by Anna Collins
I blinked my eyes, unable to understand any of her big words "What have I done?" I asked with extreme shock.
"Now this act of innocence is not going to save you. The news has spread like wildfire, I am sure Robert has also seen it. But my question is how did Kent telecast such big news on the basis of some vague evidence?" Kate rolled her eyes at me.
I breathed heavily "Kate, my heart is beating fast. Please don't tell me that the news channel has exposed Robert Hudson with my evidence?" I asked, swallowing hard.
"Yes and not only those they have given you the full credit for this. See this" Kate showed me the news report in her tab.
My hands reached to cover my hanging jaw while the sweat drops on my head became profound.
"It's Joe Hudson, that swine stole my incomplete evidence and used his money and power to telecast it" I jumped out of the bed.
"Oh Kate, I'm doomed. Now no one can save me, Oh God! Why did you do this to me?" I was trembling with tension.
"I had warned you Freya, see this happens when you play with fire" Kate snapped.
"Shut up Kate, can't you see my condition? Can't you see how terrified I am? Then why are you adding fuel to the fire of my tension" I cried out.
"I am yelling because of panic. Freya, you have surrounded yourself with the walls of trouble and I am not seeing any way out" she breathed.
I held my head in both my hands "God! I wonder how Robert is reacting to this. It was his deep dark secret, and it came out because of me. He must have killed me in his head for a thousand times and now he is coming to get my throat" I said feeling my throat getting dry.
"I can't help you with this, this is your own creation, now deal with it" Kate snapped, placing the tab in my palms and throwing me those tough looks.
~
I kept pacing in my room holding the black locks of my hair in my hand thinking about the whole mess of the situation. Joe Hudson had played his cards perfectly; he had lived up to his threat note. While my mind was busy in deciding whether to choose the option of fight or flight, my heartbeats seemed to have forgotten all their routine of beating. Do something, Freya, the monster is already planning to eat me alive.
"Here is my Rockstar!" Rick's happy tone startled me and seeing the smile on his face my frown went deeper.
"What's with the sad look sis? You have done it! You have won your battle; every news channel is showing your success story. Now Robert Hudson will have no place to hide his face. Give me a hi-five" he raised his hand with excitement.
"Give this hi-five to my dead body, when I will be lying in a coffin at my funeral" I said sadly.
"Why are you saying all this?" he asked in confusion.
"You idiot. Can you see it? The news channel is publishing the news but they don't have any solid materialistic evidence to prove that Robert is a maniac. They are only showing those hazy images that I had sneakily clicked from his room. His lawyer will prove it in less than a second that those images are not from Robert's room and I am making false claims and after that, they will make me rot in jail. Open your eyes, all this is a trap!" I explained while pulling the collars of his shirt and jerking him.
Rick's mouth formed an O shape " Jeez! Why didn't I think of it. Now what will happen?"
"My death" I flopped my face.
"But sis, can't we tell everyone that all this is a trap. Joe Hudson is doing all these to seek revenge from you" Rick suggested.
"We can, but who will believe us? We are just a bunch of commoners, no one will believe us" I sighed.
I didn't know what happened to me; I thought I could hear a faint echo of some words that Robert had spoken to me, God! His voice was filled with passion and the intensity in his eyes had glued my gaze to his, when he had spoken: "I will believe anything you say".
Will he live up to his words? Will he believe me? I was so busy in thinking about myself that I totally forgot about the emotional turmoil that Robert was going through. How was he reacting to it? Was he all right? My heart went heavy thinking about him, this was his secret, his painful secret.
"I need to see him and explain everything to him then if he punishes me, I will take that" I decided and was went to reach for my jacket.
"Freya, No! Have you gone crazy? He will be in total monster mode. Just think about it with a cool mind, the guy who can beat himself so mercilessly, what he will do to you. He can kill you" Rick warned, trying to stop me by holding my hand.
And the images of Robert, beating himself mercilessly appeared before my eyes, my body shook slightly and I shut my eyes tightly. "I know, and I also know that he is in pain, that too because of me. This will be my only chance to tell him the truth. So, before the police comes here, I need to go to him to tell him everything and also to make sure if he is okay" I said.
Rick looked at my eyes and I don't know what he had seen in them but the next moment he decided to let go of my hand. "Fine, I will not stop you, but at least let me drive you till there" he requested.
I smiled sadly and nodded.
~
"Okay, now when I see it, it seems like a really bad idea" my lips moved while my eyes were partially hypnotized by seeing the huge crowd of reporters at the front gate of Hudson Mansion. They were desperately demanding for a statement from Robert Hudson. The security guards were trying their best to bounce off the crowd but they were not ready to budge.
"It's good that we parked the car behind the bushes, if anyone sees you here, there will be a big circus" Rick whispered.
I rolled my eyes at him "thanks for the information"
"Calm down, sissy, I'm just trying to help" he raised his hands.
"I never learn. My impulsive nature always gets me into trouble but then also, I don't think before taking a major step, not even once and why the hell didn't you stop me?" I hit him on his arms and then remembered that he had tried his best to stop me but I was the one who was acting all hormonal.
Rick was giving me his signature do-you-want-me-to-answer-that look and my face flopped to a crying one, just without the tears "what am I going to do now? There is no way I will be able to get through that mess" I said pointing towards the crowd and continued "Robert is going to think that I am a horrible person" I leaned on the head rest.
Rick cleared his throat "umm...if it makes you feel any better, you were a horrible person even before this. Remember you were trying to uncover his secret using actual proofs" he raised his eyebrows.
Finally defeated "fine, I admit I wanted all the bad things for him but now I am feeling guilty, I wanted to shatter his pride but I never wanted to break him like this" I sighed.
Rick held my shoulder "I know sis, you have a good heart and you can't see someone in pain, even if it's your worst enemy. But what can we do now? Let's go back?" he asked.
My brain hatched a plan "I don't think so. I am not going to go back from here. Turn the car, we are going through the other way" I winked.
~
"Are you sure this is safe? Let me warn you this wall is very high, how will you jump over it?" Rick asked in confusion.
I gazed the white cement wall from top to bottom, calculating its length in my mind while chewing my nails. Taking a really deep breath, "I can do it, form a basket with your fingers so that I can step on it" I said.
Rick looked at me with confusion for the first few seconds then went for it. I stepped into his hand and by taking support of the wall; I managed to get on top of it. "Whew! now I will get to the spiral stairs then straight to Robert's room" I uttered.
"But how did you know about this back entry?" he asked.
"I have the whole map of this house in my head. Remember I worked here and I checked out all the possible entries and exists apparently trying to solve a murder mystery that never existed" I smirked.
"Cool, now go inside and please try to save your ass. I am waiting in the car" He said.
~
I balanced myself by holding the iron railing of the spiral staircase. The iron railing h
ad some designs of the Victorian era, it mostly had the sculptures of several women in long flowing gowns, they were holding bouquets of flowers, the flowers were red in color. The stairs were black in color but the railing and the sculptures of the women were white in color. The contrast coloring was quite eye-catching, and for a moment I felt that the millions of women in the stone sculptures were throwing looks of despair at me. My eyes were in a haze of the continuous images and I had to shake my head for a few times to focus on the reason for which I was there.
Stop getting distracted Freya, I told myself and braced myself to climb the never-ending steps of the stairs.
Till the time I reached the 3rd floor, I could no longer feel my legs. And not to mention the generous amounts of sweat drops shining on by body. It will be all worth it, Freya, you need to see Robert. I told myself in a breathless voice.
Shit! Where the hell was I? I had never been to this side of the building. There were several corridors which lead to different paths. And I was baffled. Concentrate Freya. Wasn't it enough that the man himself was filled with secrets? Now his house was filled with mystery too. I frowned.
And on top of that, the deserted corridors were giving me the creeps. Trusting my instincts I went for the middle way and after walking about a mile I entered into my recognized zone "thank God" I sighed in relief. Now first thing first, go to Robert, I said to myself.
The door opened automatically at the slightest touch of my fingertip. That made me startle a bit but I went on anyway. And there I saw him, sitting on the soft black rug on the floor with his back attached to the bed. I was dying to see his face, his expressions, but I couldn't. He was sitting hugging his legs to his chest and his head was buried in between his legs.
I stood frozen in my tracks, by God! The guy was actually broken, from where I was standing I could feel that he was shaking.
I rushed to him immediately and sat on my knees, just beside him. But on reaching close to him, a turmoil started to form inside my heart. What if he was crying? What if he got all violent and started hitting me? My brow creased at the thought but at the same time a part of me was aching and was eager to comfort him.
I closed my eyes and shook my head, then digging my nails into the palm of my sweaty left hand I touched Robert's shoulder with my shaky right hand. God, Please don't make him mad at me, I kept praying silently in my head.
My slight touch caused him to react and he raised his head upwards to look at me.
I was taken aback by seeing his eyes, the white portion of his eyes had turned red as it happened when someone cried for hours. But there were no signs of smeared tears on his face, nor was his face red. He was in his blue tracksuit with his hair all messed up but his gaze had that dark effect, of course his eyes had an extreme amount of pain in it but along with that there was something else too, something which I couldn't comprehend. Oh God! What am I supposed to say to him? Was there anything in this world that could make him feel better? And make me feel less guilty?
I swallowed hard as his dark gaze met mine, and I could not keep looking into his eyes, I quickly looked away trying to avoid whatever that acute gaze was holding in it.
I touched his cheek with my sweaty palm, and immediately got goosebumps. The muscles in his jaw tightened and I could feel the heat of his anger on my hand. I wished I could rub away all his pains, I so wished he would tell me the reason for which he was inflicting that unbearable amount of pain to himself. And while I was thinking all these, I could feel a drop of tear rolling down my cheek.
He was still sitting like a statue, a statue that was hurt, scared and had a large amount of unspoken anger comprised within itself. I had come here to tell him the truth, but all I could feel was that heavy feeling inside my heart and I could clearly make out that it was not only guilt but also something else, something unknown.
I wanted to hug him tightly, but the rigidity on his face was making me uncomfortable and very very guilty. But that did not stop me from moving my hand across that perfect face of his. My hands stroked his face, I intended to deliver a soft touch filled with tender and care. While a slight part of my heart hoped that he would stop being so cold and pull me into the embrace of his strong arms instead. Again, his face just stood plain.
"Robert..I...di" I was struggling with my words and took a second to compose myself. Before I could speak he howled in a thunder like tone that literally shook me.
"Go!" he only spoke this word but his roar was so dynamic that my mind went completely blank and all I could do was to run away from there like a chicken. I couldn't even dare to look back at him, I was that terrified.
~
"You said nothing?" Rick threw his question at me with his eyes and mouth both wide open in shock.
"No, I couldn't. He was roaring like an angry lion and I just ran away to save myself" I confessed with my head down.
"All the time you just can't stop blabbering about your greatness and smartness, and you couldn't handle him? Ahh, I expected more from you" he smirked.
I narrowed my eyes and looked up "shut up, okay, you were not trapped in a cage with an angry, man-eating lion. And I love myself too much to risk my precious life" I pouted.
He shook his head "lion? Cage? From where that these come from? Anyways let bygones be bygones. I have thought a way to deal with this problem" he spoke.
"Really? How? Is it a secured plan?" I spoke without breathing.
"Calm down. Sis, I don't have any idea about the questions you are asking. All I can say is that this is a little ray of hope. I called Kent" Rick informed.
"Then? What did he say? Jeez! He should be hell mad at me" I frowned.
Rick held my hand "No. In fact, he is hell mad at the person who decided to telecast that inappropriate news bulletin"
My brow creased "You are saying that Kent was not aware of this telecast? Are you kidding me? He is the damn channel head. Nothing goes on air without his royal assent"
"Yes, Yes I know. But Kent was not present at that time. He just reached Manhattan this morning. He was in South Africa when all these hocus-pocus happened" Rick said.
I bit my nails "So, it's not completely my fault?" I asked with hesitation.
"It's not your fault at all. Kent wants to see you. We will go to him and will say that someone has done all these to frame you and clearly they don't have any evidence against you and on top of that you did not even read the report on air." He winked with a sly smile.
I grabbed his hand "O-M-G! Rick, this is like a jackpot"
"It can be, just act all innocent, like you don't know anything about Robert Hudson" Rick advised.
Then my partially happy face turned into a frown "but...what if Robert does something?" I asked.
Rick shrugged "oh sis! Let's deal with one problem at a time. For now, prepare yourself for the drama with Kent".
"Hmm, start the car. We need to act fast" I said.
Chapter 33
Robert
As I pushed open the heavy glass window, the cold morning winds embraced me. With each passing second, the air became keener, and it felt like those harmless gusts of winds were trying to pierce holes through my body. It was doing nothing but were adding more uncomfortableness to my gloomy, painful, desperate and miserable mood.
Miserable? Did I just think that I was in a miserable state? No! That was impossible, no one had the right to make me feel miserable. I was Robert Hudson; I was the guy with the potential to rule the world.
"I can't be expected to act all broken and miserable. So what if my spirit has been crushed? I can always fix myself up" I said to myself, finding the most powerful tone I could manage at that time.
Someone barged into my room, disturbing my self-prep talk. I looked at uncle Joe, the expression of annoyance should have been prominent on my face.
"A whole night has passed and you are doing nothing about that girl who has spread this nonsense about you? How can you just sit and relax and let that girl walk all over you? You said th
at she meant nothing to you, if it was really true then she should have been behind the bars till now" He snapped, in a tone that was filled with anger. It seemed like he was really pissed off, his face showed desperation.
I clenched my fists and brought a fake smile on my face "thank you so much for your advice, but I would like to be left alone with my problems. I have got better ways to deal with them" and as I said this I could not hold back the burning irritation that his indecent way of advising had caused to my reflexes.
Uncle Joe took a few steps back by seeing the change in expression on my face. He was a bit shocked, that's what I could guess, for the moment.
"Okay, son. Deal it your way, I just came here to let you know that I was worried for you" his tone was softer now.
