Chapter 45.

“Darling... if you really want to find out more about me, meet me where I laid my heart bare to you, at the place where you accepted my everything. I’ll see you then. By the way, if you bring the cops with you, I might need to punish you for being a naughty boy next time.”

I absolutely never accepted your everything.

Without my notice she’d snuck her left hand around the headrest of my seat with her knife in hand. She pressed the flat side of the knife against my cheek and forcefully turned my head in her direction. She leaned forward and whispered, “I won’t forgive you if you cheat on me, Darling,” as she stole my lips.

A shiver went down my back. I felt the point of the knife slightly cut into my cheek. Instead of pulling away after she finished with her kiss, her tongue trailed off to the side of my cheek as she licked at the blood from the small cut she’d made with the knife.

“Darling’s blood is inside of me now. What a sweet parting gift.”

I peered into the depths of her eyes when she slowly moved her face away from me. All I saw in her crazy eyes was deeply rooted, to her core, pure insanity and madness.

As she backed away from me she glanced towards Val with a slightly disdainful smile, “I’ll deal with this slut another time. I’ll definitely make sure we have a lot of fun with some light hearted girl talk in the near future.”

With such ominous parting words, she opened up the back door and walked into the distance with her hips swaying from side to side; until, like a phantom, she disappeared from sight. She gradually melded into the darkness like she never existed to begin with.

But there was no way it wasn’t real. Even boss talked to her, right?

“Aren’t you too easy to push around? You really didn’t resist her much just now, did you?”

“She’s like a type of trauma that’s sunk into my bones. Whenever I meet her, my body tenses up. My lungs constrict tightly making it harder to breath. It feels like thousands of pins and needles puncture at my heart while my brain is assaulted by an intense sense of dread. It’s difficult for me to resist her because of the fact that I once loved her deeply.”

“The memories of the times where we were happily together are still always at the back of my mind when I see her. They always conflict with the horrific scene she revealed to me on the day our relationship fell into broken pieces. There’s a part of me that wonders whether it was my fault that things had changed so greatly. If I accepted her back then, unconditionally, and tried to help her through things, I always questioned whether things could have turned out differently for her. Perhaps my life would have gone in a completely different direction if I made choices opposite to the ones I did in the past.”

“I see.”

“Hey boss, there’s one thing I just want to make sure of.”

“What is it?”

“Adele was really here, right? Why weren’t you scared in the slightest just now?”

“I choose to refrain from answering.”

“Boss, it wouldn’t be something like you were just ad libbing and playing along with things just now, right?”

“... Dio?”

“What is it?”

“If I said the cut on your face was real, I saw blood vanish into thin air, but I didn’t see Adele at all, would you believe me?”

“I might believe it.”

“Would you also believe that I didn’t hear anything just now and I was only imagining what Adele would say and how she would respond and act to what I said?”

“I still might.”

“Haha. Dio, do you believe ghosts really exist?”

“I refuse to believe in them.”

“Well Dio… I think I might be inclined to believe in ghosts now.”

“You’re messing with me, right?”

“Who knows? There are a lot of strange unexplainable things in the world.”

For some time after that, we remained in an awkward silence. When I settled my rattled emotions, I finally reversed out of the stall and exited the parking lot.

After fifteen minutes passed while we drove in silence, Val casually said, “Dio, it’s a bit chilly out tonight, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Are you really planning to stick up in your car out in the cold like this tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you afraid a ghost will come to visit you in the midst of night again?”

“... no.”

“By the way Dio, we’re here. That’s my place.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“It’s really that one.”

“You mean the luxurious looking one beside that rundown building, right?”

“I’m not kidding, it’s the rundown looking one.”

“Isn’t this a bit…”

“Shabby?”

“You are a CEO, right? A rich girl, right?!”

“That doesn’t mean I have to live in some overly luxurious mansion, right?”

“What’s the point of being rich and successful like you then?”

“Money doesn’t buy you happiness. It’s the small things that are the most enjoyable, even when you are successful in life.”

“Successful in life? I suppose I’d be a failure at the thing they call life.”

“What makes you say that? Aren’t you living a rather decent life right now?”

“I might be making a living financially on my own, but my relationships are a complete and utter shipwreck.”

“Haha. True enough.”

“Hey, Dio?”

“What?

“Could you escort me to the door?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m too scared to walk to the door all by my lonesome at night?”

“And what’s the real reason?”

“Because I secretly plan to push you down onto a bed and have my way with you?”

“And what’s the real, real reason?”

“Because I plan to drug you and sell your organs on the dark web?”

“Why are the reasons getting progressively worse?”

“Because it’s common courtesy to make sure your beautiful boss, who could be attacked at any moment by ravenous men under the cover of night, gets home safely.”

“Still not buying it.”

“Because I’m being stalked?”

“By who?”

“By you?”

“Can you please give me a serious answer here?”

“Well, what can I really say? There isn’t really a reason other than because I want you to. Are you not going to listen to the orders of your boss? Are you looking for a demotion at work?”

“Haaah. Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say boss. Just don’t dock my pay. Anything but that.”