A billionaire's daughter - The Outlaws Series

3.

It stopped.

Her heart stopped.

In that very moment, her heart stopped beating.
She was sure of that, just a millisecond, but enough to make her feel dead inside. 'Please say he got out?' she begged, her face paling with every second that passed.

'I'm, I'm sorry...'

Glass shattered and a scream soon could be heard.
Elena fell on her knees, burrowed her head in her hands, but cried soundlessly. She wasn't built like that, her tears running down her cheeks, but her face hollow and emotionless. She looked ahead, wondering what she had done wrong to deserve this. When her hands clenched together and made a fist, something snapped inside of her.

She wiped the tears from her face, stood up, took her phone, ended the call and turned around. She went to run upstairs. Every stair she skipped on her way felt like skipping a moment with her dad. 

Three days ago, when her dad had come to pick her up from her friend's house.

A month ago, when it was his birthday and she bought them two tickets to the zoo. Something so simple, yet so special for them.

Half a year ago, when she earned yet another award in judo and her dad left his meeting early just so he could see her.

Two years ago, when they were on vacation and she met a girl. Sad that she had to go back home, he bought her a phone so she could call her friend.

Five years ago, when they were visiting a grave and it was raining, both of them forgot their umbrellas, so they got sick the day after.

When she was eight, she built a tree house with him. Eating freshly made cookies in it afterwards.

When she finally arrived upstairs, she got to her room and locked herself in it. Her breathing hollow and her eyes watery, her body fell down on the ground. She wasn't able to hold herself up anymore and she bit her lip. Feeling the blood dripping down her chin, the headache disappeared.

Pain replaced by pain.

She stared ahead again, picking at her fingernails and biting the inside of her cheek. Now all alone in the house, forever, she felt sad. She felt left. 

Nothing in the house remembered her from home, like the moment Stephan told her he was gone, the house was somebody else's. 

The white walls didn't remember her from the time she colored them.

The bed in the guestroom didn't belong to the time she jumped on it and fell, breaking her arm.

The old tree in the garden didn't reminded her from the time she decided to attach a swing to it, being pulled back and forth by her father.

Her father.

Who was dead.

Her dead father.

One single tear was all that left her eyes, she didn't allow any others. She wasn't raised like that. She wasn't raised to let feelings take over her rational thinking, no, she was raised to be strong and live smart. 

To somehow still try to cooperate with the feeling of grief, Elena stood up and went to find her plushie; Noah. She got it when she was born and brought it everywhere. Even now that she was all grown up, she took it everywhere; on vacations, to sleepovers, ...

Noah had a speaker in her back, but the battery had been long dead. Still, she kept it in there, not daring to take it out. Her mother had recorded it and by removing it, it was like removing the last piece she had from her mother, because yes; her mother was dead too. 

She was an orphan now.

Seventeen and orphan.

Great.

Clutching the plushie tight around her,  Elena hid her face it in, allowing her tears to run free now. No one could see her after all. She sniffled and tried to turn on the speaker for one last time, not expecting anything.

But it turned on.

She sucked in her breath, closed her eyes and prayed to god that she could hear the comfort of her mother's voice.

But it wasn't her mother's voice. And she should have known that, the cracking voice of her father filling the room;

'Dear Elena. I am terribly sorry that we have to say goodbye like this, but faith didn't sit right with us, did it?' the pause made the room go silent again and Elena nodded into the plushie.

'When you hear this, it means I'm dead. But you should know one thing: whatever everyone says it was, it wasn't an accident. It was done on purpose.'