Wisdom’s POV
I tried to drag him towards the emergency exit, which this house miraculously has but the stalker fired towards me, hitting the leather couch.
His gun pointed at me again but the glass door is bulletproof. I shut it close and breathed as I glared at the man in black and his mouth twitched upwards to a smirk.
‘Why did he freaking smirk?’ I whispered.
But seeing Denver lying on the ground…I gathered all the strength I have and brought him to the panic room. But the stalker, who was still standing outside, saw me doing it. He already knows he was in there. Never mind, he cannot open it anyway. Once the panic room is closed, it can only be open from the inside.
I brought him inside and, I don’t know if it’s really true or is my mind just playing tricks on me but Denver blinked his eyes and tried to move his arm. I blinked and he was back to what he was: eyes closed but still breathing. Still warm.
“Just live, Denver,” I whisper to his ear before I inserted his inhaler in his pocket. “Live for me, babe.”
Then I went outside the bulletproof glass. The stalker held me by the neck but I kicked his balls and smashed him with a flower vase. The waters soaking him and I tried to hold my laugh.
He gave chase outside and I jumped from the fifth step of the stairs, so did he. The man in black tried to fire another shot at me but the floor is wet thanks to the waters from the shattered fishbowl. He lost balance and fell.
I take my opportunity to hide in the bathroom that has a breakable glass that leads to the patio. I don’t freaking have any plan. I just moved based on what my adrenaline told me.
I’m already exasperated to be honest. My desire to live guides my every decision. My fear from death seems to shatter every bone in my body as long as I remain breathing and blinking.
I sat for a second thinking that, instead of running away, and since Denver will never wake up now, I should…perhaps…join him…
The stalker knocked on the door once, twice. Then thrice.
“Your Denver will just rot in there you know. Since it can only be opened from the inside.” My eyes sting and tears freely flow from my face without a hold—reminding me that there are things that should be let go. That I should let go.
“I reported to the police that a murder took place. And since you were the only person here, you will be charged for murder since you have a knife in your pocket and you have his phone. Not to mention your fingerprints are in Denver’s clothes.” I could imagine that this man in black’s grin behind the bathroom’s door is so wide that you can fit a grenade in his mouth.
“It seems you two are dead now. So much for the ‘until death do us part’, Wisdom…”
The sharp knife is now drawing on my skin; my blood is the art itself. I heard his fading footsteps and I don’t know if I should be relieved or I should be aggrieved.
But I didn’t budge. I just sat here, not knowing what to do—if I should just sit and breathe or lie down on the floor of this bathroom and stop breathing. I glanced outside, the sun setting as if to say goodbye, staining the heavens with shades of tangerine and tawny color. Denver and I should’ve been having coffee on the gazebo at this hour.
But no, I brought him to his demise. I brought him to his doom. I should have listened to the threat before the wedding, to this devil in black’s warning. I am locked inside the bathroom with the devil outside waiting for me to choose life over death, love over death. But if I’m going to kill myself…it’s just going to let this demon’s plan and his accomplices successful.
So, the once ember, the once spark in my heart, has now become a full blazing fire—the fire of desire to live, to love. Denver will not die easily. Denver is not dead. I know it. I can fucking feel it.
I opened the door slowly, and thank God this door was built to open without a sound. I grabbed a vase and peeked downstairs. The bastard still has his mask but is now sitting on the living room couch as if nothing happened.
I watched him stand and face the black-out curtains. My feet are tired now but I forced it to work, to walk. I seized the phone from my pocket and turned off the power since it’s also controlled via my husband’s phone. Approaching the nearest closet, I wear all black. It’s a perfect camouflage to the absolute darkness blanketing us. Whoever this perpetrator is, I will find out his identity.
“Let’s play in the dark,” I sighed. Fixing my clothes and holding on tightly to the vase on my hand and a knife on the other.
I used the other secret stairs, hidden behind a door. It’s a good thing when you’re married to a crazily rich guy who has a crazily big and lavish and intricate mansion, you have all the things you need even if you don’t expect to need it.
With still my bare feet, I climbed down, staring at him by the tinted glass covering of the stairs. When I first got here, Denver introduced this to me as a ‘secret office with a secret stairway that leads upstairs’. Now I know what this really is for.
He was on his phone, probably reporting to his master or partner that the mission is successful. I can imagine the look on his face when I slap him about how a failure he was. That he can’t even take down both of us. That none of his doings were a success.
I am now on the outside of the secret stairway, clearly listening to the man’s voice.
“Don’t worry, Dyana. It’s all over now. They have met their end…”
When I heard the stalker’s voice—the sound of the devil in black—when I heard him address the person on the other line as Dyana, I immediately knew who he was all along,
A smile tugged on my lips. The stalker saw me with a vase and knife and frowned, panicked to be exact. I just give him a middle finger.
Across the room, Denver Mikhail Giordano, my husband who is freaking alive and well, grinned.