(11 years later)
“I'd like to have lunch tonight, with you, on my exclusive island.” His voice drawled over the phone.
I could tell he was fidgeting, but I was calm. My maroon manicured fingers were tapping on my desk.
“No, I'm very busy, Senator.”
“What can I do to have Ms. Lily all to myself? What impresses you?”
I gave a small chuckle. “My account balance, stimulated to rise. Seven figures at a time.” It came honey-sweet from my glossed lips. I bat my eyelashes even though I know he can't see me.
My phone dings almost immediately. I check my Cash App and a small smile draws over the corners of my lips at the word. ‘Sent.’
*
*
*
Where do I start?
It's been eleven good years. I can definitely say I'm no longer the naïve nineteen-year-old and, quite frankly, stupid Lilian. A lot about me has changed.
I've undergone nine plastic surgeries to change everything about me. My name is now ‘Lily Reed’, and I'm a millionaire.
‘How?’ You might ask…
Eleven years ago, after the construction company came with its bulldozers to clear all the buildings in my street, I was able to get the number of the man who sent them. Draco Roman.
I remember everything like it was yesterday.
~ (Flashback) ~
My legs trembled as I walked into his office. “G… good morning, sir,” I stuttered.
He swirled in his chair, a dangerous-looking man in his mid-forties. He took a puff from his tobacco blunt and faced me. “My secretary tells me you want to see me.”
“Yes, sir.” At this point, I was unsure what the outcome of my visit would be. But I decided to forge ahead.
“Whatever for?” He asked, his eyes boring holes through mine.
“Sir, I'm a nineteen-year-old with a younger brother whom I'm fending for. I have a café and house in the same street you sent the construction workers to take down for your mall.”
He laughed gently, his chest bobbing as he did. “So what? You want me to ask them to quit? To stop… because of you?”
I went on my knees, diverting my eyes to the expensive marbled floors. “Please, help me however you can. If the buildings go down, I'll have nothing. Nowhere to go.”
His eyes softened, just a bit. “Well, I can't ask my workers to stop the building, so what do you want me to do?”
“Anything you can do, sir.” This time, I raised my eyes to face him from where I knelt. My eyes were glinting with suggestions.
Maybe he got the message, but did I even know what I was saying? What I was doing?
“You don't want to live ‘that’ place.” He said ‘that place,’ like it was filth.
I lowered my eyes again. He was right. It was filth, as compared to his life. But I said nothing.
He stood and walked towards me. “Something has got to give.”
He raised my face with his finger. “You're very pretty. Innocent. Just the way I like them.”
I almost laughed at the word, ‘Innocent’. I was anything but that.
“Let me spoil you. If you're mine, you'll never have to worry a day in your life.”
His words made an imprint in my mind.
He unzipped his pants zipper and extended his hardened d**k to my mouth.
“Suck it and watch me change your life.”
~ (Flashback ends) ~
And he did.
I became his concubine. He furnished an expensive flat for me in Miami; he splurged millions on me and sent Ethan to school.
But two years ago, he died of cirrhosis. I panicked because I thought it'll be the end of my new luxury lifestyle. But one day, his lawyer called my line.
“Good afternoon. Am I speaking Lily?”
“Yes, you are.” My throat was sore from crying about my dead lover.
“Today is Draco's will reading. I'd like you to drop by his mansion by 6 today.”
I walked into his mansion that day as a girl about to return to penury, and I came out of it with ten million dollars and a small company to my name.
But it was never enough for me. I kept checking my balance every day, worried that it'd run out and I'll go back to being pathetic Lilian.
I knew I had to act fast, so I met with other men; politicians, footballers, musicians. I became a high-end concubine to many millionaires and billionaires.
I didn't entirely like this lifestyle. But would I do it again? Yes. If it meant I could buy anything I want for myself and my loved ones, never be put in a position where I have to go to a false doctor and lose my womb, if I could send my brother to college- and I did.
Ethan—who wasn't so little anymore—was now studying at Harvard Business School. If I couldn't afford college for myself, I'd make sure my brother did.
And one mission I'd decided to spend my life embarking on was the mission to find the drunk driver who knocked my parents down that night and have his head on a f*****g dish.
But one day, my request finally came through.
*
*
*
The consistent ringing of my phone woke me up. I glanced at the wall clock.
4 a.m.
Who the f**k was calling me at the crack of dawn?
“This better be good.” I snapped.
“It's Zayne. I've got an update on the case. Drop by my house, ASAP.”
I sat up, fully awake now. “Really?”
“You won't believe who did it.”
I drove to Zayne's house. My heart was pounding rapidly in my chest. ‘Who could it be?’
When I arrived there, my private investigator, Zayne, took me to his study, where there were two other men of his who worked undercover.
“What did you find?” Even as I asked, my chest was pounding.
He brought out some faded car details. "The only thing we could make out is the last name.”
I glared at the paper. My hands were shaky and my throat parched. “What's this? I can't make it out.”
“Steele.” Zayne replied coolly.
“Steele?” My heart lurched at the name. The man who'd broken my heart and trust all those years, got me pregnant and made me lose my womb.
If there was one thing I could assure him, it was that this time he wouldn't survive me.
I glared at Zayne. There was bitterness in my voice when I said,
“I'll kill him.”