The Contract

Chapter 1 : The Arrangement

Ava Russell

I walked out of the hospital room, head lowered, my smile had faded. Tears were rolling down my face. My father had just passed. The only man that ever truly loved me was gone.

"Ava, Ava, Ava!" I heard a voice shout my name, I looked up it was my fiance, Caleb Walker. His smile quickly faded when he saw my tears.

"What happend?" he asked in a panicked voice. His words echoed through my head. I was unable to formulate the words to answer him. I felt a pit in my stomach, and a dread of despair hung over me. He stepped closer to me, I felt the brave act I had been trying to hold begin to crumble. I collapsed onto his chest, I dissolved into tears.

He wrapped his arms around me as I cried, the tears uncontrollably running and soaking into his shirt. He then took me to sit on the chairs. I was a mess.

My father had been admitted the hospital a few months ago, because of a mysterious illness that baffled all the doctors who tried to diagnose what the illness was. My father had always been a healthy person, so when we got a call - a few months ago - that he had been admitted to the hospital, a fog of confusion enveloped us.

His treatment cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in the end he died, all alone with no one by his side - no one who cared for him at least.

Dad was a businessman man, he had shares in all the largest corporations globally. He had also started a partnership with a young entrepreneur, Mr Ethan Gray. The partnership had been going strong , but after my father was admitted to the hospital everything started to go wrong.

Caleb drove me home that night, the whole car ride I felt numb, alone and broken. He took my hand and he held it in his.

_______________________

The following day a sea of news reporters was at our large black gate. I wasn't in the mood to deal with all those reporters so I remained inside.
"Huh, dad's passing just have made headlines"  I thought to myself.

I heaved myself from my bed and went to dad's study - a place he had never allowed me to enter. I looked through his study and found nothing. I was searching for something that could atleast explain the cause of dad's passing, what the illness was that took him away from me.

I went downstairs to check up on my step mother and my step-brother, Liam. I walked into Liam's room and found my stepmother sitting on his bed, whips he was asleep on his Batman-themed bed.

My stepmother turned to me, she had a cold expression drawn across her face, she got up and walked to me. My tightened tightened, a scene of fear covered me, my heart began to race.