"...did soone try to kill you?"
Silence followed Finn’s question. None of them spoke once those words left his mouth. All they could do was stare at each other in pure, heavy stillness.
As for Lola, she gazed down, her brows knitting together.
"Soone tried to kill ?" she whispered to herself, touching the back of her neck as an unsettling feeling crept into her heart. "Who would do such a thing?"
Back then, Loren was still alive. So Jasmine couldn’t have tried to kill her. And she didn’t think it was Lawrence either. That man had been too busy raising his daughter and nurturing his affair. Mike? He was rotting in jail, serving his ti.
After a second, her mouth fell open and her heart slowed a beat.
Was it Loren? she whispered to her heart. Did she... try killing ?
Was Loren’s guilt consuming her every ti she looked at Lola? Did she decide to take Lola with her? Or did she think that if Lola was gone, her own death and secrets would be buried forever?
Lola wasn’t sure, but the re thought felt like a thorn lodged in her throat.
"I don’t know," she whispered, lifting her eyes and sparing her siblings from the bitterness swelling in her chest. "And I don’t think so. Maybe it was that ti I almost drowned to death."
It was a lie.
Lola had already rembered her first life when she saved Derek from drowning. Even so, she chose this excuse because she didn’t want to think about Loren. The more she looked at that possibility, the more monstrous Loren’s image beca in her mind.
Taking the cue, Penny, Slater, and Finn nodded in understanding. None of them pressed the matter further. It was obvious Lola had thought of soone, and whoever it was, they didn’t want to force her to reopen wounds she had fought so hard to heal.
"Anyway, that’s that!" Penny clapped, smiling. "The four of us—five, including my husband—are all in the sa boat."
Lola forced a smile, her eyes glossing over their faces. Relief slowly replaced the bitterness in her heart, knowing she wasn’t as alone as she always felt.
"So, in your first life..." Finn leaned back, swirling his drink elegantly. "Did you also die?"
"Mhm." Lola pressed her lips. "I should be dead right now."
Their mouths ford an o-shape, only for Finn to joke, "All of us should be. Haha."
"So, how did you die?" Penny asked with curiosity, only for Slater to yell, "Penny, what do you think this is? Trauma bonding?"
"Pfft—" Lola stifled her laughter behind her hand. She rested her palm on her lap and huffed lightly. "I got into an accident."
Slater scrunched his nose. "Sis, don’t feed her more trauma! This isn’t group therapy!"
But they ignored him.
"I was paralyzed, kept in a small hospital storage room because I’d racked up a huge bill that Lawrence Young was unwilling to pay for," she said quietly. "And then lissa helped by pulling the plug."
"That bitch—!" Penny and Slater were about to jump to their feet, fists already clenched, when Finn reached out and stopped them.
"Easy now," Finn said. "They’ve been dealt with."
Lola nodded. "Finn is right. They’ve already paid for everything. So even if we get angry, they’re already exactly where they deserve to be."
"That’s First Sister for you."
"Anyway." Lola motioned for Penny and Slater to sit back down. "You didn’t ntion the secret society in your first life. How did you guys—how did Atlas get tangled up with that?"
Her question lingered in the air as Penny and Slater settled back. Lola’s brows rose as she studied their expressions—not reluctance, but a sense that they were figuring out where to even begin.
"Zoren." Another voice entered the conversation.
Everyone turned to see Hugo approaching them. Instead of taking an available seat, he plopped himself down on the floor, drenched head to toe. Hugging his knees, he smiled innocently.
"Ca from a swim. My wife kicked out and told to co back once she finished showering," he explained before anyone could ask. "Then I ca here to wait, and overheard your conversation."
Lola instinctively looked at the others, checking their reactions. Even though they’d ntioned Hugo was aware, she didn’t know to what extent. But no one seed bothered, so she eased.
"Zoren?" she continued.
"We ntioned that Zoren outlived every single one of us," Finn said knowingly. "That’s because everything that happened to us was connected to him one way or another."
"In short, my husband was supposed to be next in line for the Zorken family," Penny clarified. "He was born to lead the Order since his mother is a pure Zorken. But since he’s too in love with , and the secret society isn’t our kind of lifestyle..."
"First Brother took it," Slater finished. "But before you bla Penny, First Brother was already... slightly unstable."
Lola knitted her brows. "Unstable, how?"
"You see, First Brother is a very proud person. To him, we are his first children," Hugo explained. "So when he found out what Penny went through in her first life, and how he contributed to her suffering, he started planning his own murder."
"What?"
"He wanted Penny to kill him as repentance," Finn explained, making everyone nod grimly. "He beca so obsessed with the idea that she had no choice but to either go along with it or find another way."
"And the secret society beca his gallows?" Lola asked, and they all blinked.
A strange mix of emotions washed over her, but knowing Atlas, she understood imdiately.
When Atlas fixated on sothing, it wasn’t a simple fixation.
It beca an obsession.
If sothing as small as the Youngs’ behavior during Lawrence’s accident had uncovered decade-long secrets just because it bothered him... then one could imagine if Atlas obsessed over sothing bigger?
The consequences would be unimaginable.
"I need our brother alive, sis," Penny murmured, guilt weighing in her eyes. "And if keeping him alive ant he’d be part of the Secret Society, then we’d all take it."
Everyone nodded with deep breaths. None of them looked proud. More like resigned, carrying a burden they had already carried once before.
But then, Lola’s brows slowly knitted as a new thought ford in her mind.
"Penny," she called, and Penny humd in response. "You said in your first life, you took the fall while Atlas was the one running the family business."
"Yep."
"And Atlas blad himself because it should’ve been him."
"Uh-huh."
"And that the Bennets were just in the wrong place at the wrong ti?" Lola repeated their old explanation, watching all of them nod until they didn’t with her next question.
"How positive are you that that’s the actual case?" she asked.
"First Sister, what are you insinuating?" Finn frowned. "That the Bennet family was actually chosen? And that Penny’s sentence was supposed to be..."
Finn’s words trailed off as his eyes slowly widened. Penny, Slater, and Hugo all furrowed their brows, their expressions shifting as old assumptions began to tilt.
"In hindsight, in the first life, it’s clear Global Pri Logistics was targeted," Lola said slowly, carefully organizing her thoughts. "And at that ti, Atlas was the one running it. Doesn’t it make more sense that soone was targeting Atlas? But Penny interfered...?"
She paused as a chill ran down her spine.
"And the fact that my twins were delivered to him, and stolen from ."
"You guys..." Her heart skipped. "How positive are we that your case is actually closed? And not just sothing you were made to believe was closed?"
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