Green Harbor

CHAPTER 12

Cayla Villamor and Gregory Luka were sitting in the backseat. The driver looked at the rearview mirror, then at the small digital clock.

If there were any time and place perfect for revenge, it was tonight.

A few minutes before midnight, the driver slowly pulled out a small spray bottle and began spraying the chloroform on the air conditioner. Their mask prepared to block their nose. "What — What do you think you're doing?" Gregory Luka sprang forward to attack the driver, causing the car to move unsteadily.

Cayla Villamor was unconcious, her head bumping on the window beside her as the two people in front were fighting for control. The driver pulled out their small spray bottle again and aimed it right at Gregory Luka's face, right before they all crashed into a tree.

The driver got out of the car for air and realized they crashed near Green Harbor bookstore. The driver found Gregory Luka unconcious. Furious at his attack, they opened the car up and dragged Gregory inside the abandoned bookstore to finish him up. When the driver slammed Gregory Luka's body onto the floor, blood started flowing from the back of his head. And as if that wasn't enough, a knife was pierced repeatedly to where the man's heart and lungs were.

They stepped outside once they were sure he was dead and found a garden hose to clear the bookstore's floor of any footprints, their knife tucked back in their belt. The driver remembered miss Villamor was still in the car and got their phone to call their partner. "Hey. I need you to deal with Villamor here ... I know this was not how we planned it, but we don't have much time." The driver changed out of their uniform, gathered their things from Gregory's car before running away.

By the time the driver's partner arrived in the scene, they hurried into Gregory Luka's car, and carried Cayla Villamor to their's. They grabbed their mask and tried to pull it off their face only to freeze when they spotted a terrified Florence Caballero in the shadows.

——

Zelena Luka stared at her laptop screen. Betrayal. It was the first thing she felt, and she knows she had no right. That night, when she listened to Cayla reading that diary, Zelena couldn't help but feel angry and defeated. With her sister's life on the line, with her getting used to the fact the person she had been calling her sister was her mother. With her being so careless and not keeping an eye on anything else.

The Luka Publishing House sent an email to tell her that she was banned from entering and having any kind of connections to the company.

"You look blue." Victoria's voice rang. "You okay?" She prepared coffee for them both and set them on the kitchen island.

Zelena leaned back and rubbed her eyes. "The Publishing House. Can't tell if I'm the one being ghosted or —" She shook her head. "What do I do now?"

"Cheer up, that place is old anyway. And you said you wanted to rest, did you?"

"But what about the case?"

Victoria walked back to where she was cooking. "You told me about Cayla having Mama's diary. I'm starting to think Cayla got some orders from Mama." Victoria said.

"Cayla is always like that. She has this obsession at holding everything I care about in hostage." Zelena sighed. She remembered that time at the cemetery. A Villamor buried with the Lukas.

Later, dinner was ready. They spent the entire time in the dining room, eating. Zelena listened to Victoria rambling on some things and details that can piece together the whole story of the case. A lot of them didn't make sense, but a few of her guesses caught Zelena's attention. Like how there was a possibility Cayla only got home safely because she was just an obstacle in their plan, and that it was too risky to let her stay at the site until she wakes up. Caballero could be one of Tiabella's men, but that would be impossible, that man lives away from the city.

What did Caballero mean, when he said he was being threatened by Katha? Katha knew the Green Harbor murderer, did Tiabella tell her who they were, was the murderer someone Katha cared for so much? Zelena tried to remember their cousins, high school bestfriends, fellow painters.

Victoria got up from her seat and grabbed a container with rice and food prepared inside. "I'm going to the hospital, Katha needs to have her dinner. I'll be back soon, okay? I love you. Finish your dinner."

Zelena couldn't finish her dinner. She locked the doors and windows before heading upstairs. She read posts from her readers who might have heard about Zelena being banned from her own father's publishing house. The career she had been building for over 4 years, vanished. She wondered what her father— Gregory Luka would be saying. She wondered what Katha would do to cheer her up.

It was almost midnight and Victoria wasn't home. But she received two messages. One from something called LC Publishing House...

And one from Victoria. Katha was gone, she told her.

——

Meanwhile, that exact same night, Cayla slammed her bedroom door shut behind her. She washed the blood off her hands aggressively.