Chapter 24: Adelia Murray

While driving, Allan frowned, his fingers tapping against the leather steering wheel as if the rhythm could cover the silence that was suffocating him. His wife really had not called. Not even a single message. But the truth, he told himself, was simple—he had only lied about Lily when he left the hospital. He said he had to rush home to her, that she needed him. But that was a cover. Allan and Lily were already separated. Everyone whispered it, but no one dared confront him.

He was a womanizer. Everyone knew it. He didn’t care anymore. He didn’t love Lily—hadn’t loved her for years. His heart had long since detached, growing colder with every betrayal he had committed. Lily was simply another ghost haunting the house they once shared.

But what twisted his insides, what made his jaw tighten as he shifted lanes in the dark highway, was the face he had seen at the hospital earlier. Jessie. He hadn’t known she was working there now, but the way she had looked in the nurse’s uniform, hair tied neatly, professional smile plastered on her face—it was enough to stir an ache inside him he thought he had buried. Jessie was supposed to be in another city, another world. And yet, here she was, lingering close enough for old memories to crawl back like maggots from the grave.

A tear slid down Allan’s cheek before he could stop it. He cursed under his breath, angrily brushing it away, but the tear was real, and it burned. Not for Jessie, no. Not for Lily. But for Adelia Murray.

Adelia.

Her name was a knife. Even younger than him by decades, she had owned him. Every glance, every laugh, every careless way she teased him had carved itself into his veins. She had never really loved him—he knew that. To her, he was only the sugar daddy. The man with money, the man who could make doors open with a phone call, the man who could buy her perfume and jewelry just to see her eyes glitter. But Allan had loved her. Truly. Madly.

The kind of love that rots.

He gripped the wheel tighter, knuckles white, as the memory slammed into him like a head-on collision. The night he caught her. Adelia sprawled in another man’s arms, their breathless gasps echoing in the darkness of the hotel room. Her skin, which he thought was his, belonged to someone else. Her moans, which once melted into his ears, were a symphony played for another.

Madness wrapped around Allan’s face like a second skin. His lips twisted into a grimace, his eyes bloodshot as the road stretched endlessly before him. The sound of the tires on the asphalt was like a whisper, like voices clawing at his skull. He shook his head violently, trying to drive them away, but they only grew louder.

“She betrayed you,” a voice slithered inside his mind.

“She laughed at you,” another added, cold and cruel.

“She used you.”

Allan slammed the brakes too hard, his car screeching as the headlights cut into the empty street. He leaned forward, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his temple. For a moment, he thought he saw her—Adelia’s reflection staring back at him from the rearview mirror. Her lips curled into that mocking smile, the smile she gave that night when she realized he had seen everything.

“Stop it!” Allan roared into the darkness of the car, his voice cracking. His fists pounded against the steering wheel, the horn blaring like a scream in the dead of night.

But silence followed. Thick, suffocating silence.

He pressed his forehead against the wheel, breathing hard, until the faint buzz of his phone pulled him back. Hands trembling, he snatched it from the console. Unknown number. His thumb hesitated, but then he swiped to answer.

“Allan…” The voice on the other end was low, soft, almost sweet. It was Adelia’s voice.

His throat closed, his body frozen as though the cold fingers of death had grazed him.

“That’s not possible,” he whispered, more to himself than to the voice. “You… you’re gone. You left. You—”

The line crackled with static. Then came a laugh. A familiar, silvery laugh that sliced through him.

“You still miss me, don’t you?”

Allan’s breathing quickened, his eyes darting to the passenger seat, the back seat, the mirrors. His car felt smaller now, shrinking, crushing him.

“Where are you?” he demanded, his voice breaking. “What do you want from me?”

The laugh on the other end turned sharp, metallic, like glass shattering. “I want you to remember, Allan. I want you to remember what you did after you found me. What you buried. What you tried to erase.”

His blood ran cold. Images flashed like lightning—his hands, trembling but determined, gripping something heavy. Adelia’s scream cutting short. The weight of her body collapsing. The sound of dirt falling.

“No,” Allan muttered, shaking his head violently. “No, no, no—I didn’t—”

“You did,” the voice hissed now, darker, warped. “And I will never forgive you.”

The call ended with a sharp click, leaving him in suffocating silence once more. The phone slipped from his hand, clattering against the floor mat.

The road stretched before him, endless and black, but Allan couldn’t move. He was paralyzed, trapped in his own car, trapped in his own guilt. Sweat dripped down his back, soaking his shirt, while the memory of her voice lingered like poison in his ears.

Then—thud.

Something hit the back of his car. Not loud, not like an accident. More like a hand. A knock.

Allan’s heart nearly stopped. Slowly, he turned his head toward the rearview mirror.

There she was. Adelia. Sitting in the back seat. Her eyes glowed faintly in the shadows, her lips curling into that same mocking smile.

“Allan…” she whispered, voice crawling over his skin like insects. “You can’t drive away from me.”

Allan’s scream tore through the night, swallowed by the empty road.