Chapter 42
Third-person narrative.
On getting home, Joy soon found out that Gina was with her triplets, and not wanting to disturb her, she kept the basket of fruit in the kitchen cabinet.
The morning came, and Gina woke up earlier than usual because the triplets were taking her out for some grocery shopping.
She took a quick bath and got dressed before heading out of her room and into the kitchen to take stock of what she needed from the grocery store.
Her attention was immediately drawn to a basket of fruit that was left in the kitchen cabinet.
She wondered who could have left the apples.
The apples were looking so beautiful, and she was already thinking of a hundred and one dishes she could make with them.
She took one of them to admire its beauty; it was big, red, and looked very juicy. She wondered who could have cultivated such beautiful fruits.
The thought that one of the triplets may have brought the apples for her made her smile.
Even though it was still early in the morning to eat anything, she was captivated by the apple’s beauty.
She took one of the apples to the sink to wash it, and she was about to take a bite when her maid walked into the kitchen.
She instantly stopped, feeling a little embarrassed because she had yet to know where the apples came from.
“Good morning, mistress,” Joy said with a beautiful, knowing chuckle.
“Good morning, Joy,” Gina replied, dropping the apple back into the basket.
“Where did this come from?” She questioned her.
“One of our pack members brought it and asked that it be given to you,” Joy was saying before she was interrupted by the triplets who had walked into the kitchen.
“Look who we have here,” Derrick said quickly, going to Gina’s side to wrap his hands around her before pressing a k**s on her neckline.
Denver and Devon were both standing and resting their backs on the wall.
“Are you ready? We want to take you shopping before we get too busy,” said Derrick, who had grabbed one of the apples.
“Drop it, please; I will be using it to make apple pies for everyone later this evening,” Gina said, snatching the apple from Derrick before he could take a bite.
“Easy, the apples look good to eat; where did you get them from?” Derrick asked.
Gina was about to ask her other two friends who had brought the apple when Denver said,
“We should be leaving; otherwise, we might not get back in time.”
His words seemed to disconnect Gina from the question she was going to ask as she turned to Joy to give her instructions on what needed to be done before she returned from the grocery shop.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.
“Joy, why don’t you wash those apples and keep them in the fridge? I will decide what to do with them when I return,” Gina said to her maid. She was about to leave when Joy’s voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Can I please have one of the apples? They are looking nice,” Joy asked with a warm smile.
“Yeah, sure, why not? Just make sure to keep the others in the fridge after washing them,” Gina replied.
“Wait, how come she eats the apple and I don’t?” Derrick asks with a child’s grumble.
“Well, she said please,” Gina replied, rolling her eyes at him before dragging him out of the kitchen to prevent him from going back.
As soon as Gina had left the house, Joy did as she was told: she washed the entire apple and kept it in the fridge before going to do her other home chores.
When she was done, she was tired and hungry. Her mind went to the apple that Gina had permitted her to take, and she happily walked toward the kitchen.
As she walked to the fridge, she couldn’t help but thank God for giving her such a wonderful mistress who was kind and not selfish.
Haven’t listened to the other maids talk about how badly they are treated by their mistresses, but Joy considers herself very lucky to have Gina as her mistress.
She opened the fridge and took an apple out of it. She closed the fridge and went to sit on one of the chairs in the kitchen.
The cold fruit looked even more attractive to eat, but she wished he didn’t have to eat it because it was so beautiful.
“Apple, I am going to eat you now; please make me as beautiful as you are, she said playfully before taking a bite from it.
But to her horror, as soon as she took a bite from the apple, she saw that the apple was rotten and black, with maggots crawling out of her mouth.
She screamed out in horror as her throat suddenly felt like she had been strangled. The apple fell from her hand and hit the floor, making a splattering sound on the floor.
She held on tight to her neck while wrestling with an invisible force that sniffled the life out of her.
Her body started shivering as she fell to the floor while gasping.
******
After about an hour of shopping, Gina and her triplets drove back to the palace.
When they got to her apartment, Denver blew the car horn to get Joy’s attention.
But she was not coming out of the house, so Gina came down from the car to go see if she was perhaps sleeping after opening the white peaked fences for them to drive in.
The triplets parked the car and then started bringing out the grocery bags.
On getting to the door, she rang the doorbell several times, but she noticed that Joy was nowhere to be found. It was unlikely for her to not answer the door after the doorbell rang once.
Nevertheless, Gina did not think much of it as she brought out her keys and opened the door. She went to check on Joy in her room, but she wasn’t there.
Then she heard someone gasping for breath from the kitchen. She instinctively walked into the kitchen to see Joy on the floor, gasping, foaming poisonous spits, and holding on tight to her neck.
Gina let out a scream as she ran towards Joy, subconsciously dropping her bag on the floor.
Her scream attracted the triplets into the kitchen, and they were all surprised to see Joy struggling to hold on to life.
They quickly carried her and rushed her to the packed clinic, but Joy died as soon as she got there.
Gina went into shock as the doctors and nurses moved Joy’s body around for various tests and autopsies.
When the doctors were done with their examination, they later came out to tell Gina and her friends that Joy had died as a result of food poisoning.
Gina is shocked to hear that, and she wonders where Joy would have eaten something so harmful as to kill her.
They later went back home, and Gina was so down that she cried like she had lost a friend. She liked Joy a lot; she loved to see her every morning wearing a beautiful smile to greet her.
She kept wondering how Joy got poisoned.
Well, she didn’t have to wait for so long because as soon as Denver entered the kitchen, he looked around to see if he could get a hand on the last thing Joy ate before her death.
He saw an apple that had only been bitten once.
Weirdly, even though the apple looked very fresh on the outside, it was bad and rotten on the inside.
Out of curiosity, he opened the fridge to get the other apples and started cutting them. He was surprised to see that they were all rotten, with maggots crawling out of them.
He knew this was no ordinary apple that was poisoned.
Something told him that someone was out there using magic to commit havoc.
He called his brothers to discuss his finding with them, and they all went to ask Gina where she had gotten the apple from.
Gina told them what Joy had said, but she never really paid attention to it because it was normal for pack members to sometimes bring fruits and vegetables to the palace.
The three alphas immediately sent out emissaries to search the pack for intruders that might want to cause harm.
They searched all day and night, but they could not find anyone that they could suspect.
The death of Joy quickly spread across the pack and palace, and people were divided in their thoughts.
While some pack members believed that Gina was lucky to not have eaten from the apple, others believed that Gina was a bringer of bad luck.
They believed that Gina knew something that she was not telling, for how could a stranger bring something to her, and she doesn’t find out where it came from before accepting it?
When Gwen and her father heard of it, they were both furious about the fact that Gina was still alive and that someone who knew their secret was walking free.
Two days later, after Samuel had heard that Joy had died from eating the apples that he had handed over to her.
He was sad, but then he began to see the reason Gwen wanted those apples to be taken to Gina.
It was never out of good intentions, but to cause havoc and also hurt him.
But why would she want to put him in trouble? She had rejected him, and he had willingly accepted it.
Well, technically, he did not accept her rejection but also did not refute it.
He had believed that she might reconsider him, especially after the hot, passionate s*x they had.
He felt bad after realizing that he had involuntarily committed murder. Even though Joy was one of the recruits, she was adorable and loved by everyone who met her.
The thought that Gina may have also died from eating the apple tore at his heart. He couldn’t imagine the pain Gina must be going through, considering how much she loved her maid.
His heart was bothered by Gwen and how despicable she can be. He had somehow hoped that she would change and become the mate he had always wanted.
But it seemed that she was out to ruin him, and out of anger, he went to Gwen’s room one evening.
On getting there, he knocked on her door, and one of her maids came to open the door for him to come in.
He entered and saw Gwen, who wasn’t all surprised to see him.
She immediately dismissed her other maids to avoid them hearing what they were going to talk about.
“You poisoned those fruits you asked me to take to Gina,” he fired at her as soon as they were alone.
“Watch your mouth and know your place, servant. Just because I allowed you to have a taste of my flower, doesn’t mean you are now my gardener,” Gwen said to him angrily.
“Why did you do it?” Samuel inquired, still unable to believe her level of callousness.
“What do you think? Oh, please stop pretending not to have a clue that those apples were poisoned. You knew I never liked her, but you chose to take those apples to her because you enjoyed f*****g me. So stop making me look like the bad guy; you are as bad as me,” she said with a taunting smile.
“You are evil,” Samuel said to her, disguised by her nonchalance.
“And you are my accomplice,” she said, laughing even more annoyingly.
Samuel made a move to leave her room, but he was stopped by her words.
“If you think you are so innocent, let a word slip out regarding this, and we will see who they will believe between the both of us. Now get out, and I don’t ever want to see you in my room ever again,” she shouted at Samuel.
But as soon as Samuel opened the door to leave, he bumped into Denver, who was coming to find out what was happening after he heard noises coming from Gwen’s room.
Denver is surprised as to what Samuel is doing in Gwen’s room, as he looks at him coldly.
But right when Gwen saw Denver, she started crying.
“Please hold him; don’t let him go; he has been sexually harassing me, scolding me that no one would believe if I said anything, he was going to rape me and only stopped when he heard your footsteps at the door,” Gwen said with tears flooding her eyes.
Samuel is beyond shocked by Gwen’s cruelty and manipulations, as he stared unbelievably at her.
Not thinking twice about Gwen’s accusations, Denver immediately calls the guards to come and get Samuel out of the palace and place him in a dungeon.
To Gwen’s surprise, Samuel did not argue, beg, or even refute her lies, and his silence made her heart beat even faster.
What if Samuel decides to tell someone that she was the one who sent those fruits before he is punished? And what if he doesn’t get a death sentence?