Chapter 37 Embrace it...
Dahlia.
" The first life I took, the blood was shed using your mother's gun, Dahlia. " Her voice shook as she stated, and those words, they were like a bucket of iced water, poured all over my body, on a winter night.
I stood frozen in place, unmoving, not even blinking. Deep silence stretched heavily around us, and I couldn't even feel the ocean waves.
I wasn't just shocked. It felt more like I had been locked somewhere, in a deep and suffocating space.
'You think I am innocent? That my hands are untainted? Then you don't know me well enough, Dahlia..' Her earlier words burned through my memories, and I clenched my fingers, feeling like air had been punched out of my lungs.
That particular phrase broke me, not the confession itself, but the pain she had said it with. That was....stifling, and as I processed it, a self-mocking smile tacked at the corners of my lips.
Of course, I didn't know her well enough, and yet, I had bragged to. In a sea of people, my own Mom included, I had singled her out, calling her pure, urging her to take me out of here, because in my heart, she was still the same Freya that I thought I knew.
That little girl that I grew up with, went to the same school as me, did almost the same majors as me,
That Freya, who couldn't hurt a fly. The girl that, even in my former docility, I had defended against bullies.
The girl who had been like my shadow for most of my childhood. To hear that she had blood in her hands, and that too, she had used my mother's gun to take her first kill...I wasn't just shocked out of my own skin, the news nearly short-circuited my brain.
" You are not saying this to make me feel better, are you?" After a moment of thinking, I finally asked, and the question sounded dumb after it came out of my mouth.
Even if I didn't believe her words, her cold aura should have said everything, right? because the current Freya looked nothing like the one I knew. At that moment, it was tough to say, she looked like one of those stony-faced mafia guards.
"Do I still have to answer that?" She asked, smiling, a smile that didn't even reach her eyes. And no, she didn't have to. The answer was plain obvious.
" You are shocked, aren't you?" She asked, looking at the distance, and I allowed the silence to sit between us. Shocked was putting it lightly, after all, and she knew it.
" So, do you hate my mother for introducing you to that world?" I finally asked, my voice too low, as if I was scared of the words myself.
At first, she said nothing. It was just a deep and throaty chuckle, one that I couldn't accurately place. Whether it was sad, cold, joyful, or a mix of all three, I didn't know.
" She saved me, Dahlia. " After being silent for a long time, she finally spoke.
" You don't hate people who give you options. You hold them dear, because the world doesn't give a fck!" She cursed, and I just sat, listening.
" Back then, I was also in a similar situation to yours."
"I was placed in a situation where I had to choose between my life and theirs. I chose mine." She declared proudly.
" You remember my late Dad, right?" She asked, and I gave her a nod. Of course I did. Her full name was Freya Smith, the only daughter of a once-raising family in Goldville..
Her family wasn't filthy rich, especially, not by Silverdale or Capital standards, but back in Goldville, they had a name.
If I wasn't wrong, her Dad passed on on Freya's eighteenth birthday. It was about six years from then. He was involved in a fatal car accident. Those were the darkest days of her life.
Luckily, even with my obsession with Jason, I had taken time to walk through the grief with her.
"Do you remember my first boyfriend?" She asked, and again, another nod.
I knew him. They had met a year after her father's death. She was nineteen years old then.. His name was Kane? He was her first, and she was madly in love. Sadly, two years later, in their relationship, while they were arranging their wedding, he was also involved in a serious car accident. How tragic. I had been there for her, during that grief window, too.
"My father's death wasn't an accident. It was a scheme, a plot by one of his business competitors. " Raw anger simmered on the surface of her eyes as she revealed.
" He had won the bid, a deal that could have changed his life, our lives.. The business rival couldn't take the loss. Some bitter loser he was." She paused, taking a drag of her cigarette, and yeah, I was shocked to the very core when I saw it resting in between her slender fingers. I hadn't even known she smoked.
" He was on the way to signing the deal when the car accident happened. He lost his life, a daughter lost her father, and a wife lost her husband. "
"And you know what? The world didn't freeze. It didn't stop at our grief. And sad, the deal went to that monster." She added, bitterness rolling with her tongue.
" As for Kane? His death wasn't an accident. I killed him. I killed the man I loved, my first boyfriend was my first kill, Dahlia. " She whispered, and I abruptly stood up, feeling betrayed, used, emotionally, especially.
I had grieved with her..I had been there with her through it all. To learn that she was the one who killed him?
"I had no option, Dahlia. I had wanted to come clean with you, but I didn't know how. I think life was better when you went on seeing me as that innocent Freya you knew.."
" My mother still thinks I am innocent, too." She confessed, sounding defeated.
" Why did you kill him?" I asked, after a moment of trying to process all the information.
" His father killed mine. He was that business competitors' son. " She divulged, wearing a self-mocking smile.
" From the very beginning, it wasn't love. He had come to me, fishing for business information from our company."
" Apparently, killing my father wasn't enough. They wanted our company too."
" Your mother, she had bad blood with them. She happened to come across the evidence while investigating them. She then shared it with her daughter's best friend ...me."
" Back then, I was still naive. I had confronted him, wanting to fish a confession from him."
"He took out his gun. And he casually aimed it at my forehead. "
" It was at that moment that your mother showed up.. "
" She handed a gun to me. But I didn't see a gun. I saw an option, a chance to rewrite everything..."
" He had already pulled his trigger, but I killed him before he could kill me, " As she finished, I let out a shaky breath, shock and disbelief framing my face.
" You try to live cleanly, and shit will still find you, like my father."
" You will never be truly safe until you take control."
" Your family is a gem. Instead of running, you should embrace your bloodline. " She added, and at some point, her voice sounded like a distant chatter.
She was right, though.
" This moment that you are hating, your first bloodshed, that is your reckoning." She went on and on, and I was stuck at one simple phrase, ' Embrace it.'
" So, are you still returning your newlywed husband's ring?" She teased, her light voice snapping me out of my daze.
" I guess no?" I whispered, a look of determination glazing my eyes..
" You are right, Freya. I should embrace this, for me, for my loved ones, and for..." I paused, a deep chuckle, cold, rumbling past my lips.
" And for my revenge. " I added, my gaze strained to the ocean, the waves...Once again, life was moving, phasing...
And before me, the waves crashed, louder, harder, or maybe, it was just my heartbeat.
" So, can I have a moment with Mrs Riggs?" Just then, a voice called from behind, and when I turned, I saw Dalton, smiling, holding a pair of sandals in one hand.
" We still have to go for our honeymoon..."