Page 88 of Nothing Without You
He took a deep breath. “Fourteen years ago, Adelaide’s parents died.”
Yeah, I fucking knew that.
“In a plane crash that was planned by Eda.”
I wentstill.
“What do you mean it was planned by Eda?”
“Let’s stop this here for now, I’ll show you the files in a couple of days. We can talk about it?—”
“Howis Eda behind a fucking plane crash?”
Rowlen rubbed the space between his brows. “According to their private jet records, a stall strip was loose, but they couldn’t do anything about it since Laura and Ralph were eager to get home because Eda called them with an emergency. It fell off while they were landing in New York, and it ruptured a fuel tank which caused the plane to explode.”
“I can only assume for now, but Harry Samuels called 911 three minutes before the explosion happened.”
Harry Samuels was Eda’s assistant at the time. All of it made fucking sense.
Eomma blackmailed her by telling Adelaide’s parents, Eda got worried so she called them in haste—lying about a mishap in the business which would have forced Ralph and Laura to get on a plane as soon as possible. But if the metal strip was loose, that meant she planned it for whenever they’d return. My mother scared Eda and it changed her plans. She needed to kill them sooner to save her reputation—to remain as Starlight’s CEO.
If she meant to kill Ralph and Laura…
She also meant to kill Adelaide in that crash too.
But she failed.
Adelaide was alive and according to the will, she was meant to be the successor of Starlight.
Which Eda didn’t want. That’s why she did all of this. The emails and the money, she was preparing to send Adelaide to prison—to make her disappear off the face of this earth—putting her back into the position of CEO.
Adelaide would’ve been dead today if she didn’t comeback a day earlier than her parents. You never would have met her; you never would have fallen in love. You’d live without knowing her smile, her voice, the way she closed her eyes whenever you spoke, so she’d imagine what you were saying. Adelaide Mikael would have been a stranger to your heart.
The thought made my throat constrict with thick tears and my heart shattered for Adelaide.
Another secret clung to my pericardium and began sucking away the life out of me with its sharp teeth.
“Adelaide!” Umaima’s worried tone forced this new knowledge out of my mind with the one person who spurred weakness.
Blinded, panicked, and so fucking scared.
Following the sound, I sprinted across the lawn. Eyes laser-focused on finding my wife.
I pushed past everyone to get to her.
Desperation perspired down my neck to my heart when I screamed, “Adelaide!”
My knees dug into the ground when I cupped her cheek. “Baby, please wake up.”
Umaima started crying, “She was fine. I don’t know what happened.”
Hasan called 911, but my brain frazzled apart.
I couldn’t…
No.
I couldn’t lose her. She couldn’t leave me. Not like this.
