Episode4
1010 Words
JUNE COULDN’T STOP STARING at the message that glowed on the home screen of her phone: You’re not going to like what I just found.
The first thought that slipped into her head was not fear but Leo. Always Leo. His voice, commanding and sharp, came back to her: “Take care of it, or I will.” She hated that even here, alone in this inn room that no one, not even him, could possibly know about, she could still hear him.
What she felt bubbling within her chest wasn’t just anger but something else. An emotion she couldn’t name.
Her chest tightened when her phone started ringing. It was Olivia.
“Liv?” June whispered.
“June! I’m at your apartment. I—”
“What!” June shrieked. “What are you doing there?”
“I wanted to make sense of what you said, that someone attacked you. And, June, I found something.”
June tightened her grip on her phone. “What?”
“A camera on the wall. It’s not noticeable if you’re not actively searching for it, but June, means that some has been watching you.”
Her stomach dropped.
“There’s more. The name encrypted on the device says it belongs to Cavallo Securities.”
June’s whole body went cold.
Of course, it was Leo.
It wasn’t enough for him that he had taken her trust, her body, and her dignity. But he had been watching her as well, tying her to his side with a leash she didn’t know existed.
But then, a comforting thought came to her. If he had been watching, was it because he couldn’t let go of her? Her hand slid to her flat stomach. Or maybe he had been watching for this.
Suddenly feeling desperate, June said, “Liv, I think you should—” but then the line crackled and went silent.
“Liv?” June said, panic rising in her chest. “Liv?”
No answer.
June stood in the middle of the room, clutching her phone to her chest. She could almost hear Leo’s voice again. Unyielding. Harsh. But something else had been in his eyes that day when she’d refused to abort their baby. Fear.
She wanted to hate him for proposing that to her, but her body kept remembering that night, his warmth, his hands, and the way he kept looking at her as if she was the only one who had ever made him lose control like that.
The knock on the door made her jump.
“Housekeeping.”
June’s breath caught. She hadn’t requested for housekeeping.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly.
There was a slight pause, then the footsteps went back the way they had come.
June stood still, waiting for her heart to settle down. Then, with a burst of energy, she picked up her handbag and threw her phone inside. She hadn’t moved to Maple Hollow to hide in this room. She had come here to see her former patron, Giancarlo Gomez. He was the one who had told her to come back if she ever needed help.
Pulling on her coat, June slipped out of the inn and walked to Focal Street. Giancarlo Gomez’s business enterprise was a skyscraper, whose height still took June’s breath away.
A middle-aged receptionist looked up when June walked to her table.
“Can I help you?”
“Uhm, yes. I used to work for Giancarlo Gomez. I don’t have an appointment yet, but I’m sure if you let him know it’s June Moore's calling, he’ll be glad to—”
The woman’s expression softened. “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Mr. Gomez passed away three months ago.”
The ground tilted beneath June’s feet. Giancarlo was dead? How come nobody had told her?
“I—I didn’t know,” she whispered.
The woman studied June’s face for a few moments, then pulled a slim manilla envelope from one of her drawers. “June Moore, you said? This is for you.”
When June didn’t collect it, the woman said, “It’s Mr Gomez’s will.”
June blinked. “He mentioned me in his will? But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would his lawyers—”
The woman shrugged. “It’s actually a spare copy, meant for the company. The original one has been sent out already. But I’m assuming that, since you didn’t know about Mr Gomez’s death, then it didn’t get to you?” The woman c****d her head.
June shook her head.
“So, take it,” she urged. “Since the company has a digital copy, I can always print it out.”
June hesitated. A part of her wanted to reject the envelope and apologize for wasting the woman’s time. But a greater part of her was curious. What part of himself had Giancarlo left for her?
Outside, she tore the envelope open, her breath coming in shallows as she unfolded the letter.
The Final Will of Giancarlo Gomez.
Her eyes flew over the lines. Divided fortune… Atelier Series…
Then her eyes froze on one line:
If June Moore fails to marry or have a child within one year of reading this will, her inheritance shall pass to her parents.
Her stomach dropped.
Still reeling from shock, her eyes caught another line:
If Leonardo Cavallo, my grandson, fails to marry before the age of thirty, his share of the Cavallo Empire and all its subsidiaries shall pass on to June Moore.
June's vision was clouded as she stared unseeingly at the note in her hands. Leo Cavallo was Giancarlo Gomez’s grandson?
Then it all snapped into place. Leo’s surprise when she told him she was pregnant and her parents’ deadly silence when she went through their stack of mail.
She was a threat.
For a moment, their betrayal crushed her: the parents who wanted her gone and the man who would lose everything because of her.
But as the pain slowly settled in, so did something darker.
- Writer
