The Unwanted Bride Of Atticus Fawn

Chapter 57

The Unwanted Bride Of Atticus Fawn Chapter 57

~ATTICUS~

“Where are you going?” Damon demands as I grab my key from the counter just as he’d returned from dropping Anya home.

“I need to clear my head.” I lie.

“Do you want me to come with you?” He asks. “To keep you company. I’ll be quiet, I swear.”

I shook my head, “this is something I want to do alone.”

He nods, “just know I’m one call away if you need me.” Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

I don’t wait for him to say anything else. I was desperate to find the truth, and since no one was willing to tell me, I had to do all the digging on my own.

There’s one place that wouldn’t be able to hide the truth. And that’s the warehouse where they kept all of the magazines.

I was sure there had to be at least one that could tell me everything I needed to know. The problem was breaking into it. No one would let me inside without causing a scene. But I knew at least one person would accept a bribe from me. That’s why I had a good amount of cash with me. Everyone is supposed to be home by now, everyone except the guards.

Once I got through to the main guard, everything else would be more accessible.

I mashed down hard on the accelerator when I felt a painful memory of the day of the accident. I mashed the brakes and pulled to the side of the road before I could lose control of the vehicle.

What the hell was that? I tried to replay the five seconds of memory over and over again.

I was racing after a vehicle on that day. I clutched my chest at the pain I felt at the reminder. It wasn’t anything significant, but it was enough to make me wonder what the hell had genuinely happened on that day. Why was I racing after a vehicle? No one mentioned that to me, but they hadn’t mentioned anything at all about that day.

Autumn had asked me once if the accident traumatized me, and my answer was no. Now, I wasn’t sure that was the correct answer. It was the first time I’d chosen to drive this fast since the accident, and I wasn’t expecting to have this kind of reaction.

It meant that I was speeding that day the crash took place. Even if I was speeding, I always thought I was a good driver. I should have been able to stop the vehicle. Nothing about that day made sense to me. Something had to have caused the accident. But what was it?

I pulled back onto the road; I couldn’t let this stop me from finding the truth. It’s not like I could ask anyone for help; no one would do it.

I chose to drive slower; I hoped that would help with the unsettling feeling in my chest.

It takes longer than it should for me to reach my destination.

I park the car on the side of the building and found the guards at the main entrance.

“Do you have written permission to be here?” One of them asks.

“No,” I answer honestly. “But I have plenty of cash to give to you if you let me through and keep this just between the four of us.”

They looked at each other skeptically, and I pulled the money out of the car as proof.

“And what do we do about the cameras?” He asks.

“You can leave that to me,” I assure him.

Arthur and his family had provided me with gadgets to shut off cameras within a certain distance. I’d brought it with me today.

After handing them the money, they open the gates for me to pass. I didn’t waste any time as I opened all the doors that gave me access to the room I was looking for. Luckily, the keys had been left with the guards. No one would know anything if I didn’t make a mess inside there. That was the plan. To keep everything the same way it was when I got here.

I walked into the storage room and felt discouraged by the thousands of magazines they had in boxes.

It would take me forever to go through everything.

I searched the boxes for dates, but they weren’t labeled. How could they not label their boxes?

Ah, f**k.

I felt like shoving them all to the ground, but I knew that would only make things much harder for me.

I start with the box closest to me. How would I know which of these articles included stories about me? And how would I know which of them included the information that I was searching for?

I went through them one after the next. I only checked the front page of each magazine. That’s usually where the stories about me were printed.

The first box had zero reports about me. The second one had, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.

I spent hours searching through hundreds of boxes, hoping to find at least one thing that would be helpful to me, but to my disappointment and frustration, nothing here had anything to do with the

accident.

I dropped onto the ground and held my head in my hands. Where could it be? Did they remove everything from that day?

My family was more desperate than I initially thought to keep the truth from me. They must have thought about all of this. The fact that no one in school mentioned it to me meant that they forced everyone to keep their mouth shut. I knew how my parents acted when they were desperate for something not to come out in the open. They had enough money to shut the mouths of millions.

It only made me more determined to keep searching. Why were they making me go through this? All they had to do was tell me the f*****g truth. I couldn’t even be pissed at them. They kept saying that they were only trying to protect me.

I move from the storage room and into the main office. I wasn’t about to give up. I came here for answers, and I wasn’t leaving until I’d gotten them.

I opened one drawer after the next, but there wasn’t anything that could help me.

There was only one more thing I could think about doing, and that was accessing their work on the computer.

“Fuck.” I hissed when I realized that there was a lock on it. The only persons that could help me with that were the Blackners, and they weren’t here. I didn’t have time to call them for help either. I wasn’t sure if they would’ve helped me either. There’s no telling how many people my parents have bribed or warned to prevent me from knowing the truth.

I walk out of the room with plenty on my mind. I wasn’t successful in finding the truth. I’d failed yet again.

On my way out, I notice a sign pointing to their dumping grounds. It’s where they kept the magazines they had no use for again.

Would I have any luck inside there? It was worth a try.

I barged my way into the room, and I instantly felt discouraged. Everything had been shredded. But it wasn’t so bad that I wouldn’t be able to put the pieces back together.

I grabbed the ones with my face on them and spent hours searching for the missing pieces. When I’d finally gotten the front page back in one piece again, I slowly read what was written on it.

‘Atticus Fawn gets into an accident while trying to save his wife, Autumn Rivera Fawn.’

The blood drains from my face as the realization hits me over what I’ve just read.

Wife.

My wife?

Autumn Rivera Fawn?

What the f**k?

When did Autumn become my wife?

It took my body a while to recover from what I’d just read. It felt like some kind of joke, yet deep down inside, I knew that it was the truth. It was a big enough secret for my parents to want to hide from me.

I placed the other magazine’s front page in front of me.

‘Atticus Fawn To Wed Autumn Rivera.’

Another proof of the marriage that happened, yet I still have zero memory of it.

I had no memory of ever marrying Autumn. I knew that my feelings for her had certainly changed or intensified, but not once did I think that I was married to her.

Another magazine had a picture of the two of us on our wedding day.

She looked absolutely beautiful. Radiant. Stunning. How could I not remember something like that? The way she looked on that day should be instilled in my memory. So where the f**k was it?

Was this the big secret everyone was keeping from me? Were they scared of what I’d do when I found out?

How much of my memory had I lost after the accident? How much was missing?

It explains everything Autumn had said to me the first night that she saw me after the accident. She thought that I was betraying her by being with Anya. She also didn’t know anything about the accident until after.

It would also explain why she hugged me while crying that night. She’d just found out about the accident; I’m assuming Clarissa had to be the one to inform her about the entire thing.

I squeezed my temples as I searched my brain for anything that could remind me of being married to her. But nothing was coming to me. All of the articles were here, and they were the proof, but they did nothing to remind me of our times together. The only thing that reminded me was how my heart beat only for her. I felt it, but I didn’t have the memories to align with those feelings.

If she had no idea of the accident, where exactly had she been while I was in the hospital? If we were married, shouldn’t she have been by my side?

The first article stands out to me, the one that mentioned the cause of my accident. I was trying to save her. I was driving so quickly, chasing after a car only because I wanted to save Autumn. It’s the only memory I had of that day. Chasing after the vehicle. Now I knew why I was chasing it.

What danger had Autumn been in? What exactly happened on that day? Who was trying to hurt her, and if I got into an accident trying to save her, what happened to the people trying to hurt her? Did they escape? Did they hurt her?

I needed to f*****g know these answers before I lost my damn mind.