Chapter 45
2179words
At the pack party, which I now genuinely wish had not attended, Sebastian, was brought up, and there were some who knew he was Kate's cousin, and having to deal with them was an absolute nightmare.
"I saw the videos on television, the guy is an absolute lunatic." one person said, and although the comment was directed at me, possibly in hopes that I would have something to say about the whole thing, I found silence to be a great tool, and wielded it strongly.
"I heard the guy is Kate's cousin. Paris, is this true?" Now, this was a question, aimed at me directly, and it was seemingly impossible to simply ignore it. Although I would have loved to.
"he is, I suppose," I said nonchalantly, in the hope that they would get the hint that I was in no mood to talk, much less about this topic, and would simply drop it.
But jokes on me.
"Do you think it's true, what the media is saying? That Kate has a hand in this? She's simply just trying to take out Ember totally?" the woman implored and I ran a hand over my hair, prepared to tell her to leave me alone, but someone else spoke up, and all of my resolve washed away,
"I think it's true. I understand Ember and Miss Kate aren't on good terms. With all I know, I think Ember had really all of this coming. I hear she's a great pain to miss Kate, regardless of Miss Kate always doing her best to remain graceful."
"Ember isn’t a pain." I found myself saying, "She didn't do anything that would warrant being treated this way. So, she never really had anything coming for her. You shouldn't talk about things you don't know and are not certain of." I finished abruptly, and yes, heatedly, so much so that I had every eye on me.
Suddenly feeling self-conscious of the fact that I had spoken up even after trying so hard to stay quiet, I got up from the table, "Excuse me." I said and left with no actual place in mind. I knew I just had to leave.
I found myself outside gulping for fresh air, and was good on my own until one of the pack elders who I was particularly close to joined me,
He had a glass of wine and a kind smile and offered me both,
"thought you would need this," he said, offering me the glass.
"Thank you," I said, taking the glass and sipping from it,
"they don’t feel too good about irritating you the way they did."
"it's… just forget it. I'm fine."
"are you?" He asked and looked at me intently, "you seem to have your heart in your eyes. You defended her back there in a way I hadn't seen before. It makes me wonder if maybe you still feel something for her."
I still felt a lot of things for her. But that was a conversation I had to thread upon lightly,
"Well, I just-" but whatever I had in mind to say was cut off by the sound of the man's phone ringing.
EMBER'S POV
It wasn't enough that Sebastian had tried to defame me. He had also gone out of his way to kidnap me, and that was simply the craziest part.
No, the craziest part was the fact that if Paris had not found me, the son of a gun might have done whatever it was he pleased with me. And that wasn't something I could just let go of.
And if for a moment, he deluded himself with the idea that I was simply going to crawl under my duvet and cry in fear, he was sadly mistaken.
So once the wolfsbane was completely out of my system, and I felt more like myself, with William's help, I was able to send the son of a gun to court, where the tides rolled in my favor, and at long last Sebastian ended up in jail.
The look in his eyes when they took him away in cuffs, told me he had not seen that coming. And I was very pleased with my win.
Two days later, I got a call from an unknown number. Now, with everything I have been through lately, you would think that I would know better than to willingly accept calls from unknown numbers. And I did though. It's just that, the nature of my work, and also with this new project that I had begun, it was sometimes normal to get calls from unknown numbers.
But this time was different.
"ember?!" The man called out my name aggressively, and in spite of his tone, I thought he sounded quite familiar. And that was the only reason I simply did not hang up.
"Who is this?" I asked with irritation."
"the father of the young man you put in jail, dammit!"
Oh.
"What do you want?" I asked blandly, promising myself only one minute. One minute and I was done with this call.
"What do you mean what do I want? You had the audacity to send my son to jail! Girl, just know that you're in a lot of trouble!"
"You don't have a hard time wagging your tongue now. But where were you when he was terrorizing me? Where were you when he kidnapped me? Yet, you still have the audacity to call me, barking mad. Don't you ever try this again?" I said and ended the call angrily.
"the son of a gun. His audacity."
He called again, with that same unknown number and I immediately blacklisted his number. But somewhere at the back of my mind, I knew that it wasn't over. Because men like that, didn’t have a good sense of right and wrong.
I saw some of the lack of sense of right and wrong play out when I went to the construction site for the new project the next day.
Where there should have been the sound of drills, and of men hard at labor, I found only a few men running around doing the work they had been assigned to. At least I hoped it was their work they were doing.
The rest of the men lunged around, and basked in the cool morning breeze,
"Is it not too early to be resting this way?" I asked angrily when I woke one man who had been asleep,
"What a pretty lass, and what's your name?" he asked sleepily and I had to fight the urge to slap him,
"the one who's going to make sure you don't get paid for anything. Get your lazy arse off that pallet and get back to work!" I yelled, and turned to the rest of the men who lounged, doing nothing, "are you all deaf?" I said, "Get back to work."
There were murmurs and whispers, but the men began to stand from where they lounged.
I turned away from them haughtily to go examine the work they had done.
They'd barely gone anywhere, and I only found more restful workers. I was pained down to my very core, but I got it all on video. I couldn't imagine that this level of inadequacy happened in my society.
"What is the meaning of this? You all have barely gotten anything done, and still, you are all just resting."
"calm the hell down, miss, we'll go back to work. There's no need to yell this way." one of the foremen said and I gritted my teeth,
"I've gotten all your rubbish on camera. If this continues, and so much as escalates, you can be sure that I'm going to put this online for the whole world to see, let's see whose side they take. Let's see if you're still laidback once you've been ridiculed by the public."
"you're doing too much miss." the man said angrily and I raised a brow,
"you think so?" I asked, and saw that other workers had drawn closer,
"This is a very serious project. Too serious for this level of effort you all are putting in. so if you feel you no longer wish to work here, hand in your construction, helmets, and tools and get the hell out."
I watched as some men took off their helmets and tossed them to the ground. I suppose that was them making their choices.
"you won't find better men." the foreman said and tossed away his helmet as well.
"I truly doubt that," I said and watched as he and the other men began to leave. When they were all gone, I looked around to still find eyes on me. And I was surprised that there were men who had stayed,
"you all aren't going?" I asked, a bit more calmly and watched as they shifted from side to side.
"then get back to work. And I won't tolerate the level of idleness I encountered this morning!" there were grunts and "ayes" and I took that as the only response I needed.
There was one foreman who stayed behind when the other men went back to work and I watched him as he approached him, "I must apologize for the state of things you encountered this morning. Truth is, it's not always like this. It's only recently that two men came over and riled everyone up. Made them lax, and unwilling to do much. There are still others who did their work, but some were being influenced by others."
"I noticed the ones who worked. Get me their names if you can. I'd like to give them a bonus. Also, do you think you can give me the identity of the men that riled up the others?"
He shook his head, "Not names. But I have pictures." he dug out his phone and showed me pictures of the two men who wanted to destroy my plans, and my blood curled.
It was none other than Sebastian and his father.
Those two were to beware of me. By the time I was done with them, they were going to wish they never crossed my path.
I had dinner with William. We had been doing that more often lately, and I kept him up to date with all there was in my life. Especially the whole thing with the construction workers.
"Now what will be their gain, when their instigator is in prison?"
"I don't know. Maybe he plans on settling them one way or another. They are not really my business anymore."
"They aren't, but I still say, be careful. Those two are not right in the head."
"I will. I said and reached out to take his hand, pressed it to his cheek, "Thank you for always being a good friend."
"You don't have to thank me. You know there's really not much I wouldn't do for you. You matter a lot."
I smiled up at him and quickly grew sober when I remembered something I couldn’t believe I had forgotten to tell him,
“Sebastian and his father– one of them– or perhaps the both of them, they had a good time harassing my workers. At least, the ones who they noticed were unwilling to go along with their plans to be laxed. They got some workers to bully them while they worked. It makes me so mad to think about it.”
“Makes me so angry simply hearing about it.” William said, and I shrugged,
“ I’ve made sure to give the police that little bit of information, and perhaps I’ve paid a little song bird to tell that tale…” I said smiling up at William, “word I’m getting is that a lot of people who do business with their family don’t want to have anything to do with them lately.”
“You’re very sneaky.” He teased.
"I know," I said and slowly let go of his hand, but he reached out and took mine,
"then you also know that I wish to be more than friends, right?"
"I have thought about it off and on," I said and he nodded, and looked at our empty plates,
"like to go for a walk?"
I nodded happily and got up. Followed him outside
"I don't mean to rush you," he said, once we were outside, and I looked up at him,
"I don't feel rushed at all. Don't worry."
"Then perhaps, it would be okay to ask if you would consider little old me at least once your divorce with Paris is over and you feel a whole lot settled."
"William, I-" but I was cut off by sharp pain that sliced through me, and made me stagger,
"Ember?" William called out, holding on to me.
I felt the pain, but then the pain didn’t exactly feel like mine. There was only one person who was in my head at that point and I believed he was in a lot of danger,
"Paris" I cried, as another wave of pain coursed through me, and this time, I passed out.
