Invest In Me

Chapter 2

There was a knock on the door.

Bella was staring at one dot on the floor, ignorant of everything happening around her. She was sure that it was some boring neighbors who would drop some pie they had made and express their condolences. Yes, very nice of them. But the pie and their feelings wouldn’t cure the hole inside her heart. The hole that stood instead of a heart in the middle of her chest.

She was dressed all in black – black trousers, black shirt, and black sandals. Those were the clothes that she had worn to her mother’s funeral, and now a few weeks had passed since then and she was still wearing them. As a matter of fact, Bella didn’t even know how many days had passed since that tragic event.

The knocking continued. Louder. Harsher.

There was no wish in her to stand up and open the door. Nothing mattered to her now anyway.

Amy had visited her occasionally, dropping off some meals so that Bella didn’t die out of hunger. She didn’t eat all of them; if it was up to her she wouldn’t have eaten any of it. But Amy had been persistent, and she couldn’t have turned down her best friend. Perhaps it was Amy knocking at the moment. However, she had a key. How stupid was Bella, she scolded herself.

“Bella Drew! Miss Drew! Open up!” a tough voice called from the porch, knocking on the door fiercer than ever.

It was then that Bella woke up from the trance she was in. Someone was looking for her. It might be serious. She managed to get some force into her lifeless body and stood straight. The young woman in the mirror scared her. She was just like a character from a horror movie – the character that hunted and killed her victims. Her skin was drier than usual. There were huge bags under her swollen eyes.

Step after step she dragged herself to the door. “Who is it?” she asked in croaky voice. She looked as well as sounded – like a living corpse.

“I am Jonathan Warren, a lawyer from a company who has some dealings with you. Can you please open your door so that we can have a quick chat? I’ve come all the way from New York and please don’t let me go empty handed,” he said as Bella detected pleading in his tone. He was truly a sorry soul.

She opened the door to find a tall, white man in his fifties with streaks of white in his hair and black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.

“Hello, Mr. Warren. I’m Bella Drew, but you already know that, don’t you?” she said in a monotone voice.

“I do, yes. Nice to meet you. You can call me Jonathan if you like.” He offered her his hand to shake.

She shook it. “Bella is fine, as well. Come on in. We can talk in the living-room.” The air was pretty stale for the rooms hadn’t been aired out for quite some time. “I am terribly sorry for all this mess, but you surely know my situation.”

“My condolences, miss. Your mother was a truly remarkable woman, and I am also incredibly sorry that we have lost such a wonderful soul,” he said compassionately, his eyes lit up with a mysterious gleam.

“Thank you… But how do you know my mother? Who do you work for, actually?” Bella stopped in her tracks, looking at Jonathan.

“Let us sit first and I will explain everything to you. Can you please get me a hot tea or coffee, whichever you have?”

“Sure.” Bella went into the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine. She quickly returned to the living room and sat on the cozy sofa.

“I will start at the beginning,” Jonathan spoke. “Many years ago, your mother had a close friend who needed a financer for his son’s startup. They were friends since their childhood, you see, and your mother couldn’t resist the plea of a dear friend. Her heart was always in the right place. I was fortunate enough to meet her briefly and she was indeed charming… Anyway, that startup grew and grew over the years, so that now it is a multi-billion-dollar corporation and a leader in the corporate world. And this house and all of your mother’s property is tied up with the company’s equity.”

“What does that mean? Tied up with the company’s equity?” Bella hastened to ask.

“We cannot give the house and the property to you before we settle the things with the corporation your mother invested in. You see, she invested everything she had into it, so it turns out that this house is not yours at all.”

Drops of cold sweat dampened her hair. The lawyer’s words hit her like a rain of arrows. “This can’t be possible. You have to be lying. Mother didn’t tell me anything about it… She…”

“Your mother may not have known this fact, miss, but it is true. You have to come with me to the city and settle this affair once and for all. You will speak to the ones in charge of the company’s capital and negotiate terms so that you can get your house back. It is rather simple.” Jonathan smiled at her as if it was the easiest thing to do in the entire world. Go to the city? Speak with the people with high authorities in a firm worth billions? No way. Never going to happen.

Bella was glued to the spot, thinking, analyzing, and processing all the information Jonathan had shared with her. It was a horrible plan, a fruitless plan. She knew how those things went. She would be stuck in those corporate labyrinths for years and years. But worst of all, the fact that hit her most was that she was practically homeless. Her home belonged to some corporation she hadn’t even heard of. The rooms, her bed, her TV, her tables, her chairs, her forks… Everything was someone else’s and not hers. Her world was turned upside down in a matter of weeks.

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she managed to swallow them. “What should I do? What do you want me to do? I have to get all of this back!” she said with glassy eyes.

Jonathan’s expression melted a bit and real compassion could be read from his eyes.

“Move to New York for a while and let me take care of the rest, okay?”

Bella’s heart sank. Her worst fears were lining up one after the other. She was supposed to live in a big city, the one she despised. However, it was enough crying and it was time to compose herself and face the issues at hand. “I will do that. Okay. I will.”

Jonathan smiled from ear to ear, obviously glad that he was making progress with his case.