I had to choose, and I have already chosen. There is no point in trying to learn how things are on the other side.
“Goodbye. I hope you come back to visit us soon. Have a safe flight,” I said while trying to look cheerful.
My brave front probably could have fooled anyone except for Lucien and Reiner. Lucien nodded his head at me before pulling me into a hug.
“Be happy and don’t let anyone bully you…” Lucien whispered into my ear.
It sounded like a joke, but I knew that he was dead serious about it. Lucien was always and will probably always be overprotective.
“Please take care…” I whispered in return.
After showing me one last smile, Lucien got into the car that would take him to the airport. I had no idea when I would get to see Lucien again. As if there was an understanding between us, we never agreed to keep in touch on a regular basis.
…
There was just a small break between our wedding and the honeymoon trip that we had planned. It didn’t take us long to agree on taking a private vacation together to one of King’s private islands. Reiner got King’s approval quite easily which came as a pleasant surprise to me. Despite King’s strict and overbearing attitude, I was sure that he was a very kind man at heart. He just needs to work on his way to openly show it.
Reiner used the time between our wedding and our trip to clear up some work so that everything would run smoothly in our absence. The honeymoon trip was planned to last roughly a week so that meant that we had to tie all loose ends before heading out. While Reiner was busy with work, I managed to find some private time to finally open that small box that Zak gave me as my wedding present.
I felt extremely guilty hiding in our bedroom while Reiner was away to open Zak’s present. It felt like I was hiding something from Reiner and that didn’t sit well with me. However, the fact was that I was indeed hiding something from him and no matter how many times that I kept telling myself that I would tell Reiner later, it didn’t make me feel any better about it.
Here goes…
I closed my eyes and tore open the gift wrapping of the small box. Inside was a plain black velvet box that didn’t look special or impressive. I had no idea what to expect when I opened the box but what I found inside was quite surprising and odd.
A USB drive and a short note.
The note read: ‘Call me when you are ready’ and it was followed by a number that I didn’t recognize.
Since the note was handwritten instead of typed out, I knew that Zak had written it because I remembered his handwriting very well.
What does he mean by ‘when you are ready’?
Does that have something to do with what is on the USB drive?
Before I could hesitate, I took out my laptop and turned it on. I stuck in the USB drive and waited impatiently for the data to load. There were a bunch of folders in the drive, and each was named by numbers indicating the year. I had no idea what these folders were or what they contained so I decided to randomly click on one folder to open it.
There were many documents in the folder and after clicking to open one, I furrowed my brows. The document seemed to be a summary report with photos attached. After a moment of skimming through the content, I quickly discovered to my utter shock that the file seemed to outline corruption and embezzlement cases. I gasped in shock as my hand flew to cover my mouth when my eyes landed on the name of the accused perpetrator: Madame Francesca.
Really?!
Frantically, I quickly opened the other files from the same folder and then even more files from other folders and scanned through them. The different documents outlined different cases, but the theme was all the same. All files pointed a finger to the crimes that Madame Francesca had allegedly committed and had somehow kept hidden under the rug for all these years. Some files went way back for more than ten years. A certain year caught my eye and with a resigned sigh, I clicked to the open the folder containing files from the year that my mother passed away.
It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for and probably what Zak wanted me to see the most among all these files. The document that documented the truth behind my mother’s death. I closed my eyes to steady and prepare myself for what I was about to see. My chest felt tight, and it felt like I was about to start crying. Just thinking about that devastating event was painful enough to bring me to tears. I pursed my lips together tightly before clicking to open that document.
The story told on the document was very aligned with what Reiner had told me before but with more written details. I felt something wet and warm flow down my cheek and realized that a tear had rolled down my cheek when my eyes landed at a series of photos from the scene of my mother’s car crash. Although it had happened more than ten years ago, this was the first time that I saw photos from the incident. Real and non-fabricated photos.
I had no idea who took the photos or for what purpose, but the photos seemed to bring me some closure on the incident. Just like Reiner had told me and shown me, the crash did happen on that bend in the road. I could tell from the photo that it was taken from the same place. Another tear rolled down my cheek and I no longer bothered to hold them in. I just cried as I thought of how scared and lonely my mother must have felt at that moment when she realized that she was going to die all alone. She must have felt scared of leaving me behind because I was so young.
–To be continued…