Four

Walking into his quiet house, Alec King wonders if Tiffany is asleep. She’s been sleeping a lot lately, and he doesn’t blame her. She’s creating a life inside her, a baby that he can’t wait to meet so he can spoil.

Alec walks into his huge kitchen first, enjoying how spotless the maids have left it, and secures Tiffany’s favorite icecream into the freezer. His soulders ache from the long day of meetings he had, reminding him that he is no longer used to spending multiple hours out the confinement of his home. Even though every now and then he has to attend some meetings with the companies he invests his money in, Alec still can’t deny that he misses the outdoors and the free life he had once enjoyed living.

But after years and years of disappointment and heartache, of loving friends like they were his siblings, only to realize that all they cared about was his money and wealth, Alec has found himself safer and happier away from people.

Until he met Tiffany two and a half years ago, and she showed him how little she cares about his money, and how greatly she cares about him. Making his way through the large house, Alec quietly walks up the stairs, enjoying the scent of the bouquet of fresh roses in his hands. He has always loved all kinds of flowers, and their unique respective scents. His all time favorite, however, will always be the cherry blossom.

A smile makes its way onto his lips while a memory of a twelve year old boy, running through the wide garden, plays behind his eyes. The boy is laughing, playing in the sun, while his grandmother tends to the enormous cherryblossom tree that was her favorite. The boy’s parents walk into the garden, with wide smiles on their faces, before they start chasing the joyful little boy. The happy scene fades from Alec’s mind the second Tiffany’s voice reaches his ears, instantly stopping him from entering his office.

“Marcus, we’ve been through this a hundred times!” Tiffany yells through the phone, her voice loud and clear. “I’m doing my part of the plan! He thinks the baby is his, and he’ll propose soon. He is desperate to start a family of his own.” Alec’s heart stops its pounding inside his chest, and his whole body turns ice cold at the realization that Tiffany is cheating on him with Marcus, her ex boyfriend, who is a cop that she pretended to absolutely loathe whenfilec first met her.

But Alec didn’t know that the betrayal swimming in his veins by her words is nothing compared to the absolute rage that will fill him the more she speaks.

“Once he does propose, I’ll tell him that I want to get married as soon as possible, that I don’t want to wait after the baby arrives.” Tiffany says, her voice dipped in venom that is new to Alec’s ears. “He won’t say no to me.”

Alec leans on the wall, hurt and confused and unable to connect the dots just yet.

“How are you so fucking sure that he’ll propse, Tiff?” Marcus’s loud voice booms, and for a second Alec’s heart jumps inside his chest, thinking that he’s right in there with her, but his mind works fast enough to comprehend that he’s just on speaker.

“I told you last night I saw the damn ring in his safe!” Tiffany yells. Alec frowns, well aware that he never actually told her the code to his safe.

“Look, it’s only a matter of time now, okay?” She calms down, lowering her voice just a little. “Before the baby is born, this whole thing will be over. But once we do tie the knot, my part is done, Marcus. You get to do whatever the hell you want with Alec, but I won’t do anything more than that." Alec tries his hardest to comprehend every word she’s saying, already questioning Marcus’s intentions as well. Tiffany decides to give Alec all the answers she doesn’t know he needs. “You can Kill him whenever and wherever you please, but I will not be an accomplice to it, you hear me? I won’t get involved in your part.” The blood in Alec's veins freezes. They planned to murder him, and he can already guess why.

“And after he’s dead, his money, his shares in all those companies, his house, the cabin, even the cars will be ours.” Tiffany’s voice is filled with a disturbing amount of excitement that has Alec shutting his eyes tightly. “Everything will be ours, Marcus. All you have to do now is wait.”

Alec should’ve known better. He spent years in isolation, doing most of his work from home and refusing to let himself get fooled by more money-hungry people. He is the exact kind of rich that has all kinds of manipulative, wicked people sneaking their ways into his life and heart. He knows that, and he has learnt it the hard way.

But before he blames himself anymore, he remembers how well Tiffany had played her role. For a whole year, she pretended that she couldn’t care less about his money. She had managed to look totally unimpressed whenever he got her a gift that was a little too expensive, or take her out on a dinner too fancy. She didn’t even care to drive any of the cars he was both obsessed with and proud of. Hearing her now talking about how she’s literally waiting to marry him just so she can off him with the help of her police officer ex boyfriend, just so she can inherent everything he owns, makes him feel nothing but absolute blinding fury.

And so Alec lets his anger and pride overrule his logic and intelligence, and he does the grave mistake of choosing to confront her.

He pushes the door to his office open with enough force to have Tiffany jumping from her seat with a loud gasp. She freezes in both fear and shock the second her eyes catch his, and she already knows he has heard everything he wasn’t supposed to. He strides forward, erasing the distance between them, before grabbing her phone and throwing it across the room. The object cracks into the wall and falls to the ground in shattered pieces.

"Alec,” Tiffany begins carefully, keeping her voice low and soft, as if she’s trying to tame a beast. He grabs her arm in his grasp, hard enough to have her wincing.

“You don’t get to say another fucking word.” Silently dragging her down the stairs, Alec is careful enough to make sure she doesn’t trip, even though he wishes for nothing more than to see her meeting the fate she has so viciously decided for him. But he knows she’s pregnant, and even if the baby isn’t his, it is still nothing but an innocent soul that he wouldn’t harm.

“Alec, I can explain.” Tiffany cries, her cheeks already wet with tears that are as fake as her love for him.

“Good, because you’re gonna explain everything to the damn cops.” Alec sneers, finally pulling the front door of his house open, and continues to drag her all the way to his iron gate. The few security guards that are scattered around the premises watch silently as their boss pulls the gate open, the woman he has a hold on screaming for a chance, begging for forgiveness.

Alec shoves Tiffany out of his house, and his life, shutting the gate before she has a chance to regain her footing and march toward him. Leaving her wailing behind, he calls for the head of his security, an old man who he dearly loves and considers a father after his own had passed. “Vasquez!” Alec’s voice is full with rage that has the old man running out of his cabin to meet him.

“Son?” The old man furrows his eyebrows, his eyes filled with worry and conern as he looks between the boy he has helped raise and his girlfriend. Vasquez can still remember vividly how excited Alec was just a week ago to show him the ring he has bought for her.

“She’s no longer allowed to set a fucking foot inside the premises, you hear me?!” Alec’s anger isn’t directed at the old man, and so Vasquez quickly nods his head.

“Consider it done.” He speaks firmly.

Feeling like he can destroy anything that dares to come in contact with his clenched fists, Alec wisely chooses to walk back inside his house and grab a drink to calm down enough to figure out his next move. Three drinks later, and not even a little calmer than before, Alec decides to contact his lawyer first thing in the morning, seeing how it’s already past midnight.

He keeps pacing the marble floors of his living room, thinking over and over of all the signs he had missed, of how stupid he believes he is to have so blindly believed Tiffany. And he was willing to marry her, about to seal his own fate and have her and her rotten cop of a boyfriend enjoy the money he, and his family, spent years working hard for. Feeling overwhelmed with self hatred and betrayel, Alec decides to go for a ride, one long enough to have him somewhere he hasn’t been in sixteen long years.

Without hesitation, he walks into his garage, picks the fastest of his cars and hops into his seat. Alec drives carelessly and furiously, passing a town after the other, in hopes of reaching the only home he has ever known by time to watch the sun rise over his favorite cherry blossom tree, unaware of the black vehicle that is following him in the shadows of the night. A couple of hours later, Alec finds himself calm, and early enough to pull over at a gas station that looks to be in the middle of nowhere. After filling his tank and grabbing a bottle of water, he takes a moment to breathe the chilly air of the winter.

Taking out his wallet, he walks around the gas station and toward the bathroom, stopping just long enough to raise the picture closest to his heart up to the sky, closer to the light. His grandparents smile back at him, younger than he can ever remember them, and between them stands his mother, a little girl who is barely a teenager. The love and happiness are obvious in their eyes, even though the photo is in faded colors and has been exhausted through the long fourty years or so it has lived. Their kind faces are protected from the direct sunlight but the cherry blossom tree, a fact that isn’t obvious in the picture, but one he knows by heart through the same story he had heard many times of the fateful day his young mother met her soulmate, his own father.

Alec is smiling at the picture, the only thing missing for it to be perfect is his fatjer who hadn’t yet met his lovely wife. Too engrossed in his thoughts and memories, he tucks the photo in his pocket, his ears not working sharply enough to catch the hushed footsteps of the two men who have been on his tail for hours. Before Alec can take another step towards the bathroom, someone grabs his arm, turning him around so his eyes could meet the masked faces of his attackers.

He opens his mouth, about to yell, but all that leaves his throat is a grunt in pain. One of his hands follow the piercing pain in his abdomen that threatens to split him in half, and he can already feel the blood gushing out of the stabbing wound. His eyes follow his hand, the dark red color that is painting it confirms his suspicions.

“Marcus sends his regards.” One of the men says and Alec can hear the smirk in his voice. The other pulls back his arm that ends with another sharp knife, ready to give the rich bastard another excruciatingly painful wound, but Alec’s survival instincts kick, and he finds enough strength to fight back for a second or two, skillfully dodging the sloppy attack and swatting the man’s arm away with a force that has him in need of regaining his footing.

“Fuck!” The man yells when the knife escapes his hand and falls to the cemented ground with a loud cling. “End this!” His masked partner nods, trying a smarter approach, and instead of stabbing Alec again he punches him in the temple in hopes of knocking him out long enough to be able to finish the job with no interruptions.

Alec feels himself going blind, his skull vibrating inside his head, and he knows he’s falling. Only he never thought the back of his head would make contact with the ground strongly enough to cause permanent damage.