Chapter 358 The Confession
ADRIANA
“What did you just say about Lucy? How can you say that she didn't care about me? You don't know anything about her so you can't say that!” Her voice was a shrill shriek that echoed off the stone walls of the court. I could have sworn that she was almost shifting with the way she was shouting at me, her body vibrating with a barely contained rage.
“You’re right. I may not have known Lucy,” I said, my voice dangerously calm, a stark contrast to her hysteria, “but I knew that she didn't care about you. Not in the way you wanted. Lucy had a husband that loved her dearly and she loved him too. She married him and they left you out of the picture, so how can you say she cared about you? Maybe she might have, before you killed her baby, but after that, you were nothing to her!”
She became quiet, just staring at me like she was just processing that piece of information in her head, her chest heaving.
“I didn’t want to kill that baby but I didn't have a choice. The baby was taking her away from me,” she whispered, her voice losing its fire, replaced by a chillingly sincere desperation. “She spent all her time singing and taking care of the baby. It was all she talked about! What about me?! I had to do something. I couldn't just let that thing come in and take us apart!”
Alisha was sick. I couldn't believe that anyone could think like that, that a human being could be so consumed by a possessive love that they saw an unborn child as a rival to be eliminated.
“That thing was a child!” Tim roared, his voice thick with agony. The guards had to physically restrain him from moving towards her, his muscular arms straining against their hold. “How can you stand there and talk about my baby like that? Why would you kill a child who didn't do anything to you?” He ended up wailing, a sound of pure, unadulterated grief, and falling to the floor. I felt so bad for him, so bad that it was painful to hear her speak about his child like that. So at least, I'd gotten her to admit that she had killed the baby. Now, onto the main course.
“So you say that you killed the kid. What about the mother? What will you say about her? I mean, if you're capable of killing her baby, why can't you kill her?” I pressed, my voice cold and clinical.
When she took a very deep breath, a shuddering, weary sigh, I knew that she was about to tell us the full story, so I went back to my seat. I could see Elijah looking at me, his expression a mixture of shock and something else I couldn't decipher, but I didn't bother looking at him. My focus was on her.
“It's everybody's fault except Lucy's. It's their fault for thinking they could love her more than me. It's that doctor's fault for getting her pregnant again. I mean, why couldn't they just leave her for me? Why couldn't they just let her be? I tried so hard to get them to be apart but Tim wouldn't just leave her alone. I met her first, the only reason you knew her was because of me, so why do you think that you can take her away from me? It's not fair on me. It's not.” She was crying now, but her tears didn't move me, and I hoped that no one else was buying into her self-pitying performance.
“As if marrying her wasn't enough, you got her pregnant!” Tim spat from the floor, his voice muffled by his tears.
“That’s what married people do, you witch!” he roared again, struggling against the guards.
“You can't do that to my Lucy!” Alisha screamed back, her tears forgotten, replaced by a fresh wave of fury. “I knew that taking too much ginger was bad for early pregnancy, and I knew that she wouldn't want to refuse me because of what I told her about my own baby. I told her that my kid was dead so she'd pity me. I gave it to her every day, every hour, until she lost the baby. I couldn't tell you how happy I was.” A small, sickening smile played on her lips. “But even still, they didn't get divorced. I had to do something. Anything. So I figured that if Lucy was strong, then Tim might not be. So I went to his house to see him, but he didn't fall for it. Instead, he chased me out and recorded everything that happened and played it to Lucy!”
That was exactly what Tim had told me. What had she been expecting? That he would accept her into his arms? She was his wife's best friend!
“When I saw that it was Lucy on the porch, I was so happy,” she continued, her voice taking on a dreamy, nostalgic quality. “I thought she had found the thong I had hidden in his drawer, and she had come to cry to me about it, but when I opened the door, she slapped me. She called me a bitch and said that I was trying to ruin her marriage. She asked me never to show up in front of her again and said that I should never speak to her. That hurt me so much. But she wouldn't understand my love for her. I didn't expect her to do so immediately, so I gave her some time. I gave her time to learn that I loved her and the only way she could repay me was to find another man. Not just another man, the man I was supposed to be married to! Why was she causing me so much pain when all I did was love her? It wasn't fair.”
The only person it wasn't fair to was Lucy and the people that she loved dearly.
“And the man you're referring to is Tobias?” I asked, steering her back on track.
“Yes. I couldn't believe that they had something. And I knew I had to do something. Tobias won't recognize me since I'd had surgery done, so I went to him to see if he would fall for me. My plan worked easily because by the next day, he was in my bed. But she didn't care. Even when Lucy saw us together at lunch, she didn't care. She just walked past like I didn't matter to her. That made me so angry, and then I found out that there was nothing going on between them. The only reason they were together was because they were looking for Tobias' ex-girlfriend, who was me. I was standing right in front of them, and they had no idea. Tobias used me and wasted my time. I couldn't believe that he had fallen in love with Lucy while looking for me. It was ridiculous. It was better that he didn't find me than for him to find me and insult me in this manner.”