Charlotte crossed her legs as Clarice took a sip of her drink. The waiter had already arrived a few minutes earlier and had taken their orders. Now, they were left alone. "So, Chloe give me the scoop." Charlotte gave her an enquiring look. "What scoop?" Clarice dropped her glass and gave Charlotte her full attention. "Don't play coy with me. Tell me everything that's going on between you and your hunk of a boyfriend. I'm sure you have a lot to tell." Charlotte wriggled a bit in her chair. What was she going to tell this woman? She would have to fabricate a whole love life to placate Clarice's hunger for gossip but what if the woman asked Alarick and he told her something entirely different? Charlotte sighed. She would have to use Alarick's advice for this. "Well, like Alarick said, we met at a business event. After that we had our first date. Alarick was a bit stuck up the first time in my opinion but I didn't blame him especially after all he'd been through. The date was okay b

Alarick crushed the plush leather seats beneath his palms as he fumed."What the hell did you just do? You had the audacity to try and run away even when I told you what would happen?""What did you expect me to do? Sit down and look pretty for people who would hate me if they knew I am not as rich as they are? Wait for a man who keeps insisting that I killed my own father and who has kept me in his house against my will for this long?"Alarick's eye twitched and the veins on his neck became more prominent as he clenched his jaw."So, you abandoned one of the most influential women in the city just so that you could go back out to continue your killing spree with Dylan? Is destroying people's lives more important than doing the right thing?" He yelled back.Charlotte stayed silent, at a loss for words because of what Alarick had said. After all her confessions on how she wasn't complicit in Dylan's crimes, after all she had done to show Alarick that she was innocent, after the damn ki

"Come in."Like before, one of Charlotte's guards walked into the room."Has she said anything? Anything at all?" Alarick asked.It had been a few hours since Henry Dumont left his house and the time he had given Charlotte to say the truth had elapsed."Yes sir, but she said that she would only speak to you." The guard replied.Alarick stopped pacing. Had her spirit broken? Was she really going to tell him what he needed to know? He turned to the guard in mild excitement. Finally, this cat and mouse game he had been playing with her would pay off."Let's go."The guard opened the door for Alarick to walk through before doing the same himself. Alarick walked through the halls anxious and curious about what he might hear from Charlotte. About how she came up with the plan to destroy his family. About where Dylan and the rest of them could possibly be hiding. The door was opened for Alarick again when they reached Charlotte's room and he went in. The room was bare. Nothing decorated the

The constant and soft beeping of the machine roused Alarick from his deep slumber. The strong smell of chlorine from the cleaning agents that had been used to sterilise the room filled his nostrils and he gagged. For some reason, his sense of smell was stronger than usual. He tried to sit up and groaned as a sharp pain mostly from his torso, reverberated through his whole body and disoriented him. He was having a pounding headache so Alarick raised his hands to touch his head to try and reduce the pain by massaging his forehead but something pulled his hand back. The bright light blurred his vision as he opened his eyes to see what was holding him back so he blinked and squinted to allow his vision to adjust.A moment after his sight had adjusted to the brightness, he could see what held him back. Tubes ran down his hands and fed into the beeping and blinking machine beside him. His body, naked under the blue light material of the hospital gown he had on. Alarick put his hand on his

Just like he wanted, Alarick was released from the hospital the next day. He flexed his arm a little as he came out of the hospital building feeling ready to tackle the day ahead of him. He breathed in as the wind blew his hair away from his face making him feel more free than he did a day ago. He really hated hospitals, it was better to recuperate in his own house. Two cars pulled up in front of Alarick and he got into one. One, his own car and the other a police car, both to take him to any destination he wanted. He had called his driver to come pick him up earlier and the extra police car was from Maurice for added protection just in case Dylan decided to move up his attack."Where to sir?" The driver asked."The station. Step on it."Alarick sat in silence clearing his mind as the cars took him from the hospital straight to the police station like he requested. Soon enough they arrived at the station without a hitch. Alarick got down from the car as it came to a stop and went into