Selena walked into the house, tossing her handbag on the sofa in the sitting room as she swirled her head around. “Hey,” she said, calling on the attention of one of the maids that was passing by. “Is my grandmother home?” The maid nodded, avoiding eye contact with her. “She’s upstairs in her room.”“What about my grandad?” She shook her head in response. “He's not around, I think he left earlier.”She exhaled before making her way up the grand staircase. When she entered the room, Vanessa was in front of her mirror, touching up on some makeup.A crease formed between her brows. “What’s with the makeup? Where are you going?” She asked with a small smile on her face. It wasn't strange to see Vanessa beat her face with a lot of makeup, she was always wanting to be hyper fixated on how she looked. “Oh darling, must there be an occasion for me to look good? But if you must know, I'm going out to see some friends.”Selena folded her arms and then let out a small breath. “Well, you told
Lola clutched her purse as she strolled down the street towards her apartment, her bag of groceries in her other hand. Her expression was vacant. Even though she hated to admit it, a part of her still missed Matthew. It hadn't been up to three full days since she last saw him, but it was already beginning to feel like ages. She came to a stop in front of her door and was about to open it when she saw a bouquet of flowers obstructing her way. “Oh my,” she muttered, gently sitting down the things she was holding. She squatted and grabbed the flowers, pulling it closer and taking a sniff. They smelled so nice you could practically feel the sense tickling her senses, her ground and satisfaction as she loosened her shoulders. The mere thought that it could be Matthew sending these flowers snapped her out of her reverie, she searched the bouquet until she found where the card was placed. There was a cute drawing on the card and it looked like it was handwritten, alongside a signature
Matthew cracked his eyes open, he was in a strange room with a high ceiling. He was seemingly alone in the room and was tied to a chair. When he attempted to get up, he was instantly restrained and pulled back due to the tightly knotted ropes that bound his wrists and ankles. His mouth was gagged, so even when he tried to let out a cry, it came out as a muffled sound. He was relentless however, he kept struggling and trying to free himself screaming as loud as his inner voice could let him. He broke a sweat out of exertion as he struggled to release himself from the bondage. The metallic chair he was placed upon began to screech as it scratched against the floor with each movement he made. He relentlessly kept trying until the chair lost its balance standing on only one leg before it fell to the ground with a harsh thud. The air in his lungs were instantly knocked out as pain resonated around his diaphragm. His temples also collided with the hard ground, making him grunt. While
Xander arrived at Lola's apartment and he parked his car right in front of her place. He got down from his car and made his way to her apartment, knocking on her door.Inside, Lola was still trying to get ready. Her roommate Karen quickly rushed into the room holding two purses. “So which one do you want to go with the black purse or the red purse?”Lola quickly looks down on the dress she was wearing and then at the purses that her friend was holding. “Just give me the red.” She snatched it from Karen's hands and then rushed to the door and opened it. “Hey Xander,” she said almost breathlessly, she had been hurrying to prepare from fear of being late. He raked his eyes over her as though she was a specimen, from head to toe and a smile formed on his lips. “You look amazing.”Her cheeks were flustered as she chuckled, accepting his compliment. “Thank you, you don't look too bad yourself.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small rose, handing it over to her. “For yo
Raymond parked his car in front of the abandoned warehouse, grabbed the gun and made his way in. As he walked towards the main building, one of his goons greeted him. “Sir, you finally made it.”He couldn't care less about pleasantries, and so he went straight to the point. “Where is Sinclair?”“He's inside.” “Matthew?”“He's also inside sir.” “Great.” Raymond marched into the building and headed to the room where Sinclair was looking. Similar to Matthew's condition, Sinclair was tied up to a pole and left in a large dusty dimly lit room.He raised his head to see Raymond walking into the room. “Why did you have your men apprehend me and bundle me here like a criminal?”“Aren't you a criminal?”His eyes grew wide. “If I'm a criminal what does that make you?”Raymond shrugged, “I always knew I was rotten, it's not new news to me. I may be so many things but I'm not a hypocrite, I know what I am.”Sinclair was breathing heavily as he stared down at Raymond. “So what do you want with
“Ma’am, I'm going to need you to calm down,” the chief of police said, his hands stuck into his pocket. Amelia sharply raised her head, her eyes locking with his. “You can't expect me to come down when I don't know where my grandson is, it's been more than 24 hours. Can you send a search party already?”“Yes Mrs Houston my team is currently on it. In the meantime do you have any idea what could have possibly been wrong, any leads might help us to find him faster.”She stopped pacing around for a moment. “The only person I can think of is that witch Vanessa, she probably had something to do with the abduction of my son.”He raised an eyebrow, “why would this person want your son gone or kidnapped?”She resumed her frantic pacing. “The very day that they came back to the city, my son was attacked and almost abducted, and yesterday she came over here blaming me for some loss she made in her business or whatever, what if she attempted to kidnap my son again and was successful this time?”
In the hospital, Amelia moved at the same pace with the paramedics despite her bad knee, she was more concerned about the well-being of her grandson than anything else. They push them on a stretcher towards the emergency room at which point a nurse stood between her and the entrance. “I'm sorry ma'am but you can't go through this point,” the nurse stated in a firm voice.Amelia didn't argue, she just stood there on her toes, stretching her neck to see her grandson. “Please make sure that he's alright.”“We will do our very best.” The nurse turned around and entered the ER, shutting the door behind her. It didn't take too long before the sound of approaching footsteps met Amelia's ears and when she turned around it was her butler Charles. “I came as soon as you texted me, is it true?” He asked in his usual thick polished accent.“Yes, he was involved in an accident. We found his car by the river, crashed.”Charles gasped, covering his mouth with his palms. A part of him felt guilty
The room went dead silent after he spoke and he was oblivious to the fact that he had just made things awkward, in fact he was smiling widely at Lola. Xander clenched his fists by his sides, his jaw tightening as he stood there with the front. Amelia looked between the both of them and then smiled. “Oh, what a pleasure to finally meet you,” she spoke. “The pleasure is mine ma’am.”Amelia paused for a second. “I could have sworn I've seen you somewhere before…” she snapped her fingers repeatedly. “Yes at the office, the executive department. I may be old but my memory isn't feeling good yet.”“Yes I used to work there.”“Used to?” Amelia shot back. Now Matthew tried to straighten up on the bed. “I don't understand, you worked at Houston corps?”Lola blinked a few times, she wasn't sure if Matthew was being serious or he was just pulling her leg.“Yes, you hired me as your secretary.”He looked as lost as a puppy. “I- I can't remember.”Amelia cleared her throat, taking it upon hers
The history behind the Winchesters and the Houstons was a rather complicated one. Back then, Edward Winchester and Henry Houston used to be really close friends. And so was Vanessa and Amelia before they got married to their husbands. Amelia came from the Briggs family while Vanessa came from the Carter family.Edward and Amelia were the first ones to fall in love with each other, they spent so much time together and had even gone to the same college. The four were a tight knitted friend group, almost inseparable. However Edward had to move abroad because of work, but he couldn't take Amelia with him.In order to fulfill their dreams of starting a family and pulling themselves out of an ordinary life, Edward took the opportunity to go abroad and work in the sea as a marine engineer while Amelia was to stay back and wait for him.Unfortunately during his absence, Henry and Amelia had begun to grow close. At the time Vanessa was in love with Henry so this turned her bitter.Vanessa ha
Amelia was in the back seat lost in thought as the car drove towards the conference center. She was thinking about the kind of speech she would deliver.Speculations were already flying left right and center, there were a lot of affected families and some people might even started to spoil the Houston name.When the car arrived at the venue, the driver got down to open the door for her. A small crowd had begun to gather and the moment they saw Amelia Houston getting down from her car they all rushed towards her, Mics and cameras pointed in her direction.The bombarded her with questions but she ignored and simply just walked in. Amelia was only going to give her press conference once and once alone. They welcomed her, parting the way as she mounted the stage. She scanned the room with her eyes, her gaze confident.“Today is a dark Day, not just for the company but even for my family. Because of this senseless act of violence lives have been lost. To the families of the victim, know t
By now it was all over the news and images of the burning and collapsed Houston office building were all over the internet and media outlets. Lola was facing back and forth in front of the TV. “Okay you need to stop moving around you're making me dizzy,” Karen complained.“This kind of thing doesn't just randomly happen, an explosion that brought down the whole building? They said they are still yet to confirm how many people have died. Karen I used to work there,” she whispered softly. “The police have started an investigation and I'm sure we will soon know what exactly happened.”Lola shook her head. “You don't need an investigator to tell you the truth in this situation. I mean we saw in those videos how each floor seems to be going off. I think whoever planted the bombs put it on several floors.”She whipped out her phone from her purse and failed Xander's number. “Hello, Xander, any news so far?” “Nothing yet. Matthew is still unconscious but the doctor says he's getting bette
Lola's eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her palms in shock. “He was caught in the explosion? How is he? Is he okay?” “I don't know but I think I have to go to the hospital.”Xander quickly grabbed his car keys and was about to back away when Lola spoke. “I should come with you.”He grew worried, remembering the last time that they had gone to the hospital together. “I think you should just stay here for now, grandma probably still thinks that you are Matthew's girlfriend and I don't want things to become awkward.”She nodded, understanding where he was coming from. “Just keep me updated when you get to the hospital okay?” “Of course.” He planted a soft kiss on her forehead before leaving. He rushed into his car and got in driving straight to the hospital. As he moved down the road he turned on the radio. The presenter was already talking about the bombing of the Houston company building. Several speculations were flying about, there were some arguments that there was an
Amelia covered her mouth with her palms as her eyes grew wide. An enormous amount of dust rose, enveloping the area.For a moment it was impossible to see anything, and people began to back away slowly. As the dust was beginning to settle, it became clear that the building had crumbled. Yet there was no sign of Matthew. She grew nauseous, her legs buckling and threatening to give away under her weight. Charles was quickly behind her and he supported her as she fell backwards, resting against his body. Tears quickly filled her eyes. “Matthew!” She screamed at the top of her voice. She had never let out a hoarse scream like this before and even Charles did not know how to react. If this woman were to suffer another loss of a loved one, he was not sure to what extent it would damage her. One of the reasons she had dedicated her whole life to finding Matthew was because there was no evidence that he was dead. She made sure that until her last breath, she would not stop looking for h
The scene outside of the Houston office building was simply just chaos. People were running about in the street screaming for help.From a distance the sound of sirens could be heard which meant that the firefighters were on their way. Most of the staff that had managed to escape from the building gathered outside, waiting for more to troop out. As soon as Elena was spotted coming out of the building, a group of men rushed forward to receive her. She leaned on them, her lungs already filled with smoke.She kept looking back expecting Matthew to come out of the building anytime soon. By now the flames had grown much stronger and could even be seen from outside as the smoke rose to the heavens.Amelia's SUV pulled up just by the corner and she didn't waste time before getting down from the car. Her eyes surfed the crowd until they landed on Elena.“My goodness! My company!” Amelia screamed loudly, drawing attention to her.Elena dragged her feet towards Amelia. “Matthew–” she pointed
There was chaos all over the executive floor as people began to hurriedly get up from their seats. Elena rushed out of her office, leaning by the door frame for support as the floor was still vibrating. “What the hell just happened?!” Before Matthew could even have the time to think, another explosion set off, knocking everybody to the ground. “There is a bomb in the building!” A masculine voice screamed. At this point it was everyone for themselves. People try to scamper to their feet and rush down the stairs. The room seemed like it had tilted and they were already cracked on the wall. Some of the ceiling lights had popped out from their fittings and were dangling loosely. Matthew rushed over to assist Elena, just as they were trying to make their way towards the stairs another explosion rocked the building, throwing them to the floor. The explosions didn't stop, in fact it seemed like they kept coming in waves. A final huge blow sounded, making segments of the wall break. M
Earlier in the day When Matthew woke up in the morning he began his usual routine freshening up in the bathroom and brushing before coming out. Sandra was already in the sitting room, arms wrapped around her doll. He didn't know what to say to the girl as it was obvious that she was too angry with her father. “Where is Henry?” He asked, buttoning up his shirt. She slowly looked up at him. “He's in the room.” “I'm going to work but I'm going to put somebody in charge of watching you guys, I'll be back pretty soon and then we can discuss removing you people to a safe house.”She simply nodded and didn't say anything in response. Matthew made his way to the kitchen area and brought out a box of cereals so he could have something to eat before getting to work. “If you're hungry you're allowed to take something from the fridge, take whatever you want. You can also order food from reception and I will handle the bills when I come back.”“Thank you.” He made sure to eat in a hurry as
Present day Now with all made sense to Matthew, everything that he had experienced growing up was beginning to add up. Sabrina was by the corner listening to her father as he retold the events. She looked angry but mostly disappointed. Her father was deeply involved with trafficking children. “So what about those other kids that you didn't rescue?” Sabrina asked in a soft voice. Henry cast his gaze on the floor because he couldn't bear to look her in the eyes. “I don't know what happened to them, I have no idea what fate befell them.”She shook her head slowly, this was not the father that she knew and loved nor was he the man that she grew up with. The thing was that after Henry gave up his life of crime, he used the remaining 3 million to establish himself and start a family. Unfortunately, Sabrina's mother passed away during childbirth and since then he had been single raising Sabrina on his own. “I can't believe you did that,” she whispered and then ran off to the guest room