Rebecca was in the shower, cooling her head for the past fifteen minutes. She was thinking about her mother.“She lies, tricks, and does cynical stuff at times, but she still cares for the family.” Rebecca thought. “She’s close-fisted, but when it matters, she spends money without worrying.”She remembered how Selena paid for the hospital bills and also hired bodyguards and nurses and even began overseeing the meal preparation when Selena generally didn’t like stepping into the kitchen because of the smells. Selena also believed that someone like her shouldn’t cook in the kitchen, and so Rebecca also didn’t learn cooking until recently.“She’s much more selfish than me, but there’s still a sense of warped love hidden behind her actions,” Rebecca murmured to herself. “Of course, I’m not the one who’s supposed to forgive her for what she keeps doing to Benjamin, but I can, maybe, forgive her for keeping all my money with her.”Since Selena was taking responsibility for her family when n

In Selena’s room.Selena had just come to her room, and she was trying to get some sleep before dinner-time, but she was struggling because her nose wasn’t healed yet, and she was finding it hard to breathe, especially when lying down on the bed. Whenever she didn’t get sleep, she would generally read a book until she slipped into asleep, but tonight, she was just talking to herself.“The nose surgery will be perfect, I’m sure, and it’ll look more beautiful than before,” Selena briefly remembered how she was born with a slightly upturned nose, and her childhood friends used to call her Pug all the time, even though she was the class representative. They used to poke her with the pencils from back benches, steal her items, and mistreat her a lot in many different ways. One day, she fought with the entire class during recess, and she ended up smashing a girl’s face into the window and breaking her nose. Her friend later got their nose repaired, and that made Selena want to change the wa

Selena was sleeping, and someone patted her hard and fast. Multiple times. She woke up in startlement, only to see her daughter and her son-in-law standing behind her, wearing hard faces. “Rebecca?”“Why did you kill him?” Rebecca straightforwardly asked.“Kill whom?” Selena asked back just as fast.“Devon. Why did you get him beaten to death?” Rebecca demanded an answer right in front of Benjamin, which Selena didn’t like and made her face scrunch.“Nonsense. Devon left his job long ago,” Selena stated confidently. “It’s been a while since I last saw him.”Rebecca took Benjamin’s mobile and showed her mom the camera recording from the villa’s footage. It showed Devon getting beat up by the bodyguards.Selena frowned, but she quickly said, “I can’t even see his face clearly, but even if it’s Devon, and he got beaten to death by the bodyguards, why are you upset about it? He’s just a useless old guy who has become a slave to his habits.”Rebecca ground her teeth. She wanted to throw th

Only Rebecca, Benjamin, and Delle didn’t eat dinner because of the same reason: Devon’s death. Delle had a good relationship with Devon, so her conscience didn’t let her eat that night, either.Delle was taking care of Jacob until Selena entered the room and told her to leave.Selena closed the door and sat next to Jacob’s bed.A minute passed silently.“How are your eyes?” asked Jacob, wearing a poker face.Selena sucked in a breath through the gap between her teeth. “You must be feeling quite happy inside.”“She’s your daughter first,” Jacob was able to slightly move his arms and legs now. A good night’s sleep would be enough for him to get up, he thought. “But throwing orange juice in the eyes? Just what did you do to piss her off that much?”She harrumphed. “You already know everything, yet you ask me like an innocent child.”“Well, you took her hard-earned money and kept it with you,” Jacob frankly said. “She didn’t do anything at that time because she’s not money-minded, but she

The three bodyguards clobbered Benjamin with metal rods until he wasn’t moving and was bleeding everywhere.One of them took out a gun and was fixing a silencer, but another guy stopped him and said, “We don’t want to leave any clues that might lead back to us. Let’s just bury him like this, and he’ll die before we completely bury this hole.”“That way, it looks more like someone from the household beat him up… in case someone finds his body, huh. I like it.” He put the gun away. Instead of dragging Benjamin’s body, two of them picked him up and took him to the pit while the third guy was wiping the traces of blood off the ground. They were quite thorough with everything as if they had prior experience.They tied up Benjamin’s hands and feet before tossing him in the ten-feet deep pit. All eight of them worked together to fill the grave and then cover it up with natural grass mats. They finished everything in under twenty minutes. After sprinkling some salt, pepper, and chili powder a

The next morning.Delle, for the first time in a long while, didn’t wake up when the alarm had rung. Kathy had to come and wake her up. Finding Delle naked was surely a surprise for Kathy, but she didn’t think Delle had sex with someone. That didn’t even cross her mind.“Get ready quickly. We might receive some guests today that’ll stay until the party finishes,” Kathy told her and left.Delle didn’t know when George had left, but thinking about last night, she smiled within herself. “I’ll prepare a special breakfast for you, George,” she thought. “It’d be a token of love, I guess?”Delle had never opened herself up in recent times because of her checkered past.“But first, I should take care of Madam Selena,” Delle dressed up quickly and put on minimal make-up before rushing to the kitchen. She made black coffee and took it to Selena’s room. The door was ajar, so she let herself in. She put the coffee plate on the lamp desk and opened the curtains. The sunrays refracted through the g

In the governor’s office.Langdon Campbell, the guy with a net worth over 5 billion dollars, was standing like a servant in front of Jeff Druze, the current president of the country. The world-renowned pharmacist, Denise Egor was also there. She was sipping what looked like blood mixed with wine.Langdon’s heart was beating loudly for being in the presence of these two. After all, they had the power and influence to tear his empire apart if they wanted.“You don’t need to get anxious, Mr. Langdon,” Denise comfortably spoke. “We are not going to ask you anything about your deals with the mafia, or about releasing criminals as you want, or even about the international flower project you got going for yourself. We know you traffic drugs, women, and children, and that your real net worth is over 60 billion dollars, but we don’t give a shit about all that right now. We only came here secretly because of the need of the hour. Tomorrow, you’re going to take Mr. Jeff with you to the night par

In the Pure Waters bar.Blackbear and Dewar were sitting before Rodnie in one of the private rooms on the first floor. There were women in bikinis on either side of Blackbear and Dewar, pressing and rubbing their arms, chest, and thighs with their arms as well as bodies.“We didn’t come here for this, Brother Rodnie,” Blackbear spoke, pushing the women aside.Dewar, however, seemed like he wanted the women to keep doing whatever they were doing.Rodnie gestured to the women to leave, and they skipped away on their toes.“I know why you came here, Blackbear,” Rodnie lit up his large cigar. “But I’m not going to join hands with the underworld again. I’ve long retired from that life. I do secret bettings, but that’s in order to satisfy some of my old friends’ requests and at the same time receive their help if necessary.”Blackbear kept staring at Rodnie, almost in a threatening manner. “You’ve lived twice as I did, so I don’t need to tell you what happens if you piss Boss Butcher off.”

In the landscaped front yard of the villa, Selena was talking with ten new bodyguards she had hired from a new security company. These guys were almost as big as the previous security unit, so she picked them from their appearances alone, without doing much of a background check because of the urgent need.“You’ll have a lot of work to do these coming three days, but your main duty stays the same. It is to keep everyone from my family safe, understand?”“Yes, ma’am.”“Now, go and help the other workers arrange for the event,” she ordered, and they obeyed.Even though they were bodyguards, and they didn’t need to do such labor, they still lowered their backs for the money Selena would be paying them.Selena went up to her daughters who were sitting together in chairs on the balcony, overseeing how the work was going.“Neither of you have eaten anything since morning, right?” she asked with care in her voice.“Actually I ate two bananas,” Veronica responded, making her mother sit in the

“Enough,” Rebecca slapped her sister without restraint. “Whoa,” Selena quickly got out of her chair. “What’s the deal, Rebecca? She was only telling the truth!” Rebecca angrily glared at Selena. “I hope you two are not doing this together.” “What?” Selena was bewildered. Veronica, on the other hand, looked hurt. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I came running to tell you what Benjamin did, and in return, you hit me in the face. Thank you. I will remember this gift forever.” She turned around and ran away. Rebecca realized that she might have made a mistake. “Wait, Veronica!” She called, but her sister didn’t stop. “Tch,” Rebecca put her hand on top of her head. “You should go and apologize,” Selena suggested. As far as she remembered, the last time Rebecca hit her sister was when Veronica stole her snacks back in high school and gave it to some guy in Veronica’s class. Veronica also cried then and told Rebecca she’d give her organs for free if Rebecca ever needed them. “Take her shoppi