HOW YOU LIKE THAT | JENLISA

Chapter 107

Lisa

The birthday song played on the videotape on the wide screen. Nichkhun stood in the centre while cutting the cake and wearing some fancy designer outfit shipped from Venice. Sorn was on the side. They were laughing, with all their friends clapping for them.

I stood on the other side looking gangly with some loose clothes on. I was a little skinny back then, and Bambam was in my arms, while staring glazed-eyed at the towering cake and the lavish birthday party.

That was the first time that Grace Manoban noticed us and took pity on us. Bambam and I. We were born to Lorna and Chris Brüschweiler, but of course, Grace Manoban didn't know that. She thought that we were kids to a single mother, who had an abusive husband, at first. Nichkhun and Sorn were the true heirs to the multi-billion-dollar Manoban conglomerate.

I wasn't born a Manoban. I stole the name. How you like that?

Which was only possible because of years of patience, planning, and perseverance.

My father, Chris loved both women. He loved my mother Lorna Brüschweiler and Grace Manoban as well. Was that his crime? I think so. He chose Grace Manoban who was a wealthy heiress over my mother, even though he was married to my mother first.

Grace Manoban fed Bambam and I, she clothed us, gave us a roof over our heads, gave us world-class educations and finally we were adopted into the Manoban family.

The journals were fake. There were no journals written by Grace Manoban or Lorna Brüschweiler.

Bambam wrote them in a similar hand to get Jennie on our side, and I guess that he'd succeeded. He'd woven a new story, where he and I were born into the Manoban family. The facts were the same, only some things were different.

Grace Manoban was a home-wrecker. She destroyed my family, so I took everything away from her, including her prestigious family name, her wealth and the lives of her two precious children.

Chris and Lorna were only working on this property when the self-entitled Grace Manoban seduced my father on purpose and stole him from us. He remarried her with the condition that Bambam and I were included in the Manoban family. Grace Manoban accepted us with open arms despite the dislike that Sorn and Nichkhun showed to both Bambam and I, right from the very start.

And then she got jealous of my mother, Lorna because my father, Chris would always find ways to go to my mother.

The contents in the diary weren't exactly all lies, but everything was written and presented in a way that wasn't real. My mother left us at a very tender age, like exactly what was written in the diary, only it wasn't Grace Manoban, it was Lorna Brüschweiler, and I refused to believe that she had just left both Bambam and I, without even saying goodbye.

I could hear some strange sounds at night when I passed the cellar. I wanted to find out the source of the sound. I knew that something fishy was going on down there.

One night when everyone was in bed, I heard those sounds again and thinking that it was a burglar sneaking into the house, I snagged up my baseball bat and went downstairs to investigate. I stole the keys from my father's room and went downstairs. The cellar was quiet that night. A small trap-door could be seen at the foot of the stairs and I had to use all my strength to open it.

A foul odour entered my nostrils the very moment that I stepped in. It was nasty. I remembered flicking the light on and seeing a small skeleton of a person. The woman was so frail, and I couldn't recognise her to be my mother at all.

"Mom?" I'd called out to her.

She looked up, but she barely recognised me.

She'd spent years locked up in this cellar, to no one's knowledge.

Her teeth were all gone, the place stank of urine and she was sitting in her own faeces. Her face looked like she was beaten to a pulp and there were cuts all over her body. Some of her wounds were festering with maggots.

"Mom?"

She blabbered something incoherent, stared at me, and then raged, while banging her head against the wall and causing herself harm. The blood seeped profusely from her gashing head wound.

It's when I knew that she thought I was my cruel father, Chris Brüschweiler.

"Stop! Please stop!" She shrieked at the top of her lungs.

She was too far gone. My mother didn't exist anymore. They have broken her.

I'd gone back to my room and returned a few minutes later. I hugged her as she cried in frustration, while telling me something that I didn't understand. I kissed her head and assured her that everything will be fine from now on. I loved her so much and I cannot believe that there's anyone who is so evil, that can do this to a harmless woman.

"It's okay; mom. It's okay. I'll protect you. It's over now." I sobbed while holding her close to me.

I wanted to make them pay for this.

I pulled away from her, and although she was still trying to hurt me; I gave her a small smile. I gave her the satisfaction that she'd hurt my father. I don't think she remembered anything else. I pushed the pillow over her face and pressed hard. Her small body flailed, while trying to come up for air, and I cried.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry." I'd told her as I'd smothered my mother, to end her suffering.

It was quick.

Part of me had wanted to steal the gun from Chris' room and shoot him and Grace Manoban while they were sleeping. I'd stood at the entrance of their bedroom and had almost done it, but then I remembered Bambam.

I'd go to prison and then what would happen to him?

So, I went back to bed and pretended that I hadn't done what I'd did. Killed my own mother, that is.

I'd been a good kid. I'd pretended to respect Grace Manoban and my scumbag father, keeping the hate and the hunger for vengeance at bay. I let them trust me enough to hand the reigns of the company over to me. I treated them better than Nichkhun did. I did everything my scumbag father asked of me. I covered up Nichkhun's and Sorn's fuck-ups for them. I was the epitome of a dutiful child, so much that Grace Manoban nearly wished that I was her own child.

I waited.

For the right time.

For years I've waited, and then the boating accident happened. Bambam knew the accident was going to happen, and he'd helped me with it.

The Manoban family has always maintained a low profile, and that meant no pictures in the tabloids, no personal information. Grandpa Marco Snr. liked it that way, and no one had questioned his choice, and that had helped Bambam and I, to build up the story over the years. The lies that we had weaved together to get everything that was never ours.

I'd been a good grandchild to Grandpa Marco Snr. and had earned his respect when he'd remembered things. Later on, when he was far too affected with Alzheimer's, he never did remember that I was his step-grandchild or that I had killed his daughter, my step-mother, Grace Manoban.