THE DAYS DRAGGED SLOWLY for Margaux. Just like the other nights, she’d been twisting left and right for hours and still couldn’t sleep. Not knowing what to do anymore, she closed her eyes and stopped moving. But then, even pretending to sleep didn’t help—her mind remained restless and wide awake.
Finally giving up, she grumpily sat on her bed and grabbed her phone from the bedside table. She checked the time and instantly frowned upon seeing what was on the LCD. It was past three in the morning. Although it was still dark outside, the sun would eventually show up in more or less two hours.
‘Good job for another sleepless night, Margaux! Four in a row. What are you trying to do? Get a Guinness Record for not sleeping?’
Annoyed, she rolled her eyes before sliding out of her bed. She marched towards the mini-living room with her phone in her hand, then made a free fall onto her luxurious cream-colored couch. Soon enough, she was already checking her emails on her phone as if she hadn’t done it just a few minutes ago.
She scrolled up and down multiple times. Her inbox was choking with subscription messages, but none of them were even personal. That made her smile sardonically. It was more than evident that ‘sleep’ wasn’t the only one who abandoned her, but her papa too.
It was not that she was new to the situation; it was just that she knew that something was going on, and it was bothering her a lot. So, with her eyebrows still furrowed, she started typing angrily on her phone.
.
***
FROM: margaux.montenegro@gy.com
TO: alejandro.montenegro@montcorp.comSUBJECT: HELLO STANGER!Hello, Old Man!
If you happen to forget, my name is Margaux Montenegro, your goddamn only daughter, and heiress of the Montenegro Group. I'm still breathing, just in case you wanted to know. Would you mind sending me a fucking reply as soon as you receive this message? I'm having a hell of a sleepless night thinking about you, old man! REPLY! I don't care if you just type 'BITCH'. Send it anyway.
***
...Margaux looked up after typing her message. She could feel her eyes heating up, but then she held her tears back. Would she cry for someone who couldn’t even treat her as his own daughter?
The answer was a firm 'no.' Why would she want to do that? She doesn’t want to be like her miserable mother. In fact, she doesn’t want to need Alejandro as much either. But...
‘Damn it.’ She blinked her eyes repeatedly, then looked back at the message. One deep sigh, and she erased the rest of her email.
She rewrote:
.
.
***
FROM: margaux.montenegro@gy.com
TO: alejandro.montenegro@montcorp.com
SUBJECT: REPLY
Hi Dad,
I miss you.
I love you.
Can you please reply?
***
She then hit the send button quickly and slipped her phone into her pajama pocket. As if guilty of doing something wrong, she bolted out of the bedroom with her lips pursed. She was upset, but she dared not cry.
Instead, she found herself walking through one of their villa's dark corridors, heading to their in-house private bar. His father loved collecting vintage wine. She didn't think Alejandro would mind if she stole some bottles from his cellar. Moreover, she even felt that he wouldn't care about her at all!
.
.
.
.
ON THE OTHER HAND, Rome could feel exhaustion eating him up with every quiet step he made in that corridor.
He had been surveying the house secretly for the past couple of days and still couldn't find any clue about the Amati. So he also needed to plan his escape route from that place as soon as possible.
However, beyond his wildest idea, escaping that place would be worse than running a labyrinth. He got lost inside the villa more times than he could count. Twenty rooms, four floors, and five secret passages that all lead to wherever The house literally has even more rooms and passages than a cheap mini-hotel!
‘Damn it! I need Lucille. Someone needs to hack this villa's blueprint right now,' he thought as he kept on walking. He briefly glanced at the antique clock he passed by, and the time speeded up his steps, it was already four-thirty in the morning.
The new doctor, whom Alejandro took for him, would arrive in less than an hour.
Just like what they did to the first doctor who took care of him, the new one would be thrown like a log into his room with a paper bag over his or her head and his or her mouth shut with duct tape.
He was drafting some escape routes two days ago and thought of experimenting on Doctor Liza. He knew how desperate that woman was to escape. Being as cunning as he was, he gladly took advantage of her terror and pretended to help her. He gave her the first draft of his escape route during one of her medical visits and had her memorize a phone number.
He then strictly instructed Liza to send a message to the number he gave her once she got out. Liza didn't even hesitate a bit and agreed. Little did she know about his genuine intention for her back then. She was nothing but a guinea pig.
It would be effortless for the guards to kill someone as delicate as her. Liza would live for a few more years before Alejandro's soldiers found her again, if his draft were correct. However, if it weren't, then bad for her; she would just have to admit that life could be unpredictable.
Having been the son of a Mafia associate and raised with his life constantly on the line, Rome knew the word danger like the back of his hand and knew how the world could be just like hell to anyone. It could have been for him, too, if it wasn't for his father.
Rome was still thinking about his escape while walking through the dark corridor. He felt that his progress on this mission was too slow. He bet that his father was dying to find out how far he was with the task now.
‘I need to find that Amati soon. This mission can’t last any longer— Damn!’ His thoughts were cut off when a shadow suddenly came out of one of the rooms there and grabbed his shirt from behind.
Thinking that it was one of the guards who caught him spying, his defenses went on autopilot and immediately attacked it. Everything happened too fast, and the next thing heard in the corridor was a loud, echoing thud.
Still murderous, he straddled the shadow on the floor and grabbed it by the neck. He felt that it tried to hold him, but he, being stronger than it, didn't even budge an inch. He turned a deaf ear to it when he heard it choking for air since he aimed to kill it. Quickly and cleanly if possible.
He couldn't just leave any evidence about what he was about to do in the first place.
"Amber... you're crashing my boobsh..."
'W-what?' Rome's muscles instantly tensed upon hearing that slurry-choking voice. He blinked his eyes a couple of times, trying to recognize who was under him. Nonetheless, he maintained his killing stance as he digested what he heard. Did he really just hear boobs?
"Amber... I can't breathe. You're squishing my breast!"
That was when his fingers loosened around the shadow's neck but didn't let go. His mind was reeling hard. Who was Amber? Why was it calling him Amber?
He let his enemy gasp and cough for air. One of his strong hands was still around its neck, ready to snap it, while the other pinned its body to the ground. He focused on its voice, trying to distinguish it as much as he could.
"Thatsh a lot better." He heard it sigh in relief, followed by a loud hiccup.
"What the hell."
"If you are going to grope my breash, then at least grope it right, Amber!"
Before he could even anticipate what it would do next, a soft palm had already wrapped around his hand, which was pinning it, and started guiding his palm into a slow rubbing motion.
He was not the type of person who gets shocked quickly, but at that time, he was suddenly at a loss. Then, recovering from the initial shock, his mind began to scream, 'God! Tell me she isn't who I think she is. Please tell me she isn't this...'
"Amber?"
"Margaux?" He voiced out the first name that popped into his mind.
"Yes, what is it, Amber?
He closed his eyes tightly. It was just then that he realized what a soft, sinful part of her was under his hard hand, and he blurted aloud, "Damn!"
"OH..." MARGAUX’S MOAN SOUNDED THROATY upon waking up. Her head felt like it was breaking, and she surely knew why. Getting hangovers wasn’t foreign to her since she studied in New York City. In fact, there had been numerous times when she came home crawling from wild college nights.‘Argh! Did I really drink that much?’ she asked before yawning and pulling her quilt up. The soft mattress under her was heavenly against her aching back. Furthermore, it had this delightful scent, urging her to bury her face in the sheets more. It smelled like menthol shampoo — fresh.Wanting to sleep some more, Margaux tried to curl her body into her favorite fetal position. However, her back and chest immediately ached as soon as she rolled to her side. Thinking that the pain was just due to an upcoming monthly period, one of her hands unconsciously groped at her swollen breast."Good morning, cara mia.""Good morning too, caro— Shit!" Margaux’s back sprung abruptly out of bed. Her view immediately spu
WHAT DID SHE JUST CALL ME?’ Rome froze while staring at the door. He wasn’t the type to be easily surprised by anything. But then, Margaux has been proving herself exceptional at it since last night.Smirking, he shook his head bemusedly and laughed. ‘Crazy woman.’ He didn’t lie to her when he said that she was still a virgin. The truth is, she was still technically a virgin until now.Thinking about what happened between them, he rested his back on the couch and closed his eyes. Then he cursed her name over and over inside his head after everything came rushing back to him like a tidal wave.At thirty, Rome had already seen and bedded more than enough beautiful women. None of them ever made him as hungry for sex as Margaux did, though.Women were nothing but cheap, disposable items to him. He used them once, and then he trashed them. But Margaux was like an expensive wine that not many people could afford. She was the perfect mix of innocence and wildness.Her lips tasted divine. T
IT WAS ALREADY PAST EIGHT IN THE EVENING when Margaux stepped out of their villa. She had been grumpy the whole day. Her phone was missing, and she couldn't find it no matter how hard she looked.To be honest, losing the phone was nothing. She could always ask Alberta or any of their guards to get her a replacement whenever she wanted.However, she was waiting for a critical phone call. What if Alejandro suddenly remembered that he had a daughter who was waiting for him to explain everything he was up to?'Dream on!' She rolled her eyes.Soon enough, she reached the hilltop where her treehouse was. She was still frowning when she dropped her bag on the ground and gave the whole place a slow once-over. She wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be anyone present when she vented her frustrations.She then knelt in front of her bag and pulled out a bottle of chardonnay. She opened it and drank straight from the bottle, like a superb drunkard.Getting her fill, she slipped the wine back
MARGAUX'S BACK BOUNCED against her bed after she made a free fall. She remained to stare at the ceiling for a while, as if waiting for something to appear there. Letting out a breath, she then pursed her lips while thinking, ‘Who the hell are you?’She had wasted her whole day surfing all the social sites she knew about: Facebook, WeChat, Instagram, etc.Her curiosity about Rome was ticking inside her like a time bomb. Still, she didn’t have the guts to ask him questions directly either. Instead, she opted to stalk him online, hoping that there was any information about him readily available. Her efforts ended up being useless. Finding anything about Rome was like finding a needle in a stack of hay— it was like the man didn’t exist at all.Rolling to her belly, Margaux reached for her laptop and started typing again. She badly wanted to know him. Moreover, find out about his connection to her father.She typed his name on the search engine for the nth time and waited for a few seconds
A FEW MINUTES AFTER she argued with Rome, Margaux found herself sitting in their living room. Her mind was a mess. She thought that both Rome’s and Alberta’s reactions were weird. However, she didn’t want to deal with them now that Greg was here."What are you doing here?" She spat, giving the man before her a disdained look.She had always known Greg to be a neat-to-the-dot type of guy. Thus, she almost didn’t recognize him when she came into their living room. He was outright messy today— a wrinkled shirt, a tired face, and unruly hair. No wonder Rome called him garbage."I came for you." Greg’s voice was low when he answered. He then pushed the box of roses across the coffee table toward her.Following the box with her eyes, Margaux faked a laugh and then turned back at him. "Aren’t you supposed to save those for my burial?""What the hell are you saying?! You’re my girlfriend, Margaux!" Greg’s fist banged on the table between them. Then he stood up and started pacing back and fort
ROME WAS ALREADY ON HIS WAY BACK when his body stopped pacing in the air vent. He then shook his head a couple of times when Margaux's name started ringing in his head... again.He was still annoyed with the woman, and he was trying to minimize his contact with her. However, how could he do that if he couldn't even think of anything else but her?Just a glimpse of Margaux shouldn't be that bad, right? He has no plan to do anything more than just look at her anyway. He should be okay— he better be. 'Darn.’ Rome was still frowning when he turned to his cara's room. He had no words to describe the need taking over him, but it was more than enough to keep him moving through that tunnel.He was eerily quiet when he stopped by the mesh-covered opening just above Margaux’s room. It had been forty minutes since he last checked on her. Trying to sense what she was doing, he closed his eyes and focused all his attention on what was going on inside her room.'Holy fuck?’ Rome’s eyes fluttered i
"SO WHATS THIS GAME CALLED? Who Wants to Be the Next Corpse?" What Alberta said made Margaux briefly pause from sipping her coffee. Shifting her attention to the older woman occupying the main seat of their table, she frowned, then turned to the man who was silently eating breakfast across from her.Romes calmness about the situation was unnerving. How could he act so casually while Alberta was pulverizing them both?Margaux raised an eyebrow and stared at him even more sternly. It was never in her wildest expectations that Rome would suddenly look up at her and catch her glaring at him.'Shit!' She quickly bowed her head and went back to drinking her coffee. Then, covering the embarrassment that made her blush, she straightened her back and continued eating her meal."What’s wrong with you two?!"Margaux’s and Rome’s plates shook when Alberta hit the table with her hand. And as if it wasn’t enough, the old woman began banging the table successively, causing their utensils to dance t
MARGAUX'S MOVEMENTS WENT WILDER as the music continued. The club was having a rave party tonight, and everybody's emotions were on fire!The lights were blinking, and the smoke covering the place felt like boring holes in her lungs. The floor was swaying, and she could smell the mixed scent of different bodies squeezing with her while dancing through the ear-deafening music.It was dizzying to the hilt, but she wanted it! She needed it!After a few more minutes of power dancing, Margaux started feeling tired. Drunk and a bit high on trip, she pushed whoever was blocking her way. She didn't care about who or how big the body was or if what she did hurt anyone.She was half-witted when she managed to reach the bar and sluggishly hang herself on the smooth table. She gave a sluggish smile to the bartender, then raised four of her fingers. "I nyid my third shot.""Madam, that's your fourth.""My third!" she snapped, with a sudden change in her tone. Her eyes were droopy when she raised on