HOW YOU LIKE THAT | JENLISA

Chapter 54

Jennie

I couldn't concentrate on anything for the entire day. I kept seeing that horrible imagery of the four dead bodies in a circle, staring blankly ahead.

By dinner time my appetite was completely gone. I couldn't eat the lamb chops without thinking of the goat's head stitched onto Taehyung's head. Nichkhun eyed me curiously, but didn't say a word.

It was hard to read his expressions as he'd mastered the art of keeping his poker face expressions. If he knew that I'd listened to their conversation, he didn't let it show. Same goes for Sorn.

They spoke softly about business. Lucas was busy shovelling the food down his throat like he was an escaped prisoner who'd just discovered quality food. Bambam, as usual, looked bored and texted under the table.

"What do you think, Jen?" Nichkhun asked me.

"Sorry, I didn't hear what you said."

"I asked if you would be interested in showing up at the next company board meeting? We're launching our new cosmetic brand."

"What would I do at a board meeting?"

Sorn laughed, "You're wife to the Manoban family's eldest grandchild, Jen. You're a Manoban now. Since Lisa wouldn't be able to take part in the board meetings, you can have her seat. If we think that you're capable, we'll even consider handing over the brand to you. That's what Lisa would have wanted for her wife."

"It must be boring to stay cooped up in the mansion. It's an excellent opportunity for you to learn the operations of the company."

This was a little too much for me to process. They wanted me to join the company board meeting?

"That's a lot of responsibility, but it sounds great."

It sounded too good to be true.

But looking at the two of them, I didn't think that they were giving me a choice to refuse their offer. They wanted me on board, for whatever sick reason of theirs.

No one in this family was perfect. Nichkhun liked to drown himself in bottles of liquor and brought countless prostitutes home. Sorn was as perfect as she appeared to the public eye, only she wasn't. She sneaked in male escorts into her room, sometimes three at one time, and I'm sure it was a nice big perverted party. I was no one to judge. The siblings had peculiar tastes. The other day, I'd seen one of the other stable boys, the nice looking one called Josh, who was also sweet and respectful, unlike Taehyung. Anyway, one time after midnight, I'd run out of water bottles from the mini-refrigerator so I'd gone downstairs to the kitchen myself.

And regretted it terribly.

There was Sorn and Josh enjoying themselves, fucking each other wildly on the kitchen counter. Sorn could fuck the stable boys, the gardeners, or anyone else for all I cared. I know Bambam had walked in after me with Air Pods in one ear, picked up a bottle of chilled latte, and walked out like what was happening in the pantry was totally normal.

Before going to bed, I went to Bambam's room. He was the only person in this house that I trusted apart from Lisa. And we'd become great friends despite our age difference.

I knocked on his door. "Bambam, it's me, Jen."

"Come on in, Jen."

I entered the room. I rarely visited Bambam's bedroom. It was a typical room for a teen boy. He had a floor to ceiling display of action figures, a black guitar was in the corner, with posters of heavy metal bands on the wall, and the furniture was dark wood, carved and custom made.

"You can't tell this to anybody." I said.

He closed his book and turned to look at me, "What can't I tell anybody?"

"What I'm about to tell you."

He nodded. "Ok. Your secret is safe with me."

I paced around the room.

His brown eyes twinkled as he grinned. "Okay, you need to calm down first and tell me what happened."

I explained to him about what I'd heard Nichkhun saying, that he'd planned to kill Lisa, followed by the discovery of the secret passage and the bodies on the pentagram. I left out the part where I realised one body belonged to Taehyung because then I would have to explain how Lisa had accidentally killed the stable boy.

Bambam stared at me and then burst out laughing. "Ok Jen, that's a nice joke. Twisted but a little too early for Halloween ok."

"I'm not joking, Bambam. I wouldn't have come to your room right now if I was not serious."

"First off, Nichkhun is probably just screwing with you. He wouldn't kill Lisa. Second, there's no way that they would keep the bodies in the house. Accidents on the property are taken care of. We, Manobans excel in cover-ups. Our family has the detectives and the police department under our thumbs."

I hated how he said ′our′ and that included me in the family. I hated that I was a part of this screwed up family that labelled cold-blooded murders as simply accidents.

"Nichkhun or Sorn are doing these satanic rituals! I know it!"

Bambam shook his head, "That's not possible, Jen! Stop saying that shit!"

"So, how do you explain it? Are you saying that I'm making this all up?"

He ran his hand through his hair, while staring into the distance, and then the realisation hit him as he froze. There was unadulterated fear clear in his eyes. "Grandpa Marco Snr." He whispered.

"What about him?" I asked.

"He was the one who used to practise the satanic rituals until he lost his memories. Lisa can't remember shit either, Lucas is too young for all of this unless..." he swallowed.

"Unless?"

I knew that I would not like the answer to it.

"Unless Grandpa has chosen Nichkhun to carry out what he started, the body count won't stop at four." He tapped his fingers on the desk, and he was visibly shaking. "We will end up dying, Jen. Every single one of us."

"How do we stop him?"

Bambam stared straight into my eyes. "We can't. Only Lisa can stop him, but for that, we need to wake her up first. Make her remember."