Chapter 2
1831 Words
Lila’s POV
The afternoon sun burned against the glass towers of Ravencroft City while traffic crawled endlessly beneath the skyline.
I loosened my grip slightly on the steering wheel of my black Mercedes as the navigation voice echoed softly through the car speakers.
“Turn right in two hundred meters.”
The city looked beautiful from this side of town. Clean, Expensive, and Powerful. Exactly the kind of place people dreamed about living in, and exactly the kind of place that destroyed people quietly.
I exhaled slowly and adjusted my sunglasses while my car rolled past crowded intersections lined with luxury boutiques and towering corporate buildings bearing names worth billions.
My phone buzzed lightly beside me on the console. Three unread emails, two missed calls, and another reminder about Monday’s board review meeting inside the Blackthorne Estate.
Work never truly ended when you belonged to the Blackthorne Empire. Especially not for me, the Chief Financial Accountant.
The title sounded glamorous to outsiders. Prestigious, Elite, and Untouchable and to some extent, it was.
The salary alone changed my life years ago. Triple what senior financial professionals normally earn across the kingdom.
Luxury bonuses, Government influence, Private invitations to high-society events, Security, Connections, just name it. The kind of life most people spent decades chasing.
My job wasn’t to ask why certain accounts disappeared overnight or why armed men guarded private meetings in underground lounges beneath luxury hotels.
I was there to organize financial records, clean government reports, sign legal documents, and ensure the empire appeared flawless on paper.
The Blackthorne Empire wasn’t simply a corporation. It was a sinister Empire disguised as wealth.
Politicians, Judges, Arms dealers, Men with dead eyes hiding behind expensive smiles.
I had spent the last decade balancing books for people powerful enough to erase entire families without consequences.
And somehow, I survived. Mostly because Vivian Blackthorne trusted me, or at least, she used to.
The memory of earlier last two weeks twisted heavily inside my chest. I had just left the salon earlier that day, before I got a notification to rush down to the office at Blackthorne Estate, and I was now driving back home.
Typical of a Chief Finance Accountant. Busy schedules, Phone always buzzing, Unread Emails.
The Blackthorne estate was a living monument. Crystal chandeliers hanging above marble floors. Champagne flowing endlessly. Women dripping in diamonds. Politicians laughing too loudly beside dangerous businessmen pretending to be respectable.
And me, standing quietly near Vivian’s private office that day, organizing donation records while she entertained one of her associates.
The man unsettled me instantly. He was Pot-bellied, of average height, light-skinned, and dressed completely in black despite the afternoon heat.
Even indoors, he wore dark shades that concealed his eyes entirely, and he barely spoke throughout the entire meeting. Only short responses in a deep, emotionless voice.
“Mhmm.” “Understood.” “Yeah.” That was all.
Still, something about him felt dangerous. Like the type of man whose silence was more terrifying than another person’s anger.
Vivian sat across from him, looking elegant as always in a black silk dress while discussing political partnerships and future business expansions then, eventually, she smiled softly.
“You should bring your daughter to the Winter Gala this year,” she said smoothly. “Damon will be attending.”
The man nodded once. “A powerful union benefits everyone.” She said. That was the exact phrase she used. “Powerful union.” Not love or happiness or compatibility. Just power.
The conversation continued normally afterward until the man eventually left the office. Stupidly and carelessly, I followed Vivian inside after him.
She now stood beside her office window overlooking the estate gardens while one of her assistants collected documents from the desk.
For a moment, silence filled the room, then I smiled lightly. “You know,” I said while organizing paperwork against my chest, “Damon and Elara would actually make a beautiful couple.”
The atmosphere changed instantly, and Vivian slowly turned toward me and for the first time in over three decades, I saw absolutely no warmth inside her eyes. Only calculation.
“You should not have said that.” Her voice remained calm, and that frightened me more than shouting ever could.
I laughed nervously. “It was harmless.”
“No.” Vivian walked slowly toward her desk. “It was careless.” Something cold slid painfully down my spine. I tried recovering quickly, then followed an instant moment of silence that could breed fear.
Vivian’s gaze sharpened immediately. “You’re forgetting yourself lately, Lila.” The warning in her tone unsettled me deeply. I swallowed carefully before speaking again.
“I only meant…” I hesitated briefly. “An engagement between Damon and Elara could strengthen both families.” and there it was. The selfish truth because, despite everything ugly surrounding the Blackthorne Empire, some reckless part of me wanted security for my daughter.
Power and a sense of Protection. A future where Elara would never struggle financially. Maybe that made me selfish or weak.
But after Marcus left us, after everything I sacrificed to survive in this world, I wanted more for my daughter than loneliness and uncertainty.
Vivian stared at me silently for several seconds. Then finally she questioned, “You think your daughter belongs beside my son?” The quietness in her voice terrified me.
“She’s intelligent,” I answered carefully. “Kind and Beautiful.”
“Trust is weakness.” Vivian’s expression hardened instantly.
“He deserves freedom, Vivian.” I said.
“No.” She leaned back slowly against her desk. “He deserves discipline.”
I forced myself to remain calm. “You can’t control every part of his life forever, you know?” The silence afterward still haunted me because Vivian looked at me then exactly the way powerful people looked at problems before removing them.
“You’ve started forgetting your place lately, Lila.” She said.
”I’m sorry, it was just a harmless suggestion.” I replied.
Fear settled heavily inside my stomach. I left the estate thirty minutes later, pretending nothing had happened but deep down, I knew something terrible had shifted between us that day.
On my way back from the supermarket today, the traffic light ahead turned red and I slowed carefully near Westbridge Avenue while sunlight reflected across nearby skyscrapers.
The city bustled loudly around me with music drifting from nearby restaurants.
Business executives crossing roads with coffee cups in hand.
Normal life, completely unaware of the monsters hiding beneath Ravencroft’s luxury.
My chest tightened faintly as my thoughts drifted toward Elara, my daughter, my entire heart.
At sixteen, she still carried so much softness inside her despite growing up around powerful people.
Too beautiful, too trusting, too alive. She looked so much like me at that age it frightened me sometimes with her long dark hair and sharp eyes and a figure already turning heads everywhere she went.
I smiled faintly, remembering the dramatic way she complained about cramps earlier that morning while refusing to attend dance rehearsals.
God!!.…. She was growing too fast and suddenly, the fear inside my chest deepened painfully because people like Vivian Blackthorne destroyed beautiful things eventually especially girls capable of influencing powerful men.
My grip tightened again against the steering wheel, then I remembered my late husband, Marcus. Pain twisted faintly inside my chest at the thought of him.
Three years gone, and somehow the betrayal still hurts.
Marcus Voss once loved me beautifully. At least, I believed he did, before the promotions and the money. Before the Blackthorne Empire became larger than our marriage could survive.
At first, he supported my career completely until my salary surpassed his, and people started recognizing me more than him at social events. Until he realized his wife held more influence than he ever would.
The resentment destroyed him slowly. Arguments became routine, then drinking, then silence and finally, one cold morning almost three years ago, Marcus packed a suitcase and walked out without looking back.
No dramatic goodbye or apology. Just absence. The cruelest kind of abandonment.
And yet, despite everything, I still answered his calls whenever he drunkenly reached out months later, mostly because some stupid part of me hoped he would eventually come back for Elara but he never did.
Then six months after leaving us, Marcus died during a late-night highway accident outside West Ravencroft. Drunk driving. The police said his car flipped three times before crashing into a divider.
I remembered standing beside Elara while she cried quietly through the burial, wondering how someone could abandon his family twice.
First emotionally, then permanently.
I blinked away the memory quickly and focused back on the road ahead, that was when my phone buzzed through the car speakers. It was an unknown number.
My pulse immediately quickened because I already knew who it was before answering.
“Hello?” Silence greeted me first then her voice, cold, elegant, and terrifyingly calm.
“You disappointed me, Lila.” Fear tightened instantly around my throat. Vivian Blackthorne.
I instinctively checked my rearview mirror and saw a black SUV appear several cars behind me maintaining distance, watching.
“I only made a suggestion,” I replied carefully.
“A dangerous suggestion.” She said.
My fingers tightened painfully against the steering wheel. “You’re overreacting.”
“No.” Vivian’s voice remained smooth. “You’ve simply forgotten who I am.”
The SUV behind me accelerated slightly. My stomach dropped. The bluntness of her tone made my heartbeat stutter. “I only thought…..” She cut me off before I could conclude.
“That is exactly the problem.” She said.
The SUV moved closer. Too close this time and real fear flooded my body instantly. I swallowed hard. Cold panic crawled slowly through my chest. “You’re threatening me?” I continued.
“I’m reminding you.” She said.
The SUV suddenly switched lanes. Faster now and more aggressive. Fear exploded violently inside me.
“Vivian…” I continued and she cut me off again before I could finish.
“You should have stayed loyal, Lila.” She said then the line disconnected.
My breathing turned shallow instantly because suddenly, I understood that this was not a warning. It was a clear execution.
The SUV accelerated violently behind me. “Oh God…” I screamed.
My pulse exploded as the vehicle slammed brutally into the back of my car. The steering wheel jerked sideways. Tires screeched across asphalt. Traffic horns exploded around me.
Another hit much harder this time. Glass cracked violently beside me. “No!” I shouted.
The SUV rammed me again then my car spun sharply toward the edge of the highway divider.
Everything blurred. Sunlight, screaming tires, metal and fear. Then suddenly, a massive truck appeared directly ahead.Too close, much too close.
My body froze and the last thought that entered my mind before impact, was Elara.
- Writer
