The young lady’s facade broke at the mention of her sister’s name.
“What?” She tried to recover her facial expression. “Who are you talking about? I don’t know what you are talking about.”
It was clear that she still tried to cover for her sister despite her situation. Sheila was wrong, the lady before her would do anything to protect her. She knew that bit from the little interaction she had with her.
June drew closer and whispered. “I am here to help. Sheila told me everything and she wanted to set you free.”
Sharon had not heard from her sister in a long time and couldn’t believe it. There was no way her twin sister was in contact with anyone from the Rivera family. They ruined their lives.
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Miss.” She was steadfast in her words.
The last thing she needed was to give away their plan to the enemy, or worse, get her sister into prison for her crimes. Sharon believed that Sheila would always have a better chance of getting out of prison without implication than she would if she was in the outside world.
Sheila was a hustler. She had a fierce spirit and there was nothing she couldn’t do if she set her mind to it. Meanwhile, she was very timid and reserved. Although she was sure that her timid and reserved self had been beaten to a stupor by the life of a prisoner she now led.
June stared at the young lady with admiration. She was willing to take the fall for her sister. And even now, she was loyal to her sister. June wondered if it was the connection between twins or the bond of sisters.
She wondered how different her life would be if she had a sister like Sharon. Perhaps her life would be more peaceful and joyful if April had been more a sister and less an adversary. Nevertheless, she couldn’t weep over spilt milk.
June whipped out her phone and pulled up the picture of the handwritten letter Sheila left behind. One glance at it and Sharon was a wheezing mess. “Is she okay? is my sister okay? Did she die?” By now, she was full-on crying.
“Sheila is in the hospital,” June said, feeling her heart break. “Unfortunately, she met with an accident that sent her to a coma. She is currently on life support.”
“What did the doctors say? Will she recover? How long has it been?”
There was no good way to break bad news. June had hoped she could skim over the details and spare Sharon the pain but there was no avoiding it now. “The doctors said that she might never wake up.”
Sharon’s eyes glistened and she nodded, trying to withhold her tears. June carried on with the pain in her heart. “Her brain was affected. She is in a vegetative state for the time being. I’m sorry you have to hear this.”
Sharon let the tears slip down her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. Her sister had gone through an accident. Her sister was gone. She was alone in this world. Her only hope of coming out of the prison was lying in a vegetative state.
Why was the world so cruel to her?
June could hear the gears of her mind turning. “I need you to calm down. Sheila had one wish and that was to see you out of prison. I plan to make it come true but I need you to be on the same page with me.”
“How?” Sharon was irreparably broken. “I confessed to a crime I didn’t commit. April made me do it. She threatened to have my sister killed if I didn’t. I couldn’t let that happen. She was all I had in this world. But now…”
“I promise to right these wrongs.” June was more determined than ever, “Please, trust me and let’s work together.”
Sharon had hit rock bottom. There was nothing she could do on her own. She had been sentenced for the crime and there was no hope of getting out. Her shoulders sagged and her eyes shrunk. It looked like she had aged a thousand years in seconds.
June patiently waited for her decision. After what felt like a thousand years, Sharon looked up to her with a sigh. “What do I have to do?”
On the other side of things, April was on the run. Dressed as a man, she was able to evade the police but she was running out of options. In a bid to survive, she lived on the road, retorting to stealing and pickpocketing to survive.
One of the days, she stole from a gang leader which resulted in getting her beaten up and raped by the members when they realised she was a woman. The days were cruel and April was losing her mind trying to find the money she stashed.
When she escaped from the estate, she took advantage of the chaos and visited the storage facilities where she kept her money received from Mrs Beatrice. She regretted trusting Clarence with the location of her funds when she found that the money had been moved.
Unknown to her, Clarence had anticipated her escape and decided to launder the money to keep her under leash. For the first time in a long while, April felt like she had hit rock bottom.
The police were hot on her trail and she had no money to take care of herself or leave the country as she originally planned – gone was the fair and beautiful young lady who once ruled the Rivera and Lontoc companies. It felt like life had finally caught up to her.
April was a fighter to the end. She refused to accept defeat and continued scouring the rural streets of South City, taking up menial jobs, hiding and trying to survive until she found a better game plan.
It seemed like her smart brain had shut down – no ideas seemed to come to her. One of the days, after a long day working in a farm owned by a poor farmer, she earned a few cents and hoped to buy a meal for dinner before she called it a day.
She strolled towards a petty shop with her head bowed, happy to get something into her growling stomach. However, her hopes were dashed when some men approached her in the middle of nowhere, took away her money and pushed her to the ground.
April scratched herself from the wound and pain tore through her ankle. So much so, that she could hardly walk. April limped to an uncompleted building with an empty stomach and sore bones. She was so angry, that she wanted to fall into a ditch and die.
While contemplating ending it all, an idea fluttered into her mind. Why did she suffer in the woods when she had a good house?
April thought about the Rivera home which was deserted since Colton took over. The Rivera family house had been left deserted since her mother left. After Colton sold the company, the servants were discharged from their duties and the house was locked.
No one would believe she lived inside a deserted house. The authorities would be too busy checking other places to think she would return to the Rivera home. Not to mention that the house had a storage facility filled with food to last several years.
The more she thought of it, the smarter it sounded.
April sat up with a smile on her face. Her heart was made up. She would return to the Rivera mansion and plan her next steps in the comfort of her father’s house. She might even find something that could help change the course of her destiny.
That night, April painstakingly made her way to the heart of South City. She was unrecognisable dressed in a male outfit. Coupled with her intense weight loss and darkened skin, she was able to evade the eyes of many.
When she got to the house, it was locked from the outside. April swore under her breath, unable to fathom her plans going to be ruined. Pressed for time, she bent down and let down her hands in search of the keys.
April tried to find the keys underneath the steel gates but there was no such luck. When she was ready to call it a day, her fingers grazed the cold metal that was the keys to the Rivera Mansion.
One of the servants must have kept it at the usual spot before leaving. Old habits died hard. A blinding smile appeared on April’s face when she unlocked the gates. The power was shut down, which meant the CCTV cameras were useless.
April snuck into the Rivera manor like a thief in the night. She locked the gates after her and made her way into what she deemed her home until she found a solution to her predicament.