The Hate Game

Chapter 24

"Ceren! Your phone is ringing time and time again!" Fifi yelled to her friend, who was giggling with Ferit in the kitchen, pretending to prepare snacks. "Pick it up!"

"Ok, Fifi. What is that about?" Ceren rolled her eyes, going to the living room to find her phone. "Where is it?"

"On the couch. Just stopped ringing for the tenth time in five minutes."

"Ok." The blonde raised her brows at this information, going through the throw pillows, trying to find her phone when it started ringing again. She looked surprised at the caller's name and answered it. "Serkan?"

"Ceren, where is Eda's old house!"

Ceren frowned, hearing Serkan's frantic voice and her stomach turned with an unpleasant sensation. "Did something happen?"

"Give me the address!"

"Ok." She started typing. "I sent you the address."

"Call for the police! Eda's grandfather took her there! And call for special forces to look for a sniper at the back of the hotel!"

"What?!" She exclaimed in shock. She could hear the background noises of moving cars and traffic. "Serkan, what are you doing?!"

"I'm going there."

"Serkan.." The line cut.

* * *

Eda walked through the hall of the house where she spent all her childhood, good and bad parts. The house was quiet as never before. No light was up and there wasn't even one guard in the property. It was empty and dark as if it was dead as people who lived there before. 

Eda passed the rooms on the ground floor, and from the corner of her eye, she could see that furniture was covered with white sheets, making the house look abandoned, not for barely a weeks but years or decades.

She knew where she was going. She climbed the stairs and turned toward the spacious, long corridor with red, ornamented carpet. She walked to the end and stopped by the dark mahony doors. They were slightly ajar, and faint light was coming through them. Eda opened the heavy wing, and it creaked. No one has been using this room for almost eighteen years. It was always locked.

She entered inside. The door closed behind her on its own. She saw a familiar silhouette, she would recognize everywhere. Even if she tried to wipe him out of her memory, she never could. Ediz Yildirim stood with his back to her, looking by the window across the spacious room, which used to be his study. Now expensive furniture was covered with a layer of dust, and rich colours of fabrics faded.

He didn't turn after Eda entered the room and stopped in the middle in front of his old desk. He just smirked and spoke up, still looking through the window at the garden.

"It was my family seat for ages. The walls remember Ottoman times." When Eda didn't answer anything, he continued. "The Yildirim name, of course, I'm talking about the real Yildirims, is one of the oldest in our country. There are not many families as ancient and noble as ours. Currently, there is only one other name that matches ours."

"All of this just for the name." Eda said with contempt. His obsession with their lineage was always making her sick.

 "This name and the inheritance rightly belong to me. It should always belong to my family line." He turned to Eda and smiled at her, talking to her in such a calm tone that she wanted to scream. "We were robbed during the war, and after the revolution, our rights were denied. I came and took what was mine. The bloodline reunited in your father and you, but you threw everything away, taking Bolat's name."