Chapter 117 ALICIA
LUCIEN’S POINT OF VIEW.
I pulled my hands into my pocket to hide the fact that they were trembling, and stood in front of the patriarch of the Everhart family with confidence, and said;
“Why do you judge me without even knowing me? What did I ever fucking do to you, Mr Everhart?” I asked, staring him in the eye. I could feel Sloane’s palm on my back as she tried to steady me, to calm me, and honestly, it was working, because I could feel the anger I’d come here with lessening.
“You.” He spat, his eyes filled with hatred, and something underlying in them. Something I think he’s trying to hide, but was unsuccessful at hiding from me. “Are the child of Eldric and Alicia, and while I loved your mother like she was my own sister, I am not sure you are not tainted with the evil and darkness that the bastard has.”
He stared at his wife for a moment, his eyes softening the second they darted to her, before he turned back to me, sporting that same harsh look. “I will not allow my daughter to suffer the same fate your mother did. Never again will it be repeated in my bloodline!” He yelled.
“I won’t treat Sloane like that,” I said, not because I wanted to convince him, but because it was the truth. I would rather have someone cut my fucking hand off before I did something like that to my girl. “I swear it on my mother’s grave, I’d sooner be damned than allow what my mother suffered at the hands of my father happen to Sloane. You can rest assured that Sloane will never have to face something like that, not while I’m fucking breathing.”
“Do you even know what happened to your mother?” He asked, something haunting and dark in his eyes at the mention of my mother. I stilled in my shoes, as my heart pounded in my ears at the thought.
I didn’t know what happened… but reading my mother’s diary for the past few weeks had been an eye-opener. Eldric was a fucking animal; one that I would fucking gut when the time was right.
“All I know is that she died of Cancer. I was young enough to understand what the blood on her pillow and her tissues meant, Mr Everhart.” I said, my voice low and menacing as I grit my teeth.
His wife turned to stare at her husband, with blue eyes that sparked with something devastating, and next thing I knew, she started sobbing… like full-on sobbing.
“Mom?” Sloane said, her tone confused as she walked over to her mother with a worried gaze. She wraps her hands around her and stares at me with a shocked expression. I shrugged my shoulders, mirroring her confusion as I stared at the trembling woman.
“It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s alright, " her husband whispered in her ears softly, his hands caressing her back gently, as he kissed her forehead.
“I think he should know.” She whispered gently, but I caught it.
“Are you sure?” Her husband asked, his eyes shocked as he pulled all of his focus on his wife. My eyebrows pulled in a frown as I moved closer to where they all sat. “Tell me what?”
I asked, my voice loud enough to command their attention. They all turned to me instantly, but for the first time in my life, I wasn’t staring at Sloane.
No.
My attention was on her mother.
The woman with blonde hair, so striking to my girlfriend, stared at me with sorrow in her eyes, as she stood on shaky legs. “There’s something I think your mother would have wanted you to know. I’ve known this for a long time, but I swore to never tell anyone, not even you.” She paused, her eyes shiny with the tears that streamed down her cheeks, before she wiped them away gently, and continued speaking: “Your mother….she might not have died under normal circumstances.”
“What?” That was the only thing I could manage to say. The sound of my own heart pounding, as well as the ringing in my ears, was all I could hear, as my vision blurred. It felt like my ears had suddenly filled with blood as I pushed the nausea down.
What the fuck does she mean by that?
“A few years after she died, I was, for some reason, unsettled. All I could see was her, all I could think about was her. It felt like she’d been calling me to avenge her death…that she didn’t choose to go so soon. So I hired a private investigator to look into the events surrounding her death.”
“So, what did he find?” I couldn’t wait…she was speaking too slowly. My breathing turned frantic as the room spun around me.
“He was able to catch a nurse who was on her way out of the country after she resigned from the hospital, not even a week after your mother was pronounced dead. And she said that the doctor on your mother’s case was Eldrc’s best friend and confidante.
He was never dedicated or devoted to your mother’s care, Lucien. So I had him investigate further, and he found your mother’s lab reports after bribing someone.”
“I know what the lab reports stated, that she had blood cancer and pneumonia.” I interrupted, but she shook her head, her lips trembling as she tried to hold herself back.
“No.” She sobbed out loud. “The original report, not the fake Eldric had them make, stated that your mother only had a simple cold….there was never any trace of the blood virus in her body.”
“No.” I shook my head as the bile from earlier came back up, but I didn’t pay attention to it. All I could see was my mother running in the sunflower garden she had created, her veil draping her head as she picked her dress with a wide laugh.
The wind would tousle against her skin, placing her in the perfect shade of sunlight that always made her glow…there was no fucking way….no!
“I wish I were lying, Lucien. But I’m not.” She said and sobbed even harder. “I’m so sorry.”
No.
It can’t be.
It fucking can’t!
“So I had him investigate further, and apparently, the doctor received two different payments over the course of a year while your mother was sick. The first was when the lab test was made, and the second… the second was after she died.
The sum of five million dollars both times.”
No
“Where’s the doctor now?” Sloane asked, but all I could hear was the ringing in my ears, as the image of my mother running in the sunflower fields, and that of her coughing up blood in bed interlapped in my vision till the image slowed with a haunting sound.
“He was killed in a hit-and-run exactly a year after Alicia’s funeral.”