Lie To Me

45. Code Red

NOAH WHITE

I was on cloud nine.

The smile on my face was permanently edged there. Memories from the magical night we both have shared were on replay in my mind, not allowing sleep to come my way. I didn't complain though, I couldn't. From the moment I picked her up at her house and first laid my eyes on her to the moment she fell asleep in my arms, I wanted to forget none of it. I wanted everything to be carved into my brain.

As hours passed by, Ava snuggled deeper into my chest and I wrapped my arms tighter around her petite frame, loving how our bodies felt one against the other. I pressed another kiss on her forehead, probably the tenth this night.

It was quite unexplainable to me. Never did I think I would end up falling for the new girl whose single presence annoyed the hell out of of me. Yes, Ava did caught my eye on the first day, but I simply classified it as some kind of attraction that would eventually fade away. And I don't know how it happened, but now here I am, whipped like a lost puppy for the girl I once swore to hate.

Heaving a small sigh, I picked up my phone from the bedside table and checked the time.

3:45.

Carefully, I slid myself from under Ava's body, quickly replacing myself with a pillow. Ava immediately clung onto it, hugging it close to her, and I gently placed the covers over her frame before leaving the room.

I walked inside the kitchen and, after placing my phone on the counter, poured myself a glass of milk. Hopefully that would help me to get some sleep before morning came.

My eyes were locked onto the microwave in front of me, waiting for my glass of milk to be ready when my phone dinged with a new message. Turning towards said device, I furrowed my eyebrows. Who the fuck was texting me so late?

My confusion only grew when I noticed that those two messages had come from my mail, their sender being unknown. Uneasiness settled at the pit of my stomach while my thumb hovered over my phone's screen, pondering on whether to click on it or not. Anything could be expected to be inside those mysterious messages though, deep down, I felt that nothing good would be in there. That reason alone should have been enough for me to instantly delete them both —they could be a scam or some silly prank for all I knew— and continue with my night as if nothing had happened yet a nagging feeling in the back of my head was pushing me to find out what they said. Maybe it was just curiosity, I'm not sure, but it was way too intense to ignore it.

Finally, pushing those bad feelings away and with my heart hammering inside my chest, I clicked on the first email. The first thing my eyes landed on was the short text above a bunch of documents. As soon as I read it, I felt all blood rush out of my body.

«Poor young man, thinking he knows who his new little girlfriend is. Allow me to show you just how wrong you were»

What the fuck was this? I gulped down, reading the short message twice, then thrice. After that, I opened the first document. My frown deepened when a birth certificate —Ava's birth certificate— appeared on the screen with a few words highlighted in bright colors: Ava's full name as long with her father's, Dominic Stone. Not King, Stone.

I quickly closed the certificate, still unaware of the reason I was being sent this, and almost unconsciously went into the next file, my eyes widening when it opened and revealed a screenshot of an old news report. I skimmed over it; it mainly talked about Dominic Stone, Ava's father, and rumors about he was supposedly involved in illegal business, even to the point of being the leader of it all.