It All Started With Hate

check (e)

I finished editing early and decided to be nice lol. This is a split POV too, but it will be obvious when you get to Luke's POV.

Also, there's around 9-10 chapters left & in one of them, I have an important question to ask, so be on the lookout!🩶

"You know it's love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you're not part of their
happiness." — Julia Roberts
————————————————————

Chapter 81
<—————————————>

Maggie

There were many things that I didn't expect of the day.

The first being that I get taken. The second being that it wasn't by my father's goons.

The third being that I was now staring into the eyes of someone I would have never expected to be behind whatever the fuck this is.

They were as cold as I remembered, detached from his own bullshit and overflowing with exactly that, too. They had ran me over enough to make my skin crawl in disgust.

We were in a restaurant. It was expensive, I could tell just from one glance. It reminded me of the one Luke took me to, without the happy atmosphere attached to it, of course.

I forgot yet another unexpected thing. The restaurant was full of people, but we were on a floor practically by ourselves. There were probably three, maybe four bodies around us. It wasn't a necessarily normal setting for a kidnapping, but it didn't lessen my nerves one bit.

My hands weren't tied, either. My body didn't have any physical harm. My mouth wasn't duct taped. It appeared as just a normal dinner conversation between two normal people.

Fuck that.

I glared at one of the two security guards who had forced me in here. The bastard quite literally picked me up when I refused to move from the car, and carried me inside of the restaurant. He hadn't said a word, or even threatened me, though. Nothing.

Then, while I was busy cursing the bastard and his mother and her mother, I heard the chuckle of a familiar bitch through the live classical music of the restaurant.

The mayors.

His usual 'perfect' façade was in place, not a single strand of hair or expensive thread out of place. I could smell his obnoxiously spicy cologne from here, and if it weren't for his face alone, that would be the factor that made me hurl my stomach over the table.

That same table was what separated us. Sitting right in front of me, his eyes hadn't left mine from the moment I was forced into the seat.

Neither of us had said a word to the other. Instead, his expression remained neutral, while I let my own mirror my hatred for him.

The mayor was the first to break eye contact when he grabbed one of the menus from the center of the table. "May I get you a drink?"

"To throw in your face?" The words sliced my tongue with an angry whip. "Yeah, go ahead."

A chuckle came from him. He opened the menu, dark eyes scanning over the options, but I could still feel that same unpleasant gaze on mine, despite it not even being there. Our silent conversation was saying so much, yet nothing at all.

Fuck this.

Rising from my chair, I had lifted myself just enough to feel the air kiss my bare arms before one of the two bodyguards acted. He slammed a hand onto my shoulder that I knew would leave a bruise, shoving me back into my chair.