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“Co
“He threatened me,” he spoke in an eerie voice as if he was talking to himself. “He wanted to blackmail me with a big scandal the company covered up a few years ago.” There was a crazed calm on his face that scared me. “He wanted half of my company…” He shook his head violently as he paced the room again. “No, I couldn’t let him do that. He wasn’t going to take my company away from me. I wouldn’t let him.”
Fear paralyzed me as I met Co
“Liv, baby.” He grabbed my hand. “You understand that I had do to this, right? You love the company almost as much as I do. I see how hard you work. Of all people, you should understand that I had to do this. For the good of the company. There was no other choice.”
“Understand?” I stared at him in bewilderment, shocked that he’d think my reaction would be any different than what I was feeling inside.
“Yes, you understand that I had no choice in the matter?”
Before I could stop myself, I glanced at the motionless body a few yards away. “No choice,” I echoed flatly, as if the words were meaningless sounds to me. Then I turned back to him, my eyes grew wide with disbelief. “No choice?” My voice escalated in volume. “Of course you had a choice, Co
“Baby, come on.”
“Don’t baby me!” I screamed at him and yanked my hand from his grip. I backed away from him, my head shook back and forth in denial. “Who are you?” I whispered, my eyes full of tears. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Then I looked down at my hands and a gasp escaped my lips when I saw that they were covered in the dead man’s blood. It was then that I flung open the door and ran as fast as I could away from that room, and away from Co
A wave of vertigo struck me when the flashback ended and I was back in the reading room with Co
“What did you remember?” Co
I willed myself to focus, to breath, to do anything but panic. Finally I was able to get up from the ground.
Some instinct took over and I knew that I couldn’t tell him I remembered what had happened that night. I knew I had to get out of here. “It was just a memory from my childhood. I was on a roller coaster and I was scared and felt queasy.”
Co
I shook my head. “Remember what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Liv. Even if you think you’re different from before, I know you well enough to know your tells. You have a bad poker face. I know you’re lying to me.”
I took a step back from him. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Co
“So does it now make sense why I got you the tracking pendant? You asked me earlier why I’d go through all that trouble if we were in love, if I trusted you.” He snickered. “Now that you remember that night, you must now understand why I needed to keep a special eye on you.”
The world seemed to turn upside down as everything started to make sense. Co
“Why didn’t you kill me when I was in the coma? If I was the only one that knew what happened in that room, why did you let me live?”
For a brief second, Co
“How can you say that?” I looked at Co
“Because that’s the reality.” There was a matter-of-fact tone to his voice, as if he had just said something mundane like “because strawberries are sweet.”
“Okay, maybe you’re right.” I took another step back toward the reading room door. I wasn’t sure what he was about to do, but something inside told me that I had to try to get out of here. “It was a difficult situation you were put in. That guy wasn’t a nice guy. He was blackmailing you. So you’re right, he needed to be punished.”
“Do you really play for me a fool, Liv? Do you really think I’ll let you go now? I know the minute I let you leave here, you’re going to go straight to the cops.”
“No,” I shook my head, “I won’t say a thing. I swear.”
I let out a scream as he suddenly grabbed both of my arms and pushed me violently up against the wall next to the door. “You really do have a bad poker face.” Then he grabbed my neck with his hands and they tightened their grip against my windpipe. I desperately gasped for air, and within seconds, everything began to fade into black.
Then, before I lost all consciousness, I saw Ethan barge through the door to the reading room. Caught by surprise, Co
“Don’t you dare touch her, Co
CHAPTER E LEVEN
I coughed forcefully as oxygen rushed into my lungs. I looked up and saw Co
“Well isn’t this just fucking perfect. Ethan to the rescue,” Co
“Co
Co
“You don’t have to do this, Co
“Do you really think you’d have a chance with her? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?” Co
My breath caught when I heard Co
“What are you talking about?” I asked hesitantly.
Suddenly Co
“Ethan?” I stared at Ethan, desperate for him to say something, to defend himself and deny what Co