? I had never claimed him. I had never accepted him. I had never even given him clarity about what we were.

Then there was Steven.

Sweet, stubborn, persistent Steven, who chased after me and protected me and made me feel something close to peace even when chaos was crawling up my spine.

I pressed the heel of my palm against my forehead as a wave of guilt washed over me.

“Maybe I am the villain,” I whispered.

Two men circled around me. Two hearts tugged into my orbit. And I did nothing but keep them waiting. I kept them confused. Ashton with his quiet intensity. Steven with his calm affection. Neither of them deserved this.

“So what are you Kayla?” I asked in the empty room. “The victim or the villain”

The whiskey offered no answer, so I drank again.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours. I was not sure anymore. Time felt liquid. The world felt blurry. All I knew was that I eventually made my way up the stairs. I did not remember how many steps there were. I only remembered feeling dizzy as the corridor lights swayed and shifted before my eyes.

I pushed open the glass doors to the rooftop pool area. The cold air hit me instantly. It smelled of water, night breeze and distant exhaust fumes from the busy streets far below.

The pool reflected the night sky. Dark and glossy like black marble. I walked slowly to the edge, my drink still in hand. From here, the ground looked impossibly far. Tiny headlights moved like ants on the roads below.

I stared at the drop. The concrete was so distant that it felt unreal.

“What would it feel like if I just jumped?” I asked myself.

Saying it aloud made it worse. Because suddenly I could imagine it. The rush of the fall. The silence mid-air. The final impact. The end of everything heavy. No more scandals. No more Vivian. No more Ashton and Steven. No more CEOs, deals, shareholders, betrayals, responsibilities, expectations. No more Kayla Brooks struggling between who she wanted to be and who everyone forced her to become.

“Would it be peaceful? Or would it hurt?” I murmured.

My knee wobbled and I stepped back quickly, my heart pounding hard enough to crack my ribs.

Then a memory slammed into me. My mother’s voice from years ago when I was still building Brooks Atelier from scratch. I had cried in her lap after my first investor pulled out and told her I was done. That I wanted to disappear.

She had hugged me and whispered into my hair, “Promise me you will never give up. No matter what. You are all I have and I am all you have. If you fall, I fall. So we do not fall in this house. Not ever.”

That memory anchored me. I let out a shaking breath and took three steps back from the edge.

“Not ever” I whispered to myself, echoing her words.

I wiped my face with my palm. The alcohol was making my vision tilt. My stomach swirled. I felt warm and cold at the same time. I sank onto one of the lounge chairs and rested my head back.

A maid opened the door timidly and stepped outside. “Miss Brooks, dinner is ready. Should I bring it upstairs”

“No,” I muttered without opening my eyes. “Leave me alone. I am not hungry”

“Yes ma’am” she said quietly and left.

The silence returned. The whiskey slipped from my hand at some point but I did not remember when. My phone vibrated across the lounge chair cushion. I fumbled for it and saw Steven’s name on the screen. His picture too. Him smiling widely.

For a second I thought of answering. Maybe he would say something stupid that would make me laugh. Maybe he would tell me to toughen up like he always did. 

But my eyes felt heavy. My limbs felt weak. Before I could swipe to answer, the phone slipped from my fingers. The vibrations faded. Everything faded. The night lights blurred into streaks and then nothing.

I woke up to the sound of someone opening blinds. The sunlight was too bright, stabbing into my eyes like needles. I groaned and covered my face with the blanket.

“Oh thank heavens you are awake” my mother’s voice snapped. “You almost gave me a heart attack last night”

I sat up slowly. My head felt like someone was drilling holes inside it. “What happened”

“What happened?” she repeated angrily. “I found you unconscious by the pool on the top floor. Do you know how terrified I was? I thought about so many things. I thought you hurt yourself. Do not ever do that to me again Kayla. Do you hear me?”

“I am sorry” I whispered.

“You should be.” she said and sat beside me, running her hand through my hair. “What is going on with you? You disappear to Los Angeles then come back heartbroken, smelling of whiskey and grief. Talk to me”

I leaned into her shoulder. I did not tell her everything. I did not talk about Vivian, or the private investigator, or the corruption, or Ashton, or Steven. 

I only said, “I just need your support. I am trying my best but things are hard right now. I feel alone sometimes. I just need you with me, Mom.”

She wrapped her arm around me. “You are not alone. You never will be. We are a team, remember? You and me against the world. We have survived worse than this and we will survive this too”

I nodded and sniffed. She poked my forehead lightly. “But if you die, I die. And I am not ready to die. So drink less and talk more. Do we have a deal?”

I laughed weakly. “Deal.”

We stayed like that for a while. Then she got up and opened the curtains wider. The sunlight filled the room. We made jokes, complained about my habits, laughed about how terrible I looked with a hangover. For a moment I forgot about Vivian, death and fear.

Then the landline phone in my room rang.

My mother answered. “Yes, Hello… oh alright. We will be down in a minute”

She hung up and looked at me. “The gatekeeper says Steven is here”