"Neil!"
Maya had drunkenly squealed. Alex followed her droopy eyes and noticed Neil coming out of the crowd of thrilled audience.
Neil walked towards Alex and Maya in a very calm manner, an easy smirk adorning his lips. "Maya's only telling the truth, Alex," Neil repeated. "The truth."
"You're indeed the greatest fool of all," he added, pointing at Alex, a flash of rage escaping his otherwise poised demeanor.
Alex had been already quite furious by Maya's drunken drama, and now the sudden appearance of Neil and his snide remarks had him further boil in rage. His eyes narrowed to slits. "What the hell are you doing here? As far as I remember, you were not bloody invited to this party."
However, his words seemed to have no effect on Neil. On the other hand, Maya wobbled while smiling at Alex, who was now having a hard time holding her up straight and not charging at the infuriating face of utter calm and smugness in front of him.
"Oh, just cease your silly rants at least for once, Leon," Neil rolled his eyes.
It was then Alex decided he had had enough. Letting go of Maya, who lazily stumbled and leaned against the pillar a few feet away, he charged toward Neil and grabbed him by the collar. "You have got the gall barging into my party uninvited and crossing your limits talking shit!"
"No. Not me. It's you," Neil roughly pushed off Alex's hand, freeing himself as he moved a few steps away from Alex. "It's you who've crossed all the freaking limits."
"Get the hell out of here, Neil, or I'll have to call the guards," barked Alex, almost shaking in rage now. He couldn't believe he was having to deal with a drunk fiance and the f*ck-buddy of his wife all at once. Ridiculous.
"Oh, come on," Neil clucked his tongue. "I just merely came here to congratulate you. No need to be so rude."
Neil looked around him and at the befuddled faces of guests, Leons' friends and relatives, and business associates, some gaping and some scowling his way. "I'm here to congratulate this great business tycoon for successfully dodging bankruptcy by selling himself to Miss. Ashworth."
Tamara, who had come to stand beside Alex, gasped hearing what Neil said. Alex was about to bellow for those guards finally, but Tamara put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. "Alex, what is he...?"
Alex looked away, gritting his teeth and making Tamara look crestfallen. Surely she knew of that age-old debt, and now, adding two and two, she discovered an outcome that seemed pleasing in no way.
"No..., it can't be...," Still she murmured, more from shock than disbelief.
"I'm only telling the truth, Mrs. Leon," Neil paused for a second. "Just like Kate had that night."
"Don't," Alex warned coldly. He didn't want someone repeating that hellish night, it brought back too many memories--of betrayal, of heartbreak. And he especially didn't want Neil out of all people narrating it all.
"Why not?" Neil scoffed. "I'm sure it must have been a noble deed to you throwing your wife out of your house and life when she was in her most delicate state, that too on the basis of some photos - which can be morphed by the way. It must have seemed just alright to you, denying the child that she had conceived, insulting it in the worst possible manner. By the way, Leon, I hope you were wise enough to obtain something solid to back up your theory. Like a DNA test report, perhaps?" Tilting his head Neil paused for a moment, feigning as though he was truly in great disarray. "Or perhaps you didn't have any such backup after all. Perhaps, in reality, what you did was being an epic failure as a husband, as a father, as a freaking human being."
The entire hall was in pin-drop silence. The only sound was Maya's hushed giggle in the background, it was hard to guess what she had been thinking about the whole speech. She opened her mouth and was about to speak up her opinion about the matters Neil presented but was cut off crudely by Alex's enraged roar.
"It's pathetic, your attempt to flip the reality to Kate's favor. So, just shut your fucking mouth, and LEAVE."
Alex's eyes searched for the guards who should've arrived by now, hearing the commotion, but weirdly he couldn't detect any of them. The guards he had appointed specifically for the party suspiciously seemed missing from his sight.
What the hell!
"Yes. Leave!" Maya couldn't stay quiet anymore. No way in hell there was going to be an important conversation without her precious interference in it. She slurred, "You too need to leave, Neil, just like Kate had. That bitch."
Sighing in utter frustration, Alex pressed his forefingers into the space between his eyebrows.
Nolan Ashworth, who was until now standing quietly beside Maya, grabbed her elbow meaningfully. "Maya—"
But cutting him off, Maya tsked in annoyance for being interrupted.
"No Dad, let me speak! Shhh...," she pushed away from her very pale-looking father while swaying slightly. "Let me tell them how difficult I thought it was going to be, but see," she looked victoriously at Alex, her eyes blurry with intoxication and face dreamily with this obsessed love. "See how easily I threw her out of my Alex's life. Just a few morphed photos created by a professional, that was all I needed, nothing more," she chuckled. "Aw! I still remember Neil and Kate looked so truly in love... ah... in lust in those photos."
Several gasps sounded around.
The damage was done. Nolan Ashworth closed his eyes dejectedly.
The only one that smiled was Neil. His mouth curled up into a smile of vehemence, vengeance, and absolute grief.
Alex was dumbstruck. It felt like he was whipped with an electric wire. His heart ceased beating as Maya's words slowly sunk in.
Morphed photos. Neil and Kate's morphed photos.
Tamara stumbled back and dropped down on a chair. She sat there petrified, grasping the truth that was unveiled.
"Fools!" Maya was in a fit of chuckles while still blabbering her heart out in her drunken stupor, unaware of the havoc she had just disclosed. "All... all bloody fools."
It was a harsh yanking off of a stubborn blindfold of mistrust and hatred. It was the worst way of waking up, only to discover that everything had been ruined around me while in slumber. Alex stood in the middle of that ruin. He stood like a lifeless sculpture, repeatedly going over each and every deafening word that had left Maya's mouth.
"Absolutely, Maya," Neil praised, smirking. "And since you've disclosed so much of your excellent deeds, why don't you also tell them how exactly Kate had been hit by a car that night? Let them know how you orchestrated the entire thing so brilliantly."
"My daughter is drunk and, clearly speaking, nothing of sense!" Nolan Ashworth thundered defensively when Maya once again went to happily reply. "You will not be able to prove anything from what she says now."
"Oh, but sadly I've gathered enough witnesses and seized the men your darling daughter hired to do her dirty work. It took me some time, but I can finally say that I'll be nicely proving everything that she'd done with my Kate," Neil announced indignantly. "In fact, the cops would be arriving any second now."
Alex could not blink, could not move a muscle even when Nolan Ashworth charged towards Neil, who easily shoved the man aside with a hard fist. After that, Nolan did not move again from his current sprawled-out state on the floor.
Feeling like a crippled being, Alex watched everything. Like a thunderbolt, the truth had hit him so hard that he did not know how to recover from it anymore. Memories of that dark night throbbed awake, and he suddenly observed them in a different light.
It was like a mirror was all of a sudden placed before him, and he could suddenly see a bitter reflection that was no other's but his own creation.
Kate had been right. He had accused her of cheating when he was the one that ended up cheating on her. The joke was on him.
He'd indeed been one great and utter fool, after all!
He felt this numbing repulsion at his own self, recalling how he had believed those freaking morphed photos more than the woman he loved, so vilely he had thrown those blasted things at her face.
"Don't you dare take my name with that filthy mouth of yours..."
"I hate you, Kate. You disgust me. Tell me, for how long has this been going on? Neil was in my house even last week, right? Did you fuck in our bed as well? TELL ME. Damn it!"
He cringed at the echoes of his own words he had accused her with. Memories of her sorrowful eyes, her tear-stained face, her desperate pleads, the way he had so roughly pushed her away, insulted her, demeaned her in ways that he felt so utterly ashamed to even think about now - it all flashed before his eyes one by one until blending altogether into a distressing limbo. An incredible amount of self-loathing and disgust was what settled inside him as residue.
And to think that it hadn't ended that night..., the back of his eyes stung remembering how he had never backed away from hurling insults at Kate even when he had met her again.
He squeezed closed his eyelids, and behind them, an image of Kate's bloody form lying across the street after being hit by the car manifested. A tear rolled down his eye, and another followed in tow. But the warm liquid of grief and regret was not enough to scrub off the enormous quantity of guilt nailing inside his chest.
His heart broke into million pieces thinking about all that Kate had to go through, and he was afraid nothing he did would be enough to undo this destruction.
Alex snapped open his eyes suddenly and set his deadly cold gaze on Maya. She was still muttering incoherent things under her breath while leaning back against the pillar again. Before he could even think, he stormed towards her and grabbed her shoulders with bruising force. Utterly shocked, Maya couldn't even scream as he shook her roughly. Her head bobbed as she gasped for breath and paled from all the sudden movements.
"Why? Why did you...," Alex fumbled for words, tears of anger and regret making his vision blurry. "How could you...? Damn it!"
Maya seemed to be in no state to answer the questions Alex could barely form.
Releasing her, harshly breathing, Alex took a step back at last. Curling his hand into a fist he punched into the pillar right beside Maya's head with a vicious roar. Terrified, Maya slid down the pillar.
"What is the point of now punching into that clueless pillar, Alex?" Neil's voice, despite being sarcastic, had a resenting edge to it. "Or terrifying that witch?" with his eyes, he gestured towards Maya, slouching on the floor.
"Shouldn't you punch your own face instead? For dishonoring Kate? For making her go through hell so dreadful?" Neil spat. "For being the reason for your own child's death!"
Alex's head snapped up towards Neil, his knuckles that was still dug against the pillar loosened. His hands fell numb on both sides as he stared at Neil in absolute disbelief and horror. The last revelation of this destruction cut through his skin as if it were a sharp dagger.
Lips pressed into a thin line and eyes burning red, Neil nodded in confirmation. "That very night she lost her child, she herself would have died as well if Victor hadn't found her. What an irony--a complete stranger saved her when her own husband didn't give a damn if she was even alive out there or not."
"I guess it's premature then. Nine months are yet to end. The daddy - Neil had been in contact, is he? I saw him here in Asthel as well,"
"By the way, is he sharing you willingly with Victor? Or are you cheating on that poor fellow too? Or maybe you've grown tired of him, and Victor is your new toy. I heard you've been living in Victor's apartment for some time. That good in bed, is he?"
The reverberating sound of his own voice clawed at him cruelly. Meaningfully they reappeared to haunt him now.
"Take that b*stard thing inside you away from me..."
Everything spun around Alex, almost making him physically collapse onto his knees right there and then. The urge to kill himself and cease to exist was overwhelming, but it was also apparent that even that would never bring back what he had destroyed with his own bloody hands. The sin he had committed was irreparable.
How had he transformed into this beast and executed the unthinkable to his own love!
What had he done!
Neil was right. Maya had only succeeded because he himself had allowed her to. In jealousy and blindness, he had ruined freaking everything, and no matter how much he tried, there was no turning back time. He could never bring back their child; he could never amend Kate's broken heart. This irredeemable disaster was his own doing, and he was cursed to be eternally burning within it.
~
There...
I hope you enjoyed the dramatic revelation party. But wait, that's not the end - there's some more major drama ahead. We won't rest until we make Alex shed tears of BLOOD, burn him alive, and fry him raw.
Okay..., forgive me for being so dramatically savage. But, damn... I love drama!
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And... 58.3K reads! 3.8K votes!! And #13 on the general fiction hot list right now! OMG thank you so much all you lovely people!
*dances crazily
Love you so much,
-Lara.
P.S. I hope you've already guessed that - I freaking love Dean Winchester aka Jensen Ackles. <3 #SPNfan
By the way, I've cast him as Oliver in my other story - With or Without You. :*