Chapter 37: Chapter 37
“Soon after that, Sebastian was discharged from the hospital and James took him and his wife and disappeared without a trace from the city we lived in then. My mother was heartbroken because she had come to fall in love with the bastard, plus her family disowned her when they found out that she was pregnant, so she was all alone, pregnant at the age of twenty. After she gave birth to us, we really suffered. I remember us being homeless for the better part of our lives before we turned seven when she managed to track the bastard down. He was living large and was extremely rich while we were living in squalor with not even a roof over our heads. After months, she managed to get an audience with him and begged him to take my brother and me even if he wanted nothing to do with her. Do you know what that bastard did? He sneered in her face, called her a harlot, and told her that he wasn’t the one who fathered us and that he now has a son…Sebastian. When she insisted and threatened to go to his wife, he had a DNA test carried out which showed that he fathered us, whereupon he gave my mother a large sum of money and made her sign an undertaking never to contact him again and that he never wanted to see us again. My mother took the money and came all the way here where she had this house built in the woods and remained a recluse as she wanted no contact with people again, especially men. She died five years ago, but she told me everything before she died. She urged me not to take revenge because she knew how much I hated him, and I agreed at first, but now everything has changed.”
“I’m so sorry that your mom went through all that. No mother deserves to go through that.” Jessica said. She could not bring herself to include that she was also sorry for Charlotte and her brother.
“Yeah. Anyway, as I was saying, the situation had changed. Some months ago, I did some snooping around and found out that the old bastard was very sick. Apparently, he doesn’t have long to live again.”
“Wow!” Jessica exclaimed. Mr. James was the most healthy and vibrant person that she knew. “If he’s going to die soon, why are you keen on killing him?”
“At first when I heard the news, I was happy because I felt that he was finally going to get what was coming to him. He was going to suffer a painful death, especially as the idiot does not want to spend his last days in the hospital. Once he dies, I and my brother would show up to lay claim on his vast inheritance, after all, we have DNA proof that he is our father. However, a few days ago, I learned that he is seeking the services of a lawyer. We were able to bribe the lawyer and we found out that he is considering updating his will so that his wife and Sebastian would get the bulk of everything once he dies. My brother and I are to get mere peanuts if we show up within two months after his death. I’m still trying to verify if this story is true. Once I make my findings and confirm everything that I need to confirm, I would know what step to take. There, so that is the story behind all this. Do you still want to have a part in all of this?”
“Yes, I do,” Jessica said automatically, some parts of this not still making sense to her. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“When Mr. James contacted you to torture and kill me, he had no idea that you were his daughter?”
“I never said that he contacted me. He ordered for your death and torture, I got wind of it, and I asked to be given the job. There is a network for these things, you know. He hasn’t ever met me as an adult. The last and only time we ever saw each other was back then when I was seven and we had the DNA test done. I could smell his hostility and hatred from more than a mile away.” Charlotte sneered, her hatred for M. James very apparent, not that Jessica could blame her.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Not long after that, Charlotte had some men come in and drug Jessica right there in the room, rendering her unconscious. She woke up in another strange room with Charlotte sitting in a chair and staring at her in that creepy way that she had.
“Good, you’re awake. This is your new apartment, pending when you get my orders. Take this card. There’s more than enough money in it for you to have some fun lowkey. Remember that I’ll be in touch, so expect it.” Charlotte told her and left with the hefty man from earlier. Jessica did not know how much time had passed since they drugged her, but it was probably enough time that they were able to move from one state or even continent to another. She moved around the small apartment, checking things. The closet was stocked with some clothes and the kitchen was stocked with food too. What did they expect of her? To just sit and twiddle her thumb. Well, she had no problems doing that considering she did not have one-hundredth of this luxury days before, plus fear did not allow her to step even one inch out of the house.
So she sat in the house day in day out, eating, watching the television, and sleeping while she waited for Charlotte to contact her on the phone that she had given to her. She knew without anyone telling her that the phone must be bugged, so she did not bother to reach out to anyone that she knew. By the time she had done this for a week, she grew extremely bored. To think that she had not even had these luxuries while was caged made her wonder how she had survived in there. One week and five days after she was brought to the apartment, she ventured out and for the first time, realized that she was in Toledo. She walked around a bit, relishing the feeling of freedom, and then went back to the apartment. i
The next time she ventured out of it again, it was because her milk had finished and she needed to get some other things. For the first time, she checked the amount that was in the card that Charlotte had given her, and was surprised to see the sum of forty thousand dollars. She had not expected so much. This time around, after buying the milk, she bought an inexpensive android phone. She was dying to know what was going on in Sebastian’s life because even after everything, she found out that all she longed to do was be in his arms and tell her that everything was not true. That he had looked for her everywhere and that there was a very reasonable explanation for him marrying another woman just months after her disappearance, but try as she might, she could not think of any good reason why he would do that.
She opened fake social media accounts with the new phone and began stalking him, but there was nothing to see on his social media pages. Normally, Sebastian was a very private person, so she was not surprised to see that there were no pictures of him and his wife on his social media accounts. A quick search on Google showed her his wife’s social media pages, but she seemed to be even worse than him as all she had on her pages were pictures of dogs, cats, and malnourished children. Apparently, she was a wannabe activist of some sort. Somehow, Jessica managed to get the wife’s sister’s social media accounts. Now, she would have thought that Sebastian would have preferred the sister. From her pages, this one seemed to be way more lively and also more beautiful than her sister. There were numerous pictures of her having fun. The icing on the cake was that Jessica found out that the sister was right here in Toledo. The girl practically stated that fact and the fact that she was going to be at a bar that night on her page.
“You fool,” Jessica thought to herself. “If only you knew how evil the world is, you will keep a lower profile.”
That evening, Jessica headed to the bar. It was time to make a new friend and take matters into her hands. Damn Charlotte and every other person who thought that they could control her life.