7 Years Of Love Chapter 05
I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I actually laughed at myself for still thinking about it.
But then, there he was-Dylan, standing right in front of me.
“Lori, I finally found you!
“Why did you leave without saying a word? Do you have any idea how terrified we were? I thought I’d lost you again. I’m just…
“I’m so glad you’re safe.”
Hearing him talk about “losing” me felt like a bad joke.
“Of course I’m safe,” I said. “I hired a bodyguard. Thanks for the concern, but unless there’s something else, I’m leaving.”
Serena started wheeling me around him.
He frowned, his eyes scanning my bodyguard warily.
“Why do you even have a bodyguard? And why couldn’t you handle whatever this is back home?”
I let out a short, sharp laugh.
“You tell me. If I stayed, would your beloved Mia actually let me get a prosthetic?
“I had to get away. Otherwise, you’d all accuse me of trying to steal the inheritance from her.
“What was I supposed to do? Wait for you to carry me around? Let her use my injury to secure her position in the family?”
His face went pale.
“Who… who told you that? Let me explain. Mia isn’t trying to take anything from you. She’s just insecure”
Seeing him still trying to defend her. I took a deep breath.
“Do you want the truth? Her insecurities aren’t my problem. To me, she’s just the person who took my place. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be alone in a foreign country right now.
“But since you paid me a million dollars to stop hating her, I can tolerate watching your family play happy together from a distance.”
My indifference seemed to sting him.
Tears instantly filled his eyes.
“Lori, you still resent me, don’t you? I just missed you so much back then. Your parents were suffering too. She told us…”
I raised a hand to stop him.
“If you came here just to make yourself feel better, fine. I’m not angry. That’s your business, and it has nothing to do with me anymore.”
Dylan looked at me with agony, practically begging.
“Please, come back with me. I’ll get the best specialist back home to build you a top-tier prosthetic. We can be like we used to be. I’ll make up for everything we missed, bit by bit.
“I’ll make her change her name back and send her away. You’ll be the only daughter of the Nicolson family again, and my only love.”
I scoffed, as if I’d just heard a punchline.
“Love? That’s funny. I distinctly remember you telling Amalia that you stopped caring about a ‘slut’ like me a long time ago.”
He froze, looking genuinely shocked.
“I never said that! I know everything you went through was my fault-how could I ever speak about you that way There has to be a misunderstanding. Just come back with me, and I promise I’ll clear it all up.”
He reached for me, but Serena slapped his hand away.
Before he could speak again, his phone rang.
As we moved further away, I could still hear him shouting “Impossible!” into the receiver.
Amalia had been held by bodyguards in the hospital room for twelve hours.
Dylan burst in the moment he landed, looking like he hadn’t slept at all.
“Give it to me.
The bodyguards handed over a recording they had taken while Amalia thought they were out of earshot.
“I worked so hard to delay their engagement. I don’t care how you do it, Just take that bitc away before the wedding and make sure she never comes back!
“Who cares if her leg is broken? As long as she’s in the Nicolson family, my position isn’t safe.
“I’m warning you, send her far away this time-somewhere she can never return from. Otherwise, I’ll cut off the funding for my brother, and you can pay off Dad’s gambling debts yourself!
“Don’t call me ungrateful. If I hadn’t told you she was alone back then, where would you have found a woman for my brother? If I hadn’t gotten into the Nicolson family, where would you get your money?”
As the recording ended, panic washed over Amalia.
Before she could even speak, Dylan struck her with a punch, and she tumbled to the floor.
Dylan gripped her collar tightly, his eyes red and furious, looking like he wanted to kill her.
“It was you… You did that on purpose? Amalia, you monster!”
“Dyl, please don’t! You’re scaring me!”
Dylan thought about how Lorelei must have begged just like this, while he was busy getting close to the very person responsible for her suffering.
The realization sent a crushing pain through his chest.
The veins stood out on his hands as he choked her.
“What else have you been hiding? You were always claiming Lori was targeting you, but you were just manipulating us into driving her away.”
Amalia trembled violently.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for it to go this far. I just loved you so much that I made a mistake.
“Please don’t tell Mom and Dad. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again!”
Looking at her innocent face, Dylan felt a murderous rage.
“You have no right to call them that. They are Lori’s parents, not yours! If it weren’t for you, Lori wouldn’t have gone through any of this.
“Do you know who gets treated the worst in prison? Human traffickers. You don’t deserve the Nicolson name. Amalia, I’m going to make you pay for this.”
The bodyguards stepped in to stop him, then revealed that she had also been bribing the servants to mistreat Lorelei.
Amalia shook and sobbed uncontrollably.
Dylan, blind with rage, made a call, and the police arrived shortly after.
At first, Amalia tried to play dumb, claiming she was being slandered.
But when she saw the cold look in Dylan’s eyes, she dropped the act.
“So what if I did it? You were careless. You favored me over her. That’s the only reason I even had the chance!
“Don’t blame me. You brought this on yourself. Dylan, you deserve this! Sending me to prison won’t change anything. She will never forgive you.
“In her eyes, you’re the one who abandoned her and ruined her life!”
Tessa and her husband, Bradford Nicolson, rushed to the police station.
When they heard the truth about what had happened years ago, Bradford fainted on the spot.
Tessa stared at Amalia, unable to process what she was hearing.
She vomited a mouthful of blood.
“What have we done? We brought a criminal into our home and treated her like family. My daughter… I drove my own daughter away.”
