The Ultimate Chance-Chapter 73

"Guys, can we all calm down?" She tried not to loose her cool in the face of the battle the guys were hungry to start. There was no way she would believe that they were doing this to protect her. She knew if she didn’t stop them, they would have fought themselves, and this was a chance they had gotten to let off some steam. Why didn’t they go to the gym instead?

"Why should I calm down when some parasite is here to mess with you? I’ll kill them." Damon cleared his throat to prepare for whatever intruder they were about to face.

Even though she didn’t want to seek any violence but with the two men who were taking their bodyguard role way too seriously, there didn’t seem to be any choice. She waited for the attacker to come and when she saw that it was Bryce, she crossed her arms. "Mr. Vaillant."

He was stumped. After finding out all she had done was search through the financial records, he had suspected she was up to something. Amelia had insisted she was spying on them and he was here to prove her wrong. But seeing his daughter with Gabriel and Damon behind her like bodyguards, all the strength drained from his body.

"Is it true? Are you all in this togetehr?" He demanded.

"You have the guts to ask me? Don’t you already know why I checked through your records?" She crossed her arms. "I don’t know what you thought was going to happen if I saw those huge transactions and followed them up to find out what they signified. Were you out of your mind, thinking it would all be normal?" She nearly couldn’t believe it was possible for anyone to be such an idiot. If he was not so serious, she might have thought he was putting on another act to make her let her guard down.

"What huge transactions?" He asked, baffled about what she was speaking of.

She turned to silently let Gfabe know she no longer wanted to deal with this.

To her relief, her brother stepped in for her. "The money you sent to that fake nurse to help you take a baby from an incubator five years ago. Ring a bell?"

The confusion on his face threw the two of them off. They had expected a series of excuses and reasons why he did what he did but instead, he looked lost like he genuinely didn’t know what he was being accused of.

Avery threw the transaction receipt at him. She had stolen a copy of it and was going to use it to get incriminating evidence out of their mouths. He studied it carefully and shook his head. "If I made this kind of transaction at any point in my life, I would remember it." When he realized what they were accusing him of, he frowned. "I’m not going to pretend I appreciated the thought of this child being born. I hate the D’Abovilles with my entire life. However, why the hell would I kill a child instead of the man who ruined my marriage?"

"Ruined your marriage?" Avery asked despite having found out from Damon’s story. She wanted to trap him in a lie but alas, she was bound to be disappointed yet again. All he told her was what she had heard from Damon and Gabriel, and he was not afraid to say it out loud in Damon’s presence.

She soon realized he was doing it to make her question whether her relationship with Damon was based on love or thirst for revenge. Her body trembled in a mixture of feelings. She was confused, sad and upset , and angry with the world for letting her have to do this. Why couldn’t she find her son’s killer in a flash?

Her throughts were interrupted by Angel who stepped before her with his arms spread out to cover her, and his fists clenched. The little boy was declaring war against Bryce with his fierce eyes, making her heart melt.

When she caught him trying to take a step towards Angel in hope that he would befriend the little boy, she lost it into a growling fit. "If you ever get close to my son, I’ll kill you!" 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"You can’t say such a thing. He is my son." He complained.

Damon stepped up in front of them. "I gave you all the time in the world to speak to my family, but that doesn’t mean you should cross a line. You should leave before I make you uglier."

"If you ever get close to my sister or nephew, I will skin you alive." Gabriel added before he whispered to Damon, "Hey, you stole my line."

Bryce knew he would not be able to have a reasonable conversation with any of them when they were so biased against him. Besides, it seemed like he had some family matters to take care of.

....

"Should we believe him?" Avery asked when they were on their own. For the second time today, she was pacing her living room in distress, speculating how many things her family said were true.

She had a squeaking stress ball in her hand and had made Gabriel, Damon, Mabella and Mina sit in the living room to help her think.

"He has nothing to gain from lying right now. If he were to tell the truth, he wouldn’t have anything to lose either. I already have enough evidence that the crime happened and it points towards him. WHy would he still lie?" She asked.

"Uhm, do you want us to answer in turns?" Damon asked.

She stopped pacing. "WHere is Angel? I need all the brains I can get from people involved in this matter."

Mabella called the boy over who was spray-painting his favorite truck. He put down the can of spray paint and ran over to join the others simply because he was told to sit next to his father. He didn’t know what he was doing here nor did he understand why his mother was pacing. All he knew was that some discussion was going on. If it was a game, he would really love to win it and get some candy so he listened diligently.

Avery’s heart calmed, unaware of her son’s thoughts.

"Good. I can finally think." She sat on a couch that still allowed her to see all of them.

"Have you ever been a witness to a crime in court, and the defendant denied the crime until the last moment?" She made her toy squeak. "No matter how much evidence is exhibited and how obvious it is that they are guilty, they will plead ’not guilty’. Have you ever met such a person?" She realized she was going off on tangents. "So what if I caught him in the act? It doesn’t mean he will not want to make excuses and pretend to be innocent."

She was right, so no one denied the possibility.

"I think you are thinking too much, Avery." Mabella was first to speak. "If he did it, he will not admit it. That’s that."

She nodded but pointed her squeaky stress ball at Mina. "What do you think?"

"Huh?"

She gave up. Mina was probably only here to see Gabe and would be disappearing as soon as she let go of them.

"If Bryce didn’t make this transaction, who did?" Damon wondered. "Who else do you think has access to this account and is capable of commiting such an evil deed?"

She shut her eyes to think. "I think it is him. His marriage was ruined by the D’abovilles. You heard him say it himself. For a while, he wasn’t even sure whether I am his daughter.

She straightened up a her eyes shot open when it clicked.

"If father thought of the possibility that I was not his daughter, then mother thought of it too."

"So what? We had a DNA test." Gabriel reminded her. Afraid of his mother faking the results or bringing someone else to do it, he had done an ancestry test in secret and when he convinced her to do the same, they had found they had the same ancestors. There was no way they were not full siblings.

She kept thinking nonetheless. "What if she faked the results?" She speculated. "She would not be certain whether or not I’m her husband’s daughter because she wouldn’t know we are truly related."

"That does sound like something a cheating woman would do," confirmed Mabella.

"If she thought far enough, she could have believed that Angel is..." She stopped herself belatedly. She had talked too much about topics that could upset him. Luckily, his attention had been drawn back to his favorite track and he was staring at it despite being with them in the living room.

She let out a sigh of relief and let him go back to play, before finishing her statement. "If I had a child with my nephew..."

"Don’t." Damon stopped her.

However, Gabriel found it too funny to pass up the chance to tease Damon. "Your aunt?"

"Shut up." Damon glared at him.

They wanted to fling each other at the wall, but they came to the same conclusion as she did. "Amelia has a stronger reason to want Angel dead.

____

Meanwhile, Bryce had thought about the same thing. As soon as he got back home, he looked for Amelia to confront her. He couldn’t find her anywhere in the whole house, and there wasn’t any sign of anyone apart from the bathroom. He could hear water running and when he reached to open the door, he noticed the overflowing water that was seeping out the door.