I’m suspicious.
I follow them down the hallway where Geoffrey takes a key out of his pocket and unlocks another room.
I can hear a door open slightly behind me and pray to God that Merc or Levi are following us.
Now, I realize how irrational what I just did was.
I didn’t just throw myself into the frying pan, I jumped head first into the fire.
Fuck.
“You’re quite a lovely girl, I don’t see how any man would hurt you,” Geoffrey compliments me.
“Thank you, sir,” I say with a polite smile.
“Elizabeth, would you care for a brandy or a whiskey?” he asks his daughter.
Elizabeth’s lizard smile is in place.
“Brandy, and make it the good one. Claire, would you like some brandy?” she asks.
“I would love some,” I tell her.
Geoffrey pours for all three of us as Elizabeth talks.
“My son should be around here somewhere; you should meet him. He’s quite a lovely fellow,” she tells me.
“Oh, you have a son?” I ask calmly.
“He works with me,” Elizabeth says simply.
“It must be nice to work with family,” I say.
I act like a simpleton and work hard to keep how unsettled I am under wraps.
Does she know Levi is here?
“Leviathan is quite the man. I do so hope you meet him,” Elizabeth says.
“Perhaps I will then? I don’t see the need to cut the night short,” I say.
I’m shaking.
Geoffrey brings us the brandy.
“Leviathan isn’t here tonight, dear Lizzie. He’s out and about, as most men are at his age,” Geoffrey reminds her.
“Oh,” Elizabeth sighs.
“That’s right, I simply forgot,” she laughs and smiles.
I’m confused.
What’s going on here?
“Elizabeth suffers from a brain tumor, she forgets things from time to time,” Geoffrey explains.
“Well, most of the time,” Elizabeth says.
I look down at the brandy, and something isn’t right about it.
There’s a film on the top.
Oh God.
Olivia’s serum.
Are they going to wipe my memories?
Geoffrey takes a sip of his, as does Elizabeth.
I hesitate.
Levi bursts through the door.
Immediately I hit the ground, and Elizabeth whips out a gun.
But Merc’s got one on her first.
“Game’s over,” Merc tells her fiercely.
“Not yet,” Geoffrey cackles.
He presses a hidden button, and the lights flicker and he is gone!
A passage between two bookshelves is revealed, and there are dim lights inside.
Elizabeth and darts into the passage.
“Follow them!” Levi screams.
Merc automatically drops his gun and manages to grab hold of the bookshelf before she can close it behind her.
There’s some resistance, and then she gives up and runs because Merc slams the bookshelf wide open.
Without hesitation, he snatches his gun from the floor and starts down, into the tunnel.
“Leigha, go to the boat, get out of here!” Levi commands me.
“No!” I shout at him.
I will see this through.
I follow Merc, unsteady in my heels, and I give Levi no choice.
“We’re going too slow, we’ll never catch them,” I tell Merc.
I take off my shoes and we go running down the tunnel.
“Leigha! Wait!” Merc shouts.
I’m not going to stop.
I run, coming to a set of stairs and taking them as fast as I can manage.
They’re old metal stairs and creak at every step.
I can hear Geoffrey and Elizabeth below me.
“Leigha!” Levi yells.
“Shut-up!” I scream, a few floors below them.
No doors.
No way out.
All I can do is go down, down, down to the bottom of the stairs.
I fly through the open door.
Suddenly, I’m blinded by pain as something hits me in the stomach.
I stumble, unable to breathe.
Every gasp is short, and I can’t fill my lungs.
My impact with the ground makes it even worse.
I’m going to die!
Elizabeth stands over me with a sneer, gun in hand.
I reach for anything I can as she leers over me and presses the gun to my temple.
This is it.
I’m dead.
I wish I’d told Evan how much I love him.
I wish I’d done a lot of things differently.
When I close my eyes I don’t hear anything.
I don’t hear Elizabeth’s words as fear pumps through my body and adrenaline courses through my veins.
My struggle to breath is only intensified.
Then, my hand closes around something round.
Without thinking, I just act.
I grab hold of a pipe and swing as hard as I can.
Elizabeth disappears from my line of vision, and I collapse into the dirt and grass.
I can hear voices, but nothing sounds clear as, ever so slowly, my breathing comes back to me.
Finally, I take a full breath and fill my lungs with much-needed air.
Still shaking from the adrenaline, I can finally see Levi and Merc as I sit up, unsteady.
“I’m not ready to stand yet,” I say out loud.
“Are you okay?” Merc asks.
He’s so concerned I wonder why.
“I’m fine, just couldn’t breathe for a bit there,” I tell him.
“Are you sure?” Merc asks.
“I said I’m fine, I’d be concerned about Elizabeth over there. We better tie her up before she wakes up and starts to shoot up the place again,” I quip.
“Leigha,” Merc says my name seriously.
“It was a joke,” I taunt him.
I put one hand on my stomach, and it’s wet.
Wet with what?
There must be water somewhere.
Then, I look down.
There’s a knife embedded, right through my dress, into my body.
“Oh, would you look at that,” I say calmly.
“I don’t feel it, is that bad?” I ask.
“Probably,” Merc says.
“Why aren’t you tying Elizabeth up? I told you I’m fine. Let’s just get this thing out of me, and we’ll go have a drink or something,” I say.
I feel dizzy.
“Leigha, Elizabeth is dead,” Merc says seriously.
Blackness takes me.
33
Evan
April 15, 2018
Leigha sleeps quietly in the hospital bed, machines beeping slowly.
I watch her chest rise and fall for an undetermined amount of time.
The doctors say the damage could’ve been much worse, but my mother, my dead mother, missed just about every vital organ with her thrust.
It was an unlucky miss for my mother.
For Leigha?
My mother is finally dead.
Dead.
I still can’t believe we’re almost free of her.
“Ev?” Leigha says my name groggily as she turns in the bed.
“Hey,” I say.
I smile at her, and she smiles back.
“Are you in pain?” I ask.
“No,” she admits.
“I thought it would hurt more, to be honest, but I think I’m okay. Didn’t the doctor say they were going to discharge me today?” Leigha asks.
“They were thinking about it,” I tell her.
“Let’s not rush this, okay?” I say.
Leigha nods.
She was airlifted to a hospital in Rome, and we’ve been here ever since.
My father and Tinsley remain in London, but Levi refuses to leave.
Ha
ving Levi around all the time is oddly comforting.
Since I rarely leave Leigha’s bedside, Levi brings coffee and food.
He entertains the nurses, who are all head-over-heels in love with him.
“Leigha, have I told you how glad I am that you’re okay?” I ask.
Leigha nods with a smile.
“About fifty times. But, you can always tell me again if you like, I don’t mind hearing it,” she giggles.
“I am, so glad, you’re alive, and you’re breathing, and I haven’t lost you,” I say the words slowly.
The smile on her face as she absorbs every word makes me happy.
Not just on the outside, with a delirious smile on my face, but the warmth in my body tells me that the relief I feel runs deep, into my soul.
If I even have one.
“We should go somewhere,” I say to her.
“Where?” she asks.
“Anywhere. My mother’s dead. We’re free. We can worry about Geoffrey Whittaker when the time comes, but right now, I just want to relax,” I say.
“Evan,” Leigha says with a smile.
“I thought we were going to be just friends,” she hints.
“Yeah, well it’s a friendly offer. We’ll go wherever you want, and then we’ll just see what happens,” I reply.
I give her my signature smirk, and the blush that rises in Leigha’s face makes me want to kiss her.
This is it.
I’m not going to miss another chance.
I move in close, to kiss her, but I spy Merc in the doorway.
“Give me a minute,” I tell Leigha.
She just nods, then lays back and closes her eyes again.
I shut the door to Leigha’s room behind me as Merc takes a deep breath.
“This is all my fault,” he says.
The words are out of his mouth before I can say anything.
“Is that why you haven’t come to see her? She’s been asking for you,” I tell him angrily.
“It’s my fault, Evan. I shouldn’t have let her run ahead of me like I did That was a bad call on my part. I know that,” Merc says.
“Damn straight it was a bad call!” I scream at him.
Merc bows his head, and I know he thinks he deserves to be yelled at.
He really doesn’t, though.
I know I'm being irrational, but Leigha could’ve died.
“I didn’t know how to face her, the blame lays on me for this,” Merc admits.
“I may have hurt her in the past, but you let her just… you just let her run ahead of you. Where were you when she was getting stabbed by Mother?” I ask him.
“I was too far away to do anything,” Merc admits.
I glare at him.
“She just took off running, Evan, and she was out the door before I could get all the way down the stairs, and by the time I got there, Elizabeth was already dead,” Merc explains.
I know this.
I’ve watched the video from the hidden camera over and over again, complete with audio.
There’s a part in the video where all I can hear is Leigha gasping for breath as my mother leers over her, and then out of nowhere, my mother goes down.
“Leigha’s strong,” Merc comments.
“She’s not strong enough if you almost got her killed again!” I spit back.
Merc presses his lips together.
“What?” I ask, livid.
“I asked her to come with me, run away with me. Now, I’m not so sure that’s even a good idea. I’ve got enemies, Evan. Some people would use her to get to me. I can’t put her in that position,” Merc admits.
“You asked her to run away with you?” I question.
Merc nods guiltily.
Leigha didn’t say yes!
She didn’t say yes, and that can only mean there must be some part of her holding onto me.
There has to be!
But, my mind just won’t focus on what it means that Leigha never gave him an answer.
I’m blinded by rage, at Merc.
“She’s not yours to take, you asshole!” I tell him, attempting to keep my voice even.
“I know that,” Merc says.
“Evan, I don’t know if it’s clear or not to you, but she’s always going to choose you. She always does, even if she doesn’t realize it,” Merc informs me.
“That’s not true,” I tell him.
“You’re in denial. Of course, it’s true. The second you need anything, she always comes running, she wants you just as much as you want her. Maybe she thinks she can’t decide, but I know deep down, she knows whom she wants,” Merc argues with me.
“We’re friends. Just friends,” I repeat.
“For now,” Merc murmurs.
He through the windows at Leigha, resting in the room.
“How long do you think you guys are going to make it without falling back together? Because the way I see it, it’s going to happen,” Merc says sadly.
“You’re just going to hurt her,” I say, trying to change the subject.
“That was never my intention,” Merc tells me.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to get her hurt, or worse, and then where would the both of us be?” I ask.
“Nowhere good, I can tell you that much,” Merc admits.
The he turns to face me.
“Evan, that’s not why I came,” Merc tells me.
“I don’t care why you came! Whatever you do, especially if you’ve got enemies, you need to leave Leigha alone! I don’t want her dead!” I say menacingly.
I turn to go back into Leigha’s room.
“Understood, but Evan?” Merc starts.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m not the only one with enemies,” Merc says.
“Yeah, but mine is dead,” I replied crisply.
“That’s not exactly true,” Merc sighs.
I realize that he’s holding a leather case.
He opens it, and extracts a manila folder.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“It’s the autopsy report on your mother,” Merc says softly.
He motions to some chairs nearby.
We sit down, and he hands me the folder.
“Evan, I think you need to listen to me, carefully,” he says.
“You need to focus, and push aside your emotions. This is pretty difficult for me to tell you. The woman who’s been playing as your mother all along was not Elizabeth Darlington. Your mother’s not dead Evan. Her twin sister, Lauren is who was killed. She was the one who stabbed Leigha,” Merc explains.
I sit there, shocked and speechless.
Elizabeth Darlington, my mother, still lives!
34
Evan
April 15, 2018
“What the fuck is this, Merc? What bullshit are you trying to pull? Evan’s mother’s dead! I watched her die! I saw her die! I saw her dead body, for Christ’s sake! It’s on the security feeds!” Levi exclaims.
I whip around to see him standing behind us, holding four coffees in a tray.
“The woman that Leigha killed was identified by the coroner as Lauren Darlington. I’m sorry, Levi, I really am,” Merc apologizes.
I walk over to Levi.
“Evan, hold these please, I’m afraid I may drop them,” Levi says, his hands shaking with rage and disbelief.
I take the tray of coffees from him.
I want to throw it against the wall.
“You’re implying that my mother, Lauren, was pretending to be Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was pretending to be my mother?” Levi asks, his voice level and dangerous.
“Well, that’s the only logical explanation. You’ll see in the report…” Merc starts.
“I don’t want the report, I want to hear it from you,” Levi interrupts calmly.
“The woman whose body we recovered wasn’t suffering from a tumor. Elizabeth Darlington has medical records going back for years that confirm she has a brain tumor. The coroner was suspi
cious, so he ran some DNA tests. But, that’s not what convinced us that it was Lauren Darlington that was dead. We detected various amounts of facial reconstruction, but there was more,” Merc explains.
“What was it then?” I ask for Levi, who’s gone speechless.
“The agency picked up a conversation, between Lauren and Elizabeth, just before Lauren was killed. Lauren convinced Elizabeth that Leigha and Evan had to die. We’re under the impression that Lauren has been controlling Elizabeth for quite some time because of her tumor, and running the operation herself,” Merc explains.
It’s like being hit by a wave.
All this time, we thought it was my mother when Lauren was running the whole show!
“Well, now that Lauren’s dead, all we have to do is find Elizabeth, right? Then it’s over; we’re done,” I say.
Levi looks a little unsteady.
“Levi are you alright, brother?” I ask.
Levi nods.
He shakes his head.
“My mother was ruining the lives of our family, all this time, and I thought Aunt Lizzie was the one behind it when she was really the one who needed help,” Levi says.
“The guilt is overwhelming. I should’ve seen this,” Levi says in a daze.
“How could you have possibly thought your mother was as conniving as she was?” I ask him gently.
“How could I have not noticed that my mother, wasn’t my mother?” Levi asks.
“Because this has been the operation all along,” Merc explains.
“I’ve been tricked, and I thought I was the one tracking them,” Levi bemoans.
“We’ve all been tricked,” I remind him.
I have a thought, but I don’t say it here in the hallway.
Duke Whittaker, Geoffrey Whittaker, the man behind the Whittaker club, must’ve known about this all along.
He must have known who Elizabeth really was, and worked with her.
Geoffrey must’ve known his daughters would be useful.
Elizabeth must’ve gone to him, once she was pregnant, and knew my father had no plans to marry her.
They must’ve known everything all along.
“We have to question Geoffrey,” I say.
“The agency already thought of that, but he’s got immunity. We can’t connect him to anything other than a social club,” Merc explains.
“And we have no evidence of who anyone is, because of the masks,” Levi sighs.
Secret: A Stone Billionaire Series Novel (The Stone Billionaire Series Book 5) Page 22