The Billionaires Too (#2)

Aftermath

MJ Billings knew only one real thing about her life. Death. It was nothing she did not know anything about. It followed her everywhere, and sometimes she wondered if she was cursed.

She was not scared of death; she was not scared of dying and she was not scared to take a life. It felt normal to her to kill someone, like she had done it since birth. The feeling of calmness and euphoria after taking a life, was not foreign to her; it felt homely, it felt righteous, and not even once has she felt remorse or as much as have a nightmare about her victims.

She did not fear death, because death was her companion. But the thought of losing the people close to her, gutted her to the core. She did not remember ever having frozen at the sight of death, it had never hit close to home before.

Alastair was not exactly a father figure; he was lost throughout most of his life; but there was a time where he was the only family she had. He would never leave her alone for more than an hour and tried his best to understand her and make her feel at home. But his greed got in the way, and every bit of relationship she thought they had, dissipated into nothing; but he still tried, and that was what made him special.

His small, mischievous, blue eyes floated before her eyes, before they were replaced by something dreadful; cold, dead, haunting eyes.

'Say hi to Jorge for me.'

MJ sat up in alarm, her eyes welcomed by darkness accompanied by shadows of men sitting around the room. As if sensing that she was awake, someone turned on the light, slightly blinding her.

She adjusted to the light and scanned around the room to find men in black. They all wore stoic looks on their faces, and they did not even as much converse with each other.

MJ's hands instinctively reached under her pillow, and she gripped the cold metal as if holding on to her last breath.

"There's no need for that." One of the man spoke up and stepped forward, forcing MJ to pull out the gun; making sure to keep it by her side. "Okay, I'll keep my distance." The man sighed. "My name is Jackson, and these are my colleagues; we are Mr Cooper's bodyguards." MJ swallowed at the mention of Alastair's name and looked away.

"What happened?" She asked, her voice coming out raspy. She cleared her throat and rubbed her chest.

"Mr Cooper is no longer with us." Jackson said with his head bowed. MJ merely nodded her head, and he continued. "He notified us to get you out of there first if anything went wrong.”

Her heart clenched in her chest. Alastair actually knew what was going to happen; and if he did, then why did he not prevent it from happening? Why did he let her lead him to the bank?

"I think Mrs Cooper will answer all the questions you might have about everything." Jackson said as if reading her thoughts. "We will leave you now, Ma'am, but should you need anything; we will be outside the building."

"Th-thank you." She said quietly, the word like acid to her tongue. The man bowed before leaving along with his partners.

For a while, she remained on her bed, images of the bank robbery floating in her head. It had started so sudden, without warning. Everything happened so fast, and all she could think about at that moment, was the person responsible. Even now, she wanted to know the face behind the robbery; she wondered how they knew who she was, after all, she had never showed her face to the public – Billings Corporations was MJ Billings.

But apparently, someone out there knew who she really was, and for once; the idea of having bodyguards did not seem so bad at all.

MJ touched her forehead and flinched at the pain; her head hurt inside out, and touching it made it worse. She was sure she looked bad right now, especially since the bodyguards had not bothered to call her a doctor or tell Mrs Cooper to come over. Her face and hair were marred in dry blood, making her skin sticky.

Against the will of her body, she threw her feet off the bed in an attempt to get up. She held her hands against the mattress and tried to stand up, but her head spun wildly, and she fell back down. Her breathing picked up with the pain and exhaustion, and sounds of her wild heart filled her ears, making everything start to blur out.

MJ fought against the fatigue; she had to get cleaned up. Someone had to tell Alastair's wife about his untimely death, and if anyone had to it, it had to be her. She stumbled to her feet and balanced against the headboard. She took deep breaths and tried to keep steady; all she had to do was to take a few steps, and she would reach the bathroom.

Her eyes trained on the bathroom door, and she swallowed hard, hoping everything else went down with the lump. She removed her hands from the headboard and dragged her feet towards the bathroom. She had only taken a few steps when everything turned white as if blinded by light, and she dropped to the floor, hitting her already injured head against the hard surface. Blood oozed out of her head and pooled around her as she passed out.