Empire of Deception (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter 2

Like the room we were just in, the lobby was also all white, making everyone in their black suits stick out like drops of oil in the snow. People who left the meeting a little earlier than us could now be seen being escorted into black cars, the Swann Security team making sure the pickup section was a safe place for these men of influence. 

When I noticed Zayn wasn’t walking towards the doors, my eyes swept across the room, searching for her petite stature and dark brown hair. 

She stood off in the corner by a potted plant, a stark green against the white everything else (even the lacquered pot was white). Her forehead was furrowed as she held her cell phone to her ear. Her thumb was stuck in her mouth as she nervously nibbled at it, nodding her head every so often. 

Something was wrong. 

“Yes… Thank you Camille…” she said before hanging up. 

“Is everything okay?” asks Zayn as she buries her face in her hands, roughly rubbing away her anxiety.

“Mrs. Tomlinson is calling off the investigation. It’s been four months and nothing has been resolved.”

The first tear leaked and she briskly wiped it away and nervously looked around to see if anyone was watching. 

“Between the investigation, her work and the divorce… I guess it’s a little bit too much for her right now.”

She strained a smile before it slowly broke apart and she crossed her arms, holding herself. “I don’t know what I expected, you know? I know we were all waiting for her to give up or for the authorities to say that without Niall here to testify, there wouldn’t be any leads thus nothing to go on and that is exactly what we needed but… But his mother… No. His father,” she corrected, sniffling, “Doesn’t deserve the horror of not fully knowing what happened to his son.”

It was not a surprise when I heard news of the Tomlinson divorce. After Louis’ death his father buried himself in work and grief while his mother put all of her energy into the investigation. From the moment the body was found anyone could see the large wedge that settled in-between the husband and wife, it was only a matter of time before they both gave up on each other. 

    Of course it was impossible to fully reveal what happened that night without exposing ourselves so mouths were kept shut until we actually found out who killed him, and even then it was a lying game. All questions had been successfully answered except for what he was even doing on a floor in a bank building. There was no evidence to suggest that the three of our alibi’s were false so that left the authorities with the idea that no one will ever fully know what Louis Tomlinson was doing up there that horrible night. I still remember the intense throbbing in my chest as I watched Zayn hold his friend until his respiratory system finally gave out. After a moment of loud silence Zayn said that we had to smear everything we had touched. It was a public building with tons of people who worked there so tons of fingerprints could be found. Cleaning everything would raise suspicion so instead we used our hands to distort the freshest of fingerprints—ours. 

“God I really need to stop crying,” Mia muttered as Zayn stepped forward to wrap his arms around her.