CHAPTER FORTY NINE

Mr. Black arrived home at almost midnight and went to the house Liana resided in.
He didn't see the guard at his post and made a mental note to scold him later. All he wanted for now is to see Liana and make sure she is in good shape.
He entered the house, but the Nanny who would usually come out, as soon as she heard the door opening irrespective of if she was sleeping, was nowhere in sight.
"Matilda" Mr. Black called out her name, But there was no answer.
Mr. Black rushed to Liana's room to check if she was there and it was empty.
"Shit" Mr. Black cursed as he went to check the other parts of the house just to make sure he wasn't being paranoid for nothing.
There was no trace of a soul in all the places he had checked and now the only place left was the kitchen.
Getting closer, he heard a faint sound coming from inside, he was relieved but only for a short while, seeing as there was no one inside.
But he noticed something. It was some kind of dark substance on the floor, its source was behind the counter at the center of the kitchen.
Mr. Black took slow and steady steps beside the counter to get a better view and his steps came to a hault once he figured out what that substance was.
The nanny was lying on the floor with her throat slit open.
Mr. Black was suddenly hit on the back of his head with a heavy bat and he fell to the floor.
He was slowly losing his consciousness.
"You have finally shown yourself," Mr. Black said as dizziness overwhelmed him.
" I see, you succeeded in meeting my sister. What did she tell you?" he said and bent down to Mr. Black's level.
" That you are an asshole"
" Do you court death? I mean, I can help you with that, just like your little friend over here" Ben said with a smirk on his face.
The little blood stains around his face, plus his smirk and the glint in his eyes made him to look like a true psychopath.
" You didn't have to kill her" Mr. Black said as he fell back to the floor from his upright position.
" True, but she didn't want you to kill her, So I did. Don't worry too much though, I will make sure to give her a proper burial" That was the last thing Mr. Black heard before passing out.

***" I already told you, we fought"
"You aren't fooling anyone," Mr. Black said seriously.
Diana kept silent for a while before speaking again.
" I left because of him" she confessed.
" Who is he?" Mr. Black asked.
" I can't tell you" Mr. Black was taken back by her response.
" You are protecting him?" Diana only looked down at her fingers as they suddenly became the most interesting thing in the world.
" Who is he?" Mr. Black asked again.
"What is it to you anyway? Why don't you just forget about it?" Diana said.
" My parents died. They were both killed by the same man who you are protecting right now, Why? Because they saved your daughter" Mr. Black said each word with venom laced in his tone.
" It was their choice, not mine and you should hate Amelia because she is the cause of your parent's death," Diana said.
" Believe me I hated her for a stupid reason at first. My parents showered her with love while they forgot they even had a son, but with time I learned to love her as my sister. It wasn't her fault that a crazy psychopath was after her or that my parents were killed because they tried to protect her" Mr. Black said with so much emotion.
"How did you survive?"
" They sent both of us away before their deaths"
" Then they should have saved themselves and run away," Diana said.
" Not everyone is a coward"
"..." Seeing as Diana still has no intentions to speak, he continued.
" What if I told you that the accident was planned by the same person you are protecting"
"It's already in the past now, I forgive him," She said.
"There must be a problem with you," Mr. Black said frustrated.
"That is no way to speak to your elder"
"No one in their right mind will allow another person to hurt their family and then let them go Scott free"
"You said it yourself, Amelia is fine"
"She is in hiding, she can't be free because that person is after her" Mr. Black said almost yelling.
"Then keep her safe" Diana said.
"How selfish can you be? Your daughter is suffering and locked up away from the rest of the world, while you move freely" Mr. Black yelled.
"Then why don't you bring her here to live with me, I can take care of her"
"I will do no such thing," Mr. Black said as he massaged his temple to ease the headache he was getting from talking to Diana.
"Then I am afraid that I cannot help you"
"How many babies did you conceive?" Mr. Black suddenly asked.
" Why do you suddenly ask me this?"
" How many?" Mr. Black asked again.
" I had twins, but the younger one died not even up to an hour after she came into this world," Diana said.
" I guess that's what everyone was made to believe," Mr. Black said while his thoughts wondered of to Lia.
" What do you mean by that?" Diana asked.
" Both of your children are alive"
" That is impossible, I held the corpse in my arms before I let her go"
" Both of them are Ameliana. One with your brother and the other with me. Although I'm not sure why your brother has the supposedly dead girl" Mr. Black said and thought about it.
The only reason he can think of is that Ben took one of the babies and swapped it with a dead one, but for what reason?.
" I don't believe you," The woman said.
"Take a look at this" Mr. Black said and slid a brown envelope to her side of the table.
Diana brought out the contents of the envelope. It consisted of the pictures of both Amelia's and a DNA test result for both of them.
"I and my brother weren't from a good home, Our father was a drunkard, and he would beat us for as little as appearing in front of him while my mother was always passed out on the couch from an overdose. They both passed away when I was sixteen and he was thirteen. We didn't want to go to an orphanage so we ran away together. Luckily we found a place to stay and I will work all day while he went to school. He was always a smart kid, so he did excellently well with his studies and he got a scholarship to a good college. At first, he didn't want to go, he said that he wouldn't want to leave me all by myself, but I managed to convince him otherwise and he left. Everything was going great until... " Diana paused.
Mr. Black attentively listened to everything she said, not sure how her life story had anything to do with him.
"I met my late husband. Ben never liked me going out with him, he despised him. However, I didn't let that get between our relationship. As time went on it became worse, he would threaten to kill my husband and stalk me, it was as if he was obsessed with me. I never took the things he did or said seriously and then I got married to my husband. Ben did something crazy and from that moment, I knew that he wasn't kidding. I distanced myself from him breaking our sibling bond, and Ben left for a while, but not for long. He began threatening me again after some years passed and I thought that by running away I could fix things, I thought it was the only way to protect them" Diana said the last part while crying.
" My brother, he is the one you are looking for" Diana finally confessed.
" It wasn't so hard now was it?" Mr. Black said.
"Please don't do anything to hurt him. It's my fault for not giving him enough love" Diana said.
How foolish, Mr. Black thought.
"I shouldn't be doing this, but when you are ready to come back and see your daughters again, come find me," Mr. Black said and passed her a card before leaving her there. His business with her has now ended.***

***(The above scene has already occurred, it's just a continuation of Mr. Black and Diana's convo)***
Mr. Black woke up the next morning with a splitting headache. He was chained up to a chair. He didn't bother struggling because he already knew there was no way out.
"You're awake," Ben said.
"Ah, Mr. Smith... I mean Mr. Anderson" Mr. Black playfully said while Ben gritted his teeth.
" Watch what you say to me, I could kill you," Ben said annoyed, just from hearing the name Smith.
" I'm not sure why you haven't," Mr. Black said.
" Where is Diana?" Ben asked with all seriousness.
" Away from you," Mr. Black said and laughed out loudly.
Ben angrily punched him on the jaw and Mr. Black spat out some gathered blood in his mouth.
" Where is she?" He asked again.
" I don't feel like telling you" Mr. Black grinned.
" Fucking bastard, if you don't talk I will kill her," Ben said referring to Liana.
" You were so desperate to kill her years ago, if you were really with her she would have been long gone by now, I'm pretty sure she is beyond your reach," Mr. Black said calmly.
" Sooner or later, I will make you talk," Ben said and left the room fumming with anger. He didn't have time to deal with Mr. Black for now, seeing as he had some cleaning and burying to do.
" Why don't you come out from your hiding spot?," Mr. Black said as he sensed another presence in the room.
A woman came out. Mr. Black knitted his eyebrows together once he took in her appearance. She looked as if she was malnourished and sick with eye bags around her eyes. She had a scar along her cheek, it looked like a recent injury. But what shook Mr. Black the most with her appearance was that she had a little resemblance with Liana and Lia, it could hardly be seen but it was there.
"Who are you?" Mr. Black asked.
"Forgotten me already?"