The Red Match

The Red Match

Legacy4real

5.0
Comment(s)
33
View
21
Chapters

BLURB Charlotte Reeves, a wealthy middle aged painter must face the reality of raising a troublesome 8 year old son alone after the divorce from her husband, Detective Jon. All efforts from her best friend Sheila to talk her into a new relationship proves futile until one day. Charlotte is invited to her son's school after he is involved in a fight and there she meets a thrilling young man who later introduces himself to her as "Smile". They start talking and in no time a lonely Charlotte is drawn into his dark secretive world. Just then, women begin to die in the small town of Manhattan and as investigation goes deeper, Charlotte fears that she may have fallen in love with a serial killer.

Chapter 1 CHARLOTTE

"Marty!", Charlotte's voice echoed round the house. She was not expecting an answer and truly she didn't get one.

"Someday, I'll go crazy finding this child", she murmured to herself and closed the balcony door.

She had been searching for Marty, her troublesome eight year old boy for about thirty minutes and she was already exhausted. She made towards the garage to see if he would be there playing but he wasn't. She turned to go back inside but stopped at the unfamiliar sight of a brown Mustang pulling up her driveway. Charlotte watched, admiring the driver's zest as he revved the engine, a respectable distance from her momentarily poisoning the fresh morning air with soot. The door clicked open and Marty came out grinning.

"Marty", she screamed. "Where the hell have you been."

Marty frowned. "Driving a Mustang. Isn't that obvious?"

Charlotte walked towards him angrily and snatched the keys from his hands.

"And where did you get a Mustang?", she queried.

"Now that's a better question", Marty smiled and walked right past her.

"I'm talking to you, don't walk away."

"Okay", he said and stopped.

"Good. Now would you answer my question?"

"Nope", he replied and ran off.

"Maaaaartyyyyyyy!"

"Don't be such a kill joy, the boy had a lot of fun today", a familiar voice said from the passenger's seat.

"Sheila?", Charlotte frowned.

"Oui", Sheila replied coming out of the car. "Your boy's a fast learner. Far better than you at your first trial."

Charlotte sighed. Sheila had been her friend for close to twenty years and her discomfort noticing how Sheila loved hanging out with her son was simply borne from the fact that she knew very well that Sheila didn't really have the 'Midas touch'. Infact, she had like the opposite of that because she hardly ever put her hands on or into something that worked perfectly well. Even if it did, it was always short lived. Back in college, she had caught the eyes of every college girl's dream guy, billionaire businessman, Kieran West's son, Karl West and their relationship only lasted for a month. Karl who had already fallen in love with Sheila had secretly contacted Charlotte as her best friend and begged her to help him plan a surprise engagement party so he could formally propose to her. A surprised Charlotte helped organize the party but knowing how badly her friend reacted to surprises, decided to tell her a day to the D-day. It turned out to be a terrible idea as Sheila freaked out and avoided contact with Karl for a whole week. After her period of self isolation, she came back to the real world and found out that it wasn't exactly how she left it - Karl had travelled to France to oversee his father's business there and attend another business school. He had planned to take her along with him but she wouldn't pick his calls or even reply his texts. She cried her eyes out at the realization of what she had missed and went on to borrow money from everyone she knew to raise the money for a flight ticket to France. Eventually she got scammed by some guy who promised her he could get her a ticket and two months accommodation with three hundred bucks. She never heard from Karl again and Charlotte that day concluded that Sheila had to be the most unlucky person in the world.

"And you. Where did you get that Mustang?", Charlotte finally asked.

"I'm a model..."

"...that has been out of contract for two years now", Charlotte cut in. "For God's sake you shouldn't be spending like this."

"Whatever", Sheila laughed. "You got a lot from your dad. If not for him, you wouldn't be giving me financial advise, would you?"

Charlotte wanted to tell her how successful she had become as an artist...how her painting had been auctioned at the La Gazelle for $100,000...how she had refused a million dollar offer from French business mogul, Pierre Deschamps for her replica of The Mona Lisa which he could swear was better than the original, how she had over twenty different awards and a hundred other certificates from different art organizations lying dusty and abandoned in old shelves in her room but instead she smiled.

"Guess I've always been daddy's little girl", she shrugged. "Come on in."

"Thought you'd never ask", Sheila rolled her eyes. "I'm super hungry."

"With a 2 million dollar mustang", Charlotte thought leading her through the front door of the Reeves family mansion.

The Reeves family mansion was the biggest residential home in the whole of Manhattan. Secluded among trees on one of Manhattan's most exclusive streets, it had turrets, balconies, an indoor garden, two pools and a gazebo. The walls of the fence were high and had many shades of brown suggesting that they had been there for years. The interior decorations were just as good as the exterior; exotic paintings lined the polished walls of the mansion giving away the family's love for art. The silk curtains were pitch black, embroidered with gold at the top and hanging over 9 feet, allowing only occasional rays of sunlight come in when the wind blew them apart. The chandelier suspended above the white ceiling reminded Sheila of the one at the Hotel Matiàl and she was about to make a comment on it before her eyes darted round and found the Mona Lisa painting.

"I always knew you were a lover of art", she laughed her eyes fixed on the painting on the wall. "But to stoop so low to steal a painting."

Charlotte followed her eyes and smiled knowing it was her Mona Lisa painting that piqued her friend's interest.

"I didn't steal it though"

"Jon did?"

"You would not disrespect my husband in my house", Charlotte raised her voice.

"Ex-husband", Sheila corrected settling down on the couch beside her. "Get used to it girl. You're all alone now."

Charlotte frowned at her. "Sometimes I wonder if you're actually my friend."

Continue Reading

You'll also like

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

SHANA GRAY
4.3

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

THE SPITEFUL BRIDE: MARRY TO RIVAL'S SON

THE SPITEFUL BRIDE: MARRY TO RIVAL'S SON

Ray Nhedicta
4.6

"Let's get married," Mia declares, her voice trembling despite her defiant gaze into Stefan's guarded brown eyes. She needs this, even if he seems untouchable. Stefan raises a skeptical brow. "And why would I do that?" His voice was low, like a warning, and it made her shiver even though she tried not to show it. "We both have one thing in common," Mia continues, her gaze unwavering. "Shitty fathers. They want to take what's ours and give it to who they think deserves it." A pointed pause hangs in the air. "The only difference between us is that you're an illegitimate child, and I'm not." Stefan studies her, the heiress in her designer armor, the fire in her eyes that matches the burn of his own rage. "That's your solution? A wedding band as a weapon?" He said ignoring the part where she just referred to him as an illegitimate child. "The only weapon they won't see coming." She steps closer, close enough for him to catch the scent of her perfume, gunpowder and jasmine. "Our fathers stole our birthrights. The sole reason they betrayed us. We join forces, create our own empire that'll bring down theirs." A beat of silence. Then, Stefan's mouth curves into something sharp. "One condition," he murmurs, closing the distance. "No divorces. No surrenders. If we're doing this, it's for life" "Deal" Mia said without missing a beat. Her father wants to destroy her life. She wouldn't give him the pleasure, she would destroy her life as she seems fit. ................ Two shattered heirs. One deadly vow. A marriage built on revenge. Mia Meyers was born to rule her father's empire (so she thought), until he named his bastard son heir instead. Stefan Sterling knows the sting of betrayal too. His father discarded him like trash. Now the rivals' disgraced children have a poisonous proposal: Marry for vengeance. Crush their fathers' legacies. Never speak of divorce. Whoever cracks first loses everything. Can these two rivals, united by their vengeful hearts, pull off a marriage of convenience to reclaim what they believe is rightfully theirs? Or will their fathers' animosity, and their own complicated pasts tear their fragile alliance apart?

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book