Forced Marriage: Escaping Her Monster

Mark led Jerlina in.

The town will be free of filth only if it is washed over by the blood of the vermins causing poor people distress. No number of reforms will help those who have violence in their blood. 

He did the mistake of letting go of the lower-level people from their gang and now they've grown up to be the thorns on his side destroying this place. Only when the weeds are pulled out and burnt, the garden will become lush. 

That boy...he loves him and wouldn't wish ill on him. But he is wrong to think just by expanding his gang and its turf, he can eliminate the other gangs. He needs to eradicate the head and the tails of the other gangs.

Jeremy decided not to kill for this girl, but when the guys he spared the life of, come for this girl, won't he start killing?

For that, this girl needs to stay with Jeremy.

Danger looms on her life because of her background, but he knew she will be safe. After all, she is a direct descendant of the most powerful man on earth and he won't let her perish. 

"Bottoms up!" Mark clinked his glass with Jerlina's. "Drink's on the house."

Jerlina looked at that golden liquid and the time. It was just past four in the evening. 

Well, it's 7 p.m. somewhere on the earth! 

Jerlina emptied the glass. "How 

"I was meaning to ask you something for a long time," she looked at him. She has grown a little tolerance towards alcohol over the years and she can handle her alcohol to some extent. So she was still sober.

"Did my dad say why he changed his will?"

She was told that her father removed Gina as a beneficiary of his estates that included the company and Jerlina's mother's home and her jewels, in the revised version of his will. Other than the house they lived, and the $5,000 in the bank, her father left nothing for the mother-daughter pair. 

Mark looked at her. He liked her always. She is such a hardworking and polite girl that anyone would love. Too bad she suffered a lot.

"Because of Jeremy," Mark said and Jerlina's eyes widened. 

"What?"

Mark poured her another glass of scotch. "As you know, he followed you everywhere and he found out your actual situation in your home was not as dainty as your stepmother portrayed to the world. He got so mad and went to meet your father to let him know how his daughter is getting treated in her own home..."

"So dad knew..?" Jerlina's eyes watered a little. And TJ met my dad and told him?

I would never go this far for someone else. Why would he do that? Did he care for me that much? But I didn't even smile at him, thinking that he was trying to hurt me.

"Your dad got livid knowing that you're working a lot of part-time jobs to support yourself and at times you aren't even getting fed properly in his home. After confirming it, he called me to be a witness and Patrick Davis was the other witness and we changed the will in the presence of a lawyer so that the will cannot be disputed. It was sad that he passed away days after he revised his will..." Mark filled Jerlina's glass.

Jeremy doubted if that woman had something to do with his death and conducted a thorough investigation with his help. But there was no evidence to suggest foul play. Her father must have died depressed thinking that he ignored his own daughter. 

"Jeremy paid for his funeral after watching you trying hard to get money for the funeral," Mark added and Jerlina gulped the liquor in her glass in one gulp.

"I thought it was uncle Pat and the others," she said with a sigh.

But this was TJ too?

Her eyes clouded. The day before her graduation, her father died and on the day of her graduation, she was running around trying to arrange money for his funeral and missed her graduation day. She was the valedictorian and she had a speech prepared, but she was too depressed to be in school. 

She thought no one was noticing her pain that day. But TJ did? And he helped me silently?

"It was him..." Mark patted her hand as she bowed her head. "I am talking about a few. But he did a lot more without letting you know..."

"The one who admitted me in the clinic... was it you or was it..?" She looked at him.

Six weeks after her father's funeral, she was returning home from her part-time job. It was almost midnight and she thought someone was following her and guessed it was TJ. She ran away from him, but suddenly she was surrounded by a bunch of men. 

That was the last she remembered because she fainted after that. She was tired and overworked and had a heavy flow that day that contributed to that. When she woke up, she was already in the clinic and she was told Mark brought her there. 

But was it really him?

"It was Jeremy. He fought with seven of those guys alone and although he was bleeding all over, brought you to the clinic... You remember..? That night our town became national news because of-"

"Laura Brown?"

Jerlina remembered that news. It sent shivers through her bone as she knew what happened to that girl might easily happen to her. Laura Brown, a twenty-year-old girl, was violated by a bunch of men and was left to die at the side of the road when she was returning from work.

But they were caught by the cops and they were all beaten to a pulp when the cops found them.

"The ones who came after you were the same men and they came for you just after they did that despicable thing to that poor soul... Fortunately, you had a guardian angel who watched over you all the time and protected you..." 

"Why..?"

Jerlina rested her forehead on the table with a bang.

"Why didn't he tell me any of this? Bobby too... Why didn't he talk about this and bragged about their violent conquests scaring me?" 

She squeezed her shirt as she felt pain in her chest and her fingers were shaking. All those times he was following her, he was doing so to protect her. And he probably brought his friends along to make her feel more secure but that only scared her more. 

And  I just ran away from him... I didn't thank him or even smiled at him... How hurt would he have felt and how did he keep on helping me even after that?

Even now... he still insists he will protect me.

"He's stupid and you're scared of him... He loved you. He still loves you," Mark answered.

Jerlina lied on the table resting her face on her forearm. 

Love... He loves me..?

"Now that you know, what are you going to do?

Jerlina's heart skipped a beat.

That's right... What should I do?