The Dark Secret of the CEO

Chapter 18

Cecily seriously overestimates me if she thinks I can simply get back up just like that. It takes me an extra few minutes to recover the sensations in my legs, and a couple more to actually be able to get up. At least, I’ve made a few furry friends, as the cats that are done eating are all surrounding me asking for pets. The black one in my hand is purring, and rubbing himself against my palm to ask for more. I love cats, and I can’t help but to give in. Plus, the gentle softness of their fur definitely helps me calm down some more. They seem used to hum- I mean, vampires. Does Beatrix always feed them? …Can I keep this one? I wonder what’s the house policy on pets… I should ask Cata later. For now, I have to give up the fluff therapy and get back inside. I’m sweating, my butt and hands are wet from the grass, and my face is an awful mess… Luckily, Swithin still doesn’t care. He’s still deep into his laptop, and I wonder if the red shades are meant to protect his eyes from the blue light or something. …Do vampires have vision issues? I’d bet not.

I make a stop by the kitchen to wash my hands, and Richard is gone, while Cata is busy on… the tablet? She visibly borrowed Swithin’s, and is making an order of some sort. Groceries, perhaps? Where does all that food go, anyway?

I don’t ask, and simply walk back into the corridor and up the stairs, to where I estimate Cecily’s room to be. I can’t help but look around, nervous to cross paths with Beatrix again, but she’s gone… She’s silent as a shadow. I do hear Bart playing video games somewhere upstairs, though, and John and Juliet are talking to each other, but they are whispering very softly, and I don’t dare to eavesdrop. The rest of the house is silent. I guess most of the others are still downtown, and will come back before dawn. I climb another row of stairs, Cecily’s room is on the third… no, second floor by English standards. Damn, even that I have to be careful. It’s the kind of stupid mistake that could betray me.

I softly knock.

“Come in, Baby Vamp!”

I walk in. Her room is quite big compared to the others I’ve seen, I wonder how come… She’s got every bit of it used, though. One wall is completely covered by an open wardrobe, with dozens of designer clothes from brands I recognize. Her furniture is also the most modern I’ve seen, all white, without a speck of dust on it. She also has a big, modern desk with three different cameras on it, a laptop, and a whole bunch of that stuff influencers use nowadays to get better lighting or shoot their vlogs. I don’t know much about it, but I can easily guess that stuff is worth hundreds. More surprising though is, that facing her big, pink canopy bed, is the biggest window, which I expect to be incredibly bright during the day… Although there are big curtains and blinds waiting to cover them anytime.

“Nice room,” I mutter, a bit impressed.

“Thanks! It’s nothing compared to my actual place, but I had it redecorated three years ago. … I just hate the old antique furniture, and I needed something that actually looked like it’s from this century for my videos.”

Cecily is seated at the desk, visibly busy editing a video.

“So you shoot some things here too for your social Media?”

“Of course! In fact, I shoot most of my stuff here, in this room. My viewers love my setup, and they have no way to know where I am anyway.”

“What is your content about?” I ask, walking up to her wardrobe, intrigued.

“Pretty much anything. I like to react to so-called movies and talk about the inaccuracies. I mean, I do know better than anyone in the movie industry about what the eighteenth century was really like… But my viewers also enjoy my make-up testing videos, centuries-proven skin tips, hairstyles that were popular at any era, and so on.”

“Isn’t it risky to use… your knowledge?”

“I actually love the risk,” she winks at me. “I keep up a thin line where my viewers wonder if I’m just a historian or some ghost of the past. You can act like anything you want with the Internet nowadays… Oh, I made you come up to give you this.”

She stands up, and goes to the door on her left. I realize it’s not a bathroom, but a big cupboard, filled with dozens of boxes. I wonder what the heck she keeps in there… perhaps the makeup for her videos, or more clothes? She grabs one of the boxes and looks through it, pulling out a phone and a cable. She hands it to me.

“There you go, present from me. It’s an old model I don’t use anymore, but I figured you could use it, since you don’t have a phone.”

The “old model” is barely two or three years old, a Samsung in an impeccable state! I’m sure this model is still worth at least a hundred dollars- no, pounds. It has an awful pink case I promise myself to change as soon as possible, but otherwise, I’m pretty excited to have my own phone, free for me to use… I haven’t been able to use one without someone’s approval in months! I turn it on, and it turns out to be half charged. A picture of Cecily in a Valentino dress is the background.

“I already transferred all my data, so feel free to delete everything and reboot it all you want! The PIN is 1523.”

“…Your birth year?” I take a guess.

“Death Year,” she winks.

Of course, I should have known… So she’s older than both Bart and Cata.

“…Cecily, do you have a notebook I could use, by any chance?”

She raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment on my weird request, and goes back to her wardrobe, and after a few seconds, pulls out one of those pretty tiny notebooks with a flowery cover, and hands it to me.

“I don’t think I have a pen though, so you might have to ask Cata,” she says. “Feel free to use it all you want, I have tons of these.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, what apps do you normally use?”

In light of my obvious lack of knowledge regarding the latest trend on apps, Cecily takes it upon herself to help me empty the phone, adjust the settings to my liking, and then proceeds to try and convince me to download three dozen different apps, most of them I’ve absolutely never heard of before. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up deleting half of those, except perhaps for the news and music ones. I do have fun arguing with her though, she’s incredibly willful and about as stubborn as I am, but she’s not all that bad. I actually find we’re a bit more alike than I thought, except that she’s enjoying her social media fame far too much.

After going through a couple more apps, I decide, out of curiosity, to go and check what used to be my social media account. I have to use Cecily’s account as I don’t have one just yet, but I quickly find it… And all the content’s been deleted. There’s literally nothing left in there, but 2.3 Million followers still waiting for nothing.

“…Well that’s depressing,” she comments over my shoulder.

“I didn’t delete anything,” I mutter, a bit dejected.

“That bastard probably did it. Another clue that you were not doing well for your followers, suddenly withdrawing from all social media. If they had deleted the account, the fans would have protested, but

since only the content’s gone, they can’t really know you’re not the one who got rid of it all.”

It does make sense… After a bit of hesitation, I decide to set up a new account, under my new name, and follow a few accounts. If I’m going to be Hera Heartgraves, I might as well start working on it now… I follow a few accounts of makeup or clothing brands I liked before my death, only too happy to catch up on everything I’ve missed so far.

“You have good taste,” mutters Cecily, glancing over my shoulder.

“Should I follow you too?”

“Please don’t.”

I chuckle, but I don’t really care either way, I’ll follow her on YouTube instead or something. For the next hour, I have fun laying in Cecily’s canopy bed and scrolling past the last five years I have missed of new trends, celebrity stuff and stupid challenges going on in the internet world. I carefully avoid anything that could even remotely be related to June Starr and, luckily, I was not that popular either that I would randomly appear in the feed of someone with seemingly no previous interest… Suddenly, another thought comes to mind. Liz.

A bit nervous, I look up her Instagram handle. …I found it. Her account is set to private, so I can’t see the content, but I see her profile picture. I immediately choke up, on the verge of tears. She’s smiling brightly in it, and hugging a little girl from behind. Shit…

“What’s wrong?”

Cecily grabs my phone out of my hands, and frowns.

“…A friend?”

I nod, hiding my face behind my arm, unable to speak. She sighs.

“…Well, she has a cute kid.”

I didn’t even know she’d had a child. She was an only child, so I’m sure that baby girl looking like her is her daughter. I’m such an idiot… I calm down a bit, but I’m still staring at that picture, and the “follow” button is rendering me crazy. …Should I? I probably shouldn’t. I should keep the people I knew as June Starr out of it, but… I can’t help but wonder. Is she living well? Did she do fine in her new job in Paris? …Does she still hate me? Damn it. First Rick, now Liz. That’s a lot to handle for one day. I sit up.

“Thanks for the phone,” I say. “I’ll go back now.”

“Cool. See you tomorrow, Baby Vamp.”

Sounds like they really all adopted that nickname unanimously… I leave Cecily’s room with my notebook, new phone and charger in hand, and after a stop by the living room to borrow a pen, I go to my bedroom. I remove my makeup, take a quick shower, and change into pajamas. It’s almost five in the morning, so I’m guessing I won’t be going out anymore today. I take a look around my bedroom. I actually like it. It’s not very big, but I like it better that way, I hate big empty spaces. I don’t even feel the need to change the oak furniture, I kind of like the vibe. I sit up on my bed, and catch my reflection in the mirror. …Hello, Hera. I still have to get used to that red hair, but I do like it a lot.

I grab the notepad, and start taking notes. All the names of the Heartgraves I’ve met so far, and if I know them, their dates of birth or death. A couple of notes about their personalities, too. Just so I keep somewhat track… I have a feeling it won’t be necessary in a couple more weeks, but at least knowing who’s older than who seems needed. I have a feeling the dynamics in the family also work according to their history, and there’s a hell of a lot of it. I’m also well-aware there are probably more Heartgraves out there… I wonder how long it will take for me to meet them all.

My phone suddenly rings, making me jump. Cecily just added me into some family group chat, and I can’t help but be amused. Vampires have a family group chat… I can’t see the past messages, but I

look up the members of the group. There are seventeen… I quickly add the names I recognize. There are a few I don’t know yet. Susan, Vivian, Elijah, Quentin, Atticus… More of my new siblings, I guess. Some of those I have met don’t seem to be in the group either, like Beatrix, Claude or Agnes, so I guess there might also be more Heartgraves I don’t know about. I guess these are the more social ones… I wait a bit, but there’s nothing going on. I hesitate to send a text… Would it be weird? After a hesitation, I just send a hand waving emoji. My social skills aren’t blowing off the roof… To my surprise, I get a couple of answers. Bart replies with a baby emoji -very funny-, and Lancelot a wink. Cecily answers with a black heart, and a bit surprising, the unknown Viktor sends a hand waving too. Well, that’s the first step I guess… I wait a bit longer, but I guess most of them are out partying or not on their phones at the moment. I put it aside, and lie down on my bed. I’ve had quite a long night… and it’s just the beginning. I have a feeling I won’t get many quiet nights like this. For now, I have to prepare for my revenge… I have to get Hera ready for this.

…But who do I want Hera to be? It’s strange to think I’m starting with a completely new, clean slate. I literally get to be whoever I want, do whatever pleases me. The only thing I want right now though, is revenge.

I still feel the anger rise exponentially at the smallest bit of thought drifting towards Charles. I replay his call with Swithin over and over in my head. The fucking bastard. How could he use me like this, and just be even greedier for money… Now, where do I even start? I grab the notepad again, and start listing things down. I want to expose that he pushed me to my death for money. I want to expose all his wrongs with his company. I want to show how horrible of a person he is. I want to make him lose everything he has, all his relationships. I want him to regret everything he’s done. I want to render him paranoid like he did to me… I start to think of a plan, lying down in my bed. I need to know why and how he did all this, and for that I need to get the insight that June didn’t have. Like I told the others, I need to do it all from the inside, but in such a way that he won’t have suspicions about me, about Hera Heartgraves. I suppose I have pretty much unlimited resources and money, but that certainly won’t be enough…

Suddenly, a loud banging wakes me up, coming from downstairs. I hear someone walking in, and it doesn’t sound like the steps of any Heartgraves I’ve already met. Even more intriguing, several doors are opened throughout the house, everybody’s coming down. I follow the movement, and meet Cecily and Bart as we walk downstairs, both with long faces. What’s going on…?

We finally arrive in the living room, where the tallest guy I’ve ever seen is standing. He’s not just tall; he’s freaking huge, with thick, square shoulders in a leather jacket, short messy hair, a big beard, and tiny eyes. He’s facing Richard with a dark expression.

“…Greyson,” Bart whispers for me.

First time I’m hearing about that guy, then?

“Greyson, what’s going on?” Asks Cecily, stepping inside the room. Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

He looks up at her, his eyes going to me for just a second.

“…Quentin and Atticus are missing,” he groans.

From the expression on their faces, it can’t be good. I glance around, a bit confused.

“Is that an issue?” I mutter. “I thought you guys had your own lives going on…”

“Quentin does go off the grid from time to time,” growls Greyson. “…But not Atticus. He never leaves the place he lives in, and he never stays without contacting at least one of us for longer than a couple of days, and we haven’t heard from him in weeks. I went to his place. He’s nowhere to be found.”

“If he hasn’t contacted us, it’s not good.” Bart nods. “…Something happened to him.”

“It’s worse than that. If something happened to Atticus, something might have happened to all those who didn’t show up today,” mutters Swithin.