novelBeside Claire
| ← Ch.363 | Ch.365 → |
"Cole, where's the key father had given you? It used to hang around your neck always." Dawn's voice was shaky.
"It's still hanging on my neck, duh! Why?" he replied matter of fact as if she was asking a ridiculous question.
"Good! We will be needing it soon, " she said and disconnected the phone.
Daryn stared at her as if she had grown two heads."Really?"
Dawn let out a soft laugh."You need to help me locate which bank does the key belong to."
"Bank? It could be the key to anything!"
"No, it has a number engraved on it, " she replied."I have to locate the secret bank account that our father had created, and I am extremely sure that he had someone trusted for the work because no one has been able to locate it. When he hid us in the hospital, he had given the keys to Cole. I remember it very well now!" She patted her thigh in anticipation."I am sure that is where he was depositing his money so that it remained safe for us." Dawn shuddered. Her father had actually saved a future for them and she just found out about it now. Fresh stream of tears came out, but this time they were accompanied with a smile.
"Let us go and get your father a place he deserves, " said Daryn cupping her face.
She nodded through her tears."I am becoming such a cry baby, " she chuckled but couldn't stop the dam that had broken.
Daryn kissed her forehead."No darling. Let them all come out."
Next day, in the presence of police, Lily Wyatt, Daryn, Dawn, Cole, David and Cecilia, body of Luke Wyatt, the influential businessman of his times, was exhumed.
Lily Wyatt fainted when she saw the skeletal remains of her son. A gold band was still on his left finger—the ring he always wore, one his wife gave him on the day of wedding.
The right arm and femur were fractured and jutting out of their place as if they had jutted out of his skin. He must have been thrown or beaten heavily with a sharp metal rod repeatedly for this kind of state.
Cole's palms curled into fists and he stopped himself from whimpering as his lips trembled. He had to see the man who had done this to his father. He had to personally do exactly the same thing that was done to his father. Cole stopped himself from crying that day, because if he cried, he wouldn't be able to avenge. Dawn walked up to him and wrapped her arm across his shoulder.
"I am sorry Cole, " she whispered.
He didn't speak a word, only watched the men taking his father's skeletal remains out of the pit carefully. They placed it in a casket.
The police wanted to conduct an autopsy report but with Daryn's intervention, they didn't. The family only wanted a quiet burial. Luke was buried next to his wife in the presence of Lily Wyatt and the two kids that were the only Wyatts left in the family. Daryn, David, Rose and Cecilia were also present. Other than them, they had requested no one else to come. Media was completely denied. Their family wanted to spend time together. Standing on the side, Lily watched as the pastor performed the last rites. Her gaze traveled to her grandkids—the only Wyatts who survived her son. She realized that Luke started low in his life and by all his hard work, he had been able to rise in his profession as well wealth. However, with all the greed that she nurtured in her heart, all the hatred she cultivated and all the gluttony she had, brought her back to the place where she started—like a lowly life she was. Her son had brought them up so high, and she brought in Anne in the business, she encouraged Helena, she was never bothered when Dawn and Cole went missing and now...
She was standing with only two of her bloodline—Dawn and Cole. If she had been better in her demeanor, Luke and Claire would have been standing with her—her complete family. Anne had shamed the whole family to an extent that Lily didn't know how to recover after that. The woman ended up murdering her own brother. Her eyes drifted to David and Cecilia and she wondered if the family would have stayed happy if she hadn't invited Anne to help her brother with his business, if she wouldn't have sidetracked Claire... too many regrets crossed her heart.
And for the first time Lily Wyatt sank to her knees. Her body shuddered and she let out a loud cry, a desolate sobbing that comes when a person realized all his or her life's mistakes in that one moment. Everyone looked in her direction, but none stopped her. In front of her son's grave, not caring for the wed mud, which made her skirt dirty, Lily Wyatt looked up at the sky and then wailed painfully. The cold November wind brought light drizzle and her tears mixed with the droplets of rain. The ache that made a hole in her heart, the pain, which was as cold as the November rain was palpable. People who watched her were struggling to keep hold on themselves, except Cole who watched it all with frigid expressions, who looked at Lily with so much hatred that even he couldn't fathom it.
It was hard to believe that her son would have been cold and bereft of warmth when he was being buried in the ground. And only then did she realize as to why Anne was fussing so much about getting the looks of the fountain changed after all the damage she had rendered to it without consulting anyone. However, Lily was angry and the fountain was restored to its original form.
Dawn left with Cole and Daryn, while David left with his family. Lily refused to get up from there and the pastor assured the family that he would take care of her. Nonetheless, Dawn later asked Cara to come and stay beside Lily in case she became ill again.
Cole locked himself up in his room for two days after the incident. His sixteen-year mind couldn't bear the torture and worse, he wasn't allowing anyone to come near him. Dawn and Daryn had repeatedly tried their best to take him out of the room, but the boy didn't budge. When he came out two days later, he looked haggard and...?matured. It was as if he had matured several years in those two years. His countenance had become sober and it was clear that he was hurting on the inside, and he wasn't letting anyone reach him.
"Cole!" Dawn got up to her feet when she saw him. She was sitting in the main hall just outside his room. She hadn't gone to the office and had been dealing business from home, as she was scared about him."How are you?" she asked, scanning his face.
His expressions were stern and unreadable. He looked disheveled."I am fine..." he replied as he raked his fingers through his hair. He went to sit on the leather sofa that was opposite her.
Dawn sat back in her place with her hands clasped in her lap as she leaned forward attentively."Do you want to eat something?"
"I want to get hold of the man who did that to father, Dawn, " he answered.
| ← Ch. 363 | Ch. 365 → |