Chapter 70: Lauren's POV

He laughed. Lucas laughed at me. It was a low and malicious laugh that I've only heard whenever he was dealing with a rival who didn't know his place. The laugh always put the fear of God in whoever it was directed at and ... now it's putting the fear of God in me. Christian looked amused. He has no idea where his brother is or whether he's hurt or okay or not and yet he looks amused. For all he knows Lucas is in a sewer getting eaten by rats looking at Joshua's corpse as maggots start forming on it. He has no right to look at me like I'm the biggest i***t in the world. Lucas kept laughing. Gosh. He couldn't stop f*****g laughing. "You really are a stupid person, aren't you?" His deep voice almost shook my phone. "You expect me to believe that an imbecile like you has captured both my wife and my brother and not only that, you have them captive and now you're in a position where you can kill either of them or both of them. Is that it?" There was so much anger and condescension in his voice. It was breaking the little hope I had left for him ... for us. This man, the only man I have ever loved, is speaking to me like I'm some irrelevant dog and not a friend who has done nothing but stand by his side. "Choose." I tried to sound confident, but I honestly sounded like a kitten pretending to be a big cat. "Who should live, Lucas? Your brother or a woman who has turned you into a f*****g fool." A low and amused rumble followed my response. He still thinks that this is funny. I know for a fact that he's in a cell right this very second and that by pure luck, my dad also managed to put Jona in a cell. He's been shot. He's in pain and that wound is probably already infected. He's faking all his laughter because he knows the mighty Greysons have finally been defeated. He's a wounded lion and this is his last attempt at appearing to be strong. Nothing about this funny. He's trying to shake my resolve and manipulate me and I won't let him. The Greysons have fallen and the Mitchells are the ones who took them down. "I won't entertain your delusions, Lauren." He tried to stop laughing. "How about you and I have an honest conversation for once in our lives. How about you tell me what demon resides in that small head of yours that's made you want to hurt my wife so much? Tell me why you've gone to such great lengths to hurt the only woman you know I've ever loved?" I scratched my head. I kept scratching it until I felt my skin breaking. Charlotte is dead. The witch is dead. This should be a happy moment, but him and Christian are both ruining it. How could he take her back after she hurt him like that? How could he sleep with her in our home? How could he let her move into a house I helped him decorate? How could he marry her? How could he f*****g marry her after only being reacquainted for a few months? ... How could he get her pregnant?"... That's the betrayal I absolutely cannot get over. How could he give her a baby? "Because she's a bully." I tried to explain myself to him while scratching my head fervously. "She bullied me back in highschool and she bullied me once you decided to make her a part of our lives Lucas. Look at everything that she's done to me and my family. We have nothing because of her and you're too blind to see what she's doing all because she gives you a good f**k!" Christian's smirk fell off his face when he heard that last part and his eyes darkened like for the time in his life, he was contemplating hitting a woman. It's about damn time. He has no reason to be smirking at a time like this. I heard Lucas take a deep breath on the other line. "What else?" He replied calmly. What else? What f*****g else? "It was supposed to be me!" I screamed into the phone. "YOU were supposed to marry ME! YOU were supposed to have babies with ME! They would have all had blonde hair and blue and green eyes and they would have been engineers like you. I'm a better fit for you, Lucas!" I screamed again when he remained quiet. "Charlotte was the kind of woman who would prioritise her career and what she wanted over everything else! She was like Lisa. Your children would been raised by nannies, servants and au pairs. They would have hardly seen her because she would have been trying to get more power and more admirers than you. That's why her promotion got announced at YOUR f*****g banquet! She will always want to steal the spotlight from you, from Christian, your mom, from Belle and from Greyson Corporation. Women like her aren't meant to raise children or be in love. They will only ever care about themselves. They won't take care of a home or a husband and kids. I am willing to do that! That's what a man like you needs, Lucas. You need ME!" I roared from the pit of my stomach. "You need me, Lucas!" I screamed and cried again. "You need someone who will stay home and raise the kids while you do what you're best at. I would NEVER try to steal attention away from you. I would be quiet and stand behind you like any wife is supposed to. I'd be like your shadow, Lucas. You'd know that I'm there, but you'd never hear me make a fuss like Charlotte did. You'd never hear that I've made enemies out of some powerful people in the country and you'd NEVER find me placing our unborn child in danger the way Charlotte did." I was out of breath by the time I was done and all my scratching had resulted in me having a bleed on my head. None of that mattered. My tears didn't matter. The little bit of blood on my fingers didn't matter. The awkward silence from everyone in the operating room didn't matter. And Christian's dark and intense eyes didn't matter. I've held all that in for so long and I had given up on ever being able to say all those to him. Now I've said it and it feels like a giant boulder has been lifted from my chest. This is for the best. He should know what he missed out on. That's what matters right now. "You should have married me." I broke into a dry sob when he didn't say anything. "Love doesn't have to be fiery and passionate to be valid, Lucas. It can also be moderate and well tempered. It may have taken you some time to see me the way I see you, but you would have gotten there eventually. The first few years would have been a bit rough. Maybe you would have been cold and distant because it would have all been new to you, but I would have still loved you and worked hard to earn your affection. Maybe you would have preferred to sleep at your condos just to avoid me, but we would have gotten through that and I would have loved you through that too. There was nothing I wouldn't have done for you. There is still nothing I won't do for you. Love grows. Love matures, so why won't you give loving me a chance?" This time I started biting my nails waiting for his response. I was done. I said everything I've ever wanted to say to him. The ball is now in his court to decide whether he wants to be with someone who will always put him first or someone who will always put themselves first. His relationship with Charlotte was doomed from the very start. They're both driven by their careers. How would they raise kids and have a family? They would have burned out and grown to resent each other like Justin and Lisa. I saved him from that bleak future. Justin hates Lisa with a passion now. By killing Charlotte, at least he gets to move on while still caring for her. Not many people are able to have that. "Lauren", his deep voice cracked the silence, "I will never love you because you are not Charlotte. It's as simple as that. What I have with Charlotte is not something you will ever understand because no one has ever loved you, Lauren. You have only ever been tolerated. You're tolerated by your family, your friends and I also tolerated you. Lauren", he took another deep breath, "you live such a purposeless life that I don't even think of you as a fully grown adult. To me, there is no difference between you and a fifteen year old child. Marrying you would have been the equivalent of marrying a child and that's disgusting." I crumbled to the floor. ... a child ... he called me a child ... "If I had been stupid or desperate enough to marry you", he continued with nothing but disgust in his voice, "I want you to know that I would have never touched you. Ever. And when Charlotte came back to me, I would have still made love to her all over my house even if I had married you. I wouldn't have cared about you or your feelings at all. I would have forgotten that you were there and that I had you as a wife because you've never been worth remembering, Lauren. I would have still made you listen to me make love to Charlotte so that you would get it through that empty blonde head of yours that nothing will stop me from being with Charlotte. Absolutely nothing." I was crying on the floor of the operating room and I don't think a single person in this room cared; not even Christian. I was trying to swallow all my painful sobs, but I was making everything so much worse. I don't know what to do anymore ... Should I dye my hair like I did back in school? Should I wear brown curly extensions just so he'll notice me? Should I wear brown contacts and tan my skin like I used to back then? I dyed my hair every two months when we were in highschool. I changed my make up and style and even my perfumes. I wore different coloured contact lenses just to have him maybe turn his head when he walked passed me in the hall, but not once did he do that. I was invisible to him. I'll always be invisible to him. I think ... I think maybe that's why he didn't recognise me when we met again at University. He immediately knew my surname and he knew that my father has two daughters, but he had no idea that I pined after him day after day. He had no idea that I loved him first; that I'll always love him. He had no idea who I was. "Lauren, I wouldn't let you take care of a pet for me." He stabbed me in the heart again. "You are incapable of taking care of yourself. The only thing you know how to do is breathe, eat, s**t and cry. That's all. I would only trust you to take care of something if I want that thing to die, so I promise you, I would never let you take care of any child of mine." "You don't mean that." I whispered through my sobs. "Please say you don't mean that." "I do." He said calmly. "And for the record, I would rather castrate myself than make kids with you. Those kids would be as useless as you. No child of yours could ever be an engineer, Lauren. You would taint the Greyson bloodline and I would much rather die than let such a thing happen." Stop. Please stop. Please just stop. I tried to yell at him, but all that came out was more painful sobs. "The only reason you and your family are able to still do all the nonsense you've been getting up to until now is because my wife asked me to let you be, Lauren." His cold and ruthless voice spoke. He sounded closer to the phone, much much closer. "But that all ends right now. You will bury a parent, your sister will take her own life and you", he chuckled with that malicious and ominous voice, "I have a very special torture in mind for you because you're the primary reason why Brian Kim almost killed my wife." The line went dead. Just like that. No. No. No. He can't know. He doesn't know. No one knows. Charlotte didn't even know. She was so ashamed of what happened that I know for a fact that she wouldn't tell him about that. That's why she had no choice but to break up with him. That's why she refused to tell him why she punched me. What Brian Kim did to her put her in her place. It made her realise that no matter what she does, no matter how hard she works, no matter how much money she gets or awards she collects, she will always be worthless. She wouldn't tell him about something that confirmed how worthless she was. I crawled to the operating table while trembling. She wouldn't tell him. That's why he suddenly hates me so much. That's why he said all those terrible things to me. It's because she tattled like a f*****g child. She couldn't handle me on her own so she had to go and make me out to be the bad guy when she's the bad guy. I tore off all the tubes that went in and out of her face and body while I was still on the floor. I will desecrate her f*****g corpse. I will stab her in the eyes with scalpels because this f*****g b***h is still stealing from me even in her death. I had grabbed a scalpel by the time I was on my feet. I started stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and no one dared to stop me; not even Christian. I guess he had to put on a show so he'd feel better about letting her die. He hates her as much as I do. I can take comfort in that. "You lose, Charlotte!" I shouted, screamed and cried and kept stabbing. "You will never ever win anything ever again. You lose! I win! You were so smart, but at the end of the day you lost to a dumb girl like me! You can't make him hate me! He will eventually come crawling to me because he needs me! He needs ME; NOT you! He will never need you ever again!" Maybe if I stopped stabbing her face and body long enough, I would have heard the shocked gasps in the room. Maybe I would have heard or seen someone else enter this restricted operating room. Maybe I would have seen the pregnant caramel skinned woman wearing tight scrubs and the old man with grey eyes wearing the hospital security uniform. Maybe I would have seen the police officers fill this room to the brim and start pinning Dr Shetland and her team to the ground and against the walls. People were screaming, crying and trying to run, but I guess they were too slow. I was too slow. Someone tackled me like I am a bull and not a woman who barely weighs 110 pounds and who is on the shorter end in terms of height. I felt multiple bones break in my body before my head was slammed against the sterilised floor and someone pinned the heaviest knee against my neck. I think he or she broke my neck. I don't know. But I do know that I can't breathe and this person refuses to get off. I watched Christian gently help her bend down to the floor because she's clearly still carrying that bastard child. I found her golden eyes inches away from my face. And found him narrowing his eyes at me while standing behind her. "Joshua swapped me out with Angelique." Her eyes twinkled with that usual mischief that I've seen too many times in Jona's eyes. "And there are cameras in here." Were her famous last words before blood splattered out of my mouth and the heavy knee shifted from my neck to my head.