Page 59 of Red Velvet

Fuck, I need to know.

Greg and Damon have stopped to tear my attention back to them, and when I come to, shaking away the diverting thoughts, they’re in the process of clearing the table.

"We're grabbing a coffee," Greg informs me. "You can join us or keep dwelling on whatever it is that's keeping you so fucking occupied."

"Bet it's a woman," Damon adds, his look a little too knowing for comfort.

My brother snorts. "Well that would be a new one."

I rise from my chair, about to defend myself, when we're interrupted by a commotion outside our meeting room.

Hurried steps and muffled female voices catch our attention, causing all our heads to turn toward the door. It opens swiftly and two faces appear, adorned with the same blonde hair but very different expressions.

Chapter 32

Lila

"Lila? What are you doing here?"

My sister's baffled expression greets me on the screen of her video intercom as I stand in front of her new home's gate like a lost idiot.

I'm just about to speak when she opens the gate right away. "Come in, come in!"

I've only been here twice since she and Damon moved, exchanging their penthouse in the city for a mansion in the suburbs, something Elene always swore she'd never do. Just like she said she'd never go to college just because it was expected of her. But now she's attending a design school downtown and working on her bachelor's degree. Her exams are coming up soon, which is why I knew she'd be home studying this afternoon.

She was the only person I could think of, the one person I should’ve talked to about all of this a long time ago. Still, I don't have the words ready when I reach the steps and she dashes toward me, wearing a light summer dress that flutters in the wind as she approaches me with wide arms.

"Is everything okay? Are you okay? What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry, I just had to—" I start before I'm cut off by my own tears, no longer able to suppress the urge to cry.

"Oh my God, Lila…."

Elene wraps her arms around me, hugging me while I burst through the first wave of wailing that washes over me in violent crests. We just stand there, my younger sister holding me, supporting me for as long as I need to calm down and manage to unwrap myself from her comforting embrace.

"I'm sorry," I repeat. "I didn't want to scare you or anything."

She lets out a helpless chuckle. "Well to be honest, you're scaring me a little bit here. What's wrong? Why didn't you call?"

And just like that, with that simple question, my sorrow is replaced with a different emotion, one that’s just as brutal in its intensity but is external rather than focusing on my own desperation.

I'm furious.

"I didn't call because I can't," I say through gnashing teeth. "Because he took my phone!"

"Who took your phone?"

"Jim! Jim stole my phone, and now he's trying to blackmail me and threatening to expose all this stuff about us if I don't stop seeing Kade and—"

"Whoa, hold on!" Elene stops me, raising both hands with the palms facing me. "You gotta slow down here. Come on, let's go inside first."

I nod, biting my lower lip as it starts trembling when a new rush of tears threatens to force its way down my face. I don't want to cry. I'm not one to weep easily. Even when I broke up with Jim, he was the one who shed most of the tears, as all our hopes and plans came crushing down when I broke up with him.

I follow Elene inside, my shoulders up to my ears as we walk through the massive entrance hall of her extravagant home. Various knickknacks and some pictures from her old apartment line the walls, but it still feels so foreign and strange to me. It's hard to believe that my sister is now a true member of this upscale environment, a world that’s so different to the one we grew up in. I know she’s struggling with it, because she still doesn’t feel like she belongs, and her past is casting an unwelcome shadow over her new life, but none of that is palpable as she guides me through her home.

"Sit wherever you want," she says as we reach the vast living room connected to an open kitchen that’s bigger than my living room and bedroom combined. I wonder if Kade lives in such a place. Or maybe a penthouse like the one Elene and Damon used to call home before moving here. I wonder why he's never taken me to his home.

Maybe it would’ve just been a matter of time…

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