Chapter 76: Chapter 76
"Oh my God!" Sebastian breathed, as the implications of what he had just remembered hit him. His face turned ashen and it felt like he was having difficulty breathing. Jessica, who did not know what was wrong with him, or the fact that he had just put two and two together looked at him worriedly, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.
"Sebastian? Are you alright?" She asked.
"Oh my God." He repeated. "No ... no ... it can't be."
"Sebastian. You're scaring me. What is it?"
"That night... the night of the party. He was quarreling with you..."
"Yeah. Of course, he was. You were there and saw it, remember? He did not want us to be together, and was trying to make me leave you against my will."
"Oh, God no. He said... he said he could make you disappear if you refused to disappear on your own. That old bastard! That fucking old bastard! He followed up on his threats."
"I can't really remember. The whole of that night is just blurry to me, because it was after the fight, a few minutes after you left, that I got kidnapped."
"But he was with me throughout that night. How then did he do it?" Sebastian asked, feeling really sad at what Jessica had passed through and extremely mad at his uncle. No matter what the girl had done, nobody deserved to go through what she had gone through.
"I guess he had it planned beforehand," Jessica said, shrugging, but he could clearly see that she was going through emotional turmoil. "One minute, I was standing there wiping my face and applying fresh makeup a few minutes after you left, and the next, I was being tightly held against someone who placed a handkerchief over my nose. That is the last thing I remember until I woke up in that prison."
"Damn. Damn that bloody man to hell and back. He has gone too far this time around and must pay for this evil. He must have been laughing at me all this while, thinking how stupid I am. After all, he finally made me bend to his wishes and provided a wife for me to get married to, and stupid me thought that I had struck a good bargain. I married her as he wanted and the marriage was to last for a year and six months. His own part of the bargain was to use his resources to find you, because I did not for one minute think that you had run away, after all, your phone was found. So, that means all this while, while I was trying to play the perfect husband to the bride he chose for me just to make him happy while I thought he was looking for you, I was just deceiving myself? He was doing absolutely nothing except making sure that you were tortured, and then lying to my face that he was on it while trying to make me believe that you had run away of your own volition and obviously do not want to be found? He even had me believe that he felt guilty because he thought that it was because he did not like you that you ran away. Damn! It's not often that I'm taken for such a fool." Sebastian exploded, standing up and flinging his chair as far as he could. Jessica watched him, her mouth an 'o' of surprise. She could feel happiness begin to blossom in her at the ranting that he had just done. If he was pretending to love his wife so that his uncle could find Jessica, that means he did not really love the woman. Also, according to him, the marriage was short-term, probably based on a contract, which meant that he had been hoping to find Jessica and probably continue where they had left off.
"Calm down, Sebastian. Anyway, that is one of the reasons why I'm so afraid to show up in public. I just wanted to let you know about it."
Sebastian righted his chair and came to sit down with her again, apologizing for his behavior. "Damn that bastard to hell and back. If not for the fact that he has only a few months left to live, I would have made sure that he spends the rest of his life behind bars. As it is, the only way I can take my revenge on him is to go back home, give him a piece of my mind, and then abandon him until he dies. You don't have to be scared, Jessica. Now that I know that he was the one behind all this, he dares not touch one hair of your head again. You're safe and you're coming home with me."
"So, how did you get here?"
Jessica cast her eyes down, not knowing what to say. She had done what Charlotte had asked her to do, in that she had convinced Sebastian that it was his uncle who had arranged for her kidnap. She glanced at the place where Charlotte's bodyguard had been standing in the shadows to make sure that she does not make any funny moves, but could not make out his shadow there any longer. What the hell did this mean? Was it a trap? Before she left, they had removed the bombs that they had strapped to her body earlier and had taken off the device they were using to communicate with her, leaving only the one that allowed them to hear what she was saying with her. She sure hoped that it was not a trap, because she was about to throw all caution to the wind and take her chances. She looked around desperately for the man again but she did not see him anywhere.
"Did they follow you here? Are they watching us right now, Jessica? The people who are working for my uncle?" Sebastian asked, following her gaze with his eyes. Jessica nodded slowly, eyes wide with fear, and placing a finger against her lips, she said aloud.
"What are you talking about, Sebastian. What people? I told you that your uncle had me kidnapped, but I managed to escape. No one is holding me hostage, but I'm scared to come out in public and show my face in case they find me." She looked around again and when she still did not see the man, she quickly took off the device that she was wearing and threw it as far away from them as she could before leaning forward to whisper as quickly as she could.
"They're out here watching us. You have to call for help immediately, Sebastian. I don't want to go back with them."
Understanding dawned on Sebastian's face immediately, and he brought out his phone to send a text to his bodyguard. He had just typed a word when a shot rang out, and he watched as though in slow motion as Jessica fell, almost gracefully, from her chair to the ground beside her and remained motionless. Sebastian remained frozen in shock for a split second, and then another shot rang out, narrowly missing his face and spurring him into action immediately. He sprang up from his seat as yet another shot rang out, this one grazing his arm, and bent the table that he and Jessica had been using at an angle, using it to act as a flimsy barrier between him and Jessica and that bastard who was shooting at them. He heard the sound of a fourth shot and then everything was quiet. He picked up his phone from where it had fallen so that he could call Frank, his bodyguard, just as the phone began to ring. It was Frank who was calling and Sebastian took the call, putting it on loudspeaker so that he could tend to Jessica and answer the phone at the same time. She had been shot in her chest but was still alive and lucid. Tears of pain and sorrow were pouring down her cheek. Sebastian could hear Frank speaking into the phone, sounding out of breath as though he was running, but his focus was on Jessica, as tears began to pour down his cheeks too. No, she could not suffer all that she had suffered, only to die when she was on the brink of gaining her freedom.
"Jessica, please stay with me. I beg of you, please stay alive for me."
"They promised... They promised to release me. Why then did they shoot me? It's the device... I shouldn't have removed the device, but I did not want them to take me again." She said in bewilderment, her eyes beginning to seem vacant. She did not seem to be aware of him or anything else apart from the pain that she was feeling.
"Who are they, Jessica. Who the fuck is 'they?' They will all pay for this, I promise you, but please, try to stay awake, okay. Help is on its way."
"Charlotte... Charlotte and her bodyguards... It's them."
"Jessica, please stop talking," he begged. Each time she spoke, dark red blood spurted out of her chest, and she seemed to be losing a lot of blood.
"The sky...it's so dark..." That was the last thing she said before her eyes finally closed.