The Heiress Club

Chapter 27: Fin

"You look like shit, man."

Jasper took a sip of his coffee, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly. "It's finals week," he told Seung-jun.

"Yeah, but you looked like shit before you started worrying about finals too. Is this about Valentina?"

Jasper slammed his cup down on the table, hot liquid sloshing onto the dark wood. Seung-jun leaned back, avoiding the coffee. He was remarkably casual about all this. "How can you not think about her?" Jasper demanded. "You were her friend. How can you be so okay with her just disappearing?"

Seung-jun sighed. For a moment, he looked genuine. "Do you know what I honestly think?"

"What."

"She probably had to leave because of something illegal. I wouldn't be surprised. She's always been so secretive about shit. I like Valentina, but that's it. You know how I am. Live and move on. Look, Valentina's probably fine. You, however, are not."

Jasper stared at the drops of rapidly cooling coffee. He was not fine. He had liked Valentina. Genuinely, obsessively, fallen for her. She'd been everything. One moment, she had been there, silhouetted against low lights for that last night together, the next moment, she was gone. He couldn't get that last conversation out of his head. He had it memorised.

My favourite colour isn't red. It's yellow.

Had he ever really known her? How many lies had she fed him?

He hadn't told a single soul about that conversation. He'd tried calling her forty times at least after that, but she hadn't picked up. She'd just taken his red car, the one she'd driven on Halloween, and left.

They'd found the car a couple days later. Someone had driven it off the road and parked it in a copse of trees. It was clearly intentional. Not some sort of crash—the car was pristine—but meant to be hidden.

There had been some trouble with her father too. He didn't know the exact details, but his dad was in a panic the last few weeks. He had been demanding if Jasper knew anything about Valentina leaving, telling him to keep his mouth shut about his investment or else. It was probably something illegal. But they hadn't been caught, to Jasper's knowledge. His dad had been panicked, but not in the way someone would be if they were caught in a crime by the cops. Panicked in the way someone would be if they woke up and found their house had been robbed while they had been sleeping.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed.

Jasper picked it up, barely glancing at it. It was probably Mia begging him to take her back.

Then he did a double take. It was his dad calling. "Hello?" Jasper said, picking up.

"Come to Manchester," his dad ordered.

Jasper frowned. It was the morning. He had class in seven minutes. "Now?"

"Now," his dad insisted, through gritted teeth.

꧁꧂

"What is it?" Jasper asked, stepping out of his car. It was the second-fastest one he had, a sleek black racing car. Every time he tried to drive the red car, he felt physically sick, so he drove this one now.

They were outside a sky-rise apartment building in Manchester. This was the kind of luxurious penthouse that his dad would buy to meet his mistresses at. His dad thought he was super good at hiding it, but Jasper had known about it since he was ten.

His dad looked drawn and pale. "Follow me," he ordered.

Jasper followed his dad into the lobby. It was weird. There were police swarming all over the place. "What's going on?" he asked as they got into the elevator.