𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭 has known only one thing for a decade-destroy everyone who betrayed her. Everyone has mistaken her silence for a weakness.
Their downfall is inevitable. With each step, ruin draws nearer.
For as long as The Underworl...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
15 years ago, June 17
You could describe this evening as sunny and lively. With mockingbirds singing in the evening. With bumblebees buzzing in Central Park.
New York City was bustling-a crowded, hectic place. One of its nicknames is The City That Never Sleeps. It couldn't be more true.
The city was full of humming people walking in and out of buildings. Talking on their phones, seeming careless to the outside world that wasn't connected to their phones.
You could hear honking from the cars that were beeping on the people passing the road while the cars were moving.
They were living their busy lives. Some were living their white-picket-fence life. And some were living their life opposite that.
The day seemed lively before it all changed. The disaster crept its way slowly, sneaking like a thief wanting to steal the bank of its secured treasure, without making noise before it was too late to do something. Anything.
The disaster hit the news and the media. Everyone old enough would remember this uneventful day.
On this day, everything changed. Someone's future changed. Someone's way of looking at life changed. Someone's ability to make life decisions changed. Many people's lives changed that day. Someone even lost their life or even more than one someone. But whose fault was it?
A twelve-year-old and a six-year-old could be the ones whose life changed drastically. Or it could be a thirty-six-year-old begging for the first time in his life for someone outside his family to spare his blood. Or it could be a thirty-four-year-old witnessing a nightmare come true in front of her eyes.
He sat on the porch steps and watched his little Azure pick flowers in her own little garden that she had planted with her father's help.
Little Azure knew she was his everything to him. They had an unexplainable bond. One you see in movies is the bond you dream of having with your father. One where you could tell him anything, from the silliest things to something serious, from what that immature little boy said to her about her sunflower dress at lunch to how his children's safety will always be his priority, that she and her sibling will always be safe. That nothing will come after them while he was alive. She always thought her dad was the silly one after these talks. To him they were important, but to her, it was yet another boring topic, something that was wasting her time, thinking that in the meantime she could've been admiring a butterfly or watering her little garden.
His petite fleur admired her first blossomed sunflower. The first flower she had planted in her little garden. Sunflowers, her favorite blossoms, are because of her father. He said, "Tu es ma petite fleur because of that beautiful smile of yours." with love and admiration in his voice. After that, she knew those would always be her favorite blossoms because she would associate them with her father. [Translation: You're my little flower]
