Chapter 33
Rodrigo finally was returning back to City A with a determined mind. He was informed already that the party was going to be held at the Hotel Pacific.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.
He had called Camilla and she said she would join him at the hotel. She wasn’t the usual cheerful Camilla but he knew whatever it was, he would be there to cheer her up when he got home.
As he alighted from the airport, his chauffeur was there, ready to drive him home but he asked that he drive him to the hotel.
Rodrigo called Camilla and the latter did not answer her phone. He shrugged, she definitely would call him back. But Rodrigo arrived and stepped into the party hall.
But he was met with strange glances and the place was supposed to be bubbling but all he heard was whispering when he entered. He looked around and didn’t see any of his relatives.
” Boss, something bad had happened in the company and your family had hurried there..” Joel announced. He looked sobered and unable to tell Rodrigo what he heard.
Rodrigo squinted. He looked at Joel and saw the latter’s countenance sullen. Something is wrong and Joel appears to know what happened.
” What’s happening, just tell me?” Rodrigo asked and Joel told him he cannot utter what he heard. It would be better if they leave for the company at the moment because there have been a murder case as well.
On hearing that, Rodrigo turned and went back into his car. Still worried that Camilla didn’t call him back, he dialled her cell phone number again and again but she didn’t answer.
He became worried. Camilla cannot miss his call and not call back almost immediately. Is anything wrong with his girl?
” When I travelled, has Camilla been alright?” Rodrigo asked. The last time he talked with her, her voice was somewhat terrible, someone who was tired and stressed out. Is she alright?
” Yeah, she had been until this evening. I really cannot tell what’s wrong with her at this moment” Joel answered. He felt terrible at the moment. Rodrigo’s terribleness would be worse than his when they arrived at the company.
As he alighted from the car and walked towards the elevator, ” President Campbell, how do you feel about your girlfriend selling out the company?”, ” Do you blame yourself for all that has happened?”, ” Did you fall in love with the wrong person?”….
The pressmen surrounded him and Rodrigo squinted, what is happening? What are these journalists asking him? What has happened to Camilla?
His bodyguards came and cleared the path for him to get into the elevator. As he shut the elevator, he heard the sirens of the police van as it drove into Campbell’s group.
He got to the upper floor and Joel said he should go to the conference room. As he approached the conference room, he heard screams coming from his sister, he hadn’t seen her but Knows her voice:
“… How can you do this to a man you claim to love? You have betrayed love and I swear by the grave of my late father that you spent the remaining damn life of yours in jail…” Mirabel was screaming.
Rodrigo paused as he stepped into the Hall. He saw Camilla overpowered by two security officials of the company and despite that, she was fighting frantically and trying to get free from their grip.
On the floor is one of the security officials. He was motionless and it appears he was dead as he lay on the floor bleeding. He saw some staff ran in with a stretcher and tried to carry him but it was too late: Ambrose Kelvin was dead.
“… Hahahaha… it appeared you all are stupid in the Campbell’s family. Does stupidity run in your blood stream or you all learned to be stupid?
Love? Who is talking about love here? Who says I lived with Rodrigo? I never did, I was simply playing along to get what I wanted… hahaha” Camilla’s voice was full of mockery.
She turned to Rodrigo who was standing behind and as soon as his mother saw him, she was so full of anger and hatred as she slapped Camilla across her face.
Emma and Ella cannot hide the excitement that now fills their hearts. This should have been done by them a long time ago. And Camilla knew exactly when to be dramatic.
She definitely would have excelled as an actress. She acted well and her words are injurious. Rodrigo had heard the statement she wanted him to hear. Now, no turning back as he would totally detest her.
“You lied to him Camilla, you made him believe that you loved him as much as he loves you? You are mean, you place a Price tag on your love and I paid you off.
Why did you decide to ruin us, the entire Campbell’s family? Ruin my late husband’s hardwork and sell off his grandfather’s hard earned investment and labour…?”Lola Campbell was yelling, her eyes turned red and her voice choking.
Rodrigo was surprised. What is happening, this is not his Camilla. This can’t be true. He hadn’t heard the full story but knew she’d done something unforgivable.
He walked over and Camilla saw him staring at her eyes, he looked furious with her already and she knew, this is the final blow, she had to dashed him a heavy blow to complete her task.
” What’s going on here?” Rodrigo asked a generalised question. It wasn’t specifically to Camilla but his eyes were already filled with grievances.
” This is what you have brought upon us by your misguided love life. I heard this is the woman you claimed to be your girlfriend and you made her your personal secretary.
You gave her too much trust and she could access the company’s electronic safe and lay hands on the company’s documents….” Mirabel began.
She went ahead and told her brother how Camilla was spotted talking to a man secretly and the security official suspected her and told the others.
A surveillance camera recorded her taking away the company’s documents and at the moment, she had sold out the company to some unknown person and in an attempt to escape, the security crossed her and she shut him.
That aroused the interest of the other security officials and here they are, got her and called them to come along. They turned from their way to the party and ended up where they were.
As Mirabel finished, Lola took over saying the day she came to the company to see Camilla, she tried reminding Rodrigo. Camilla agreed to let him go if she could pay her fifty thousand dollars and she did. She promised to find a convenient reason to break up.
She didn’t know she would sell the company and leave them baked before breaking up with Rodrigo. She wished she had told him about this earlier but Camilla pleaded with her not to say a word.
Rodrigo couldn’t believe his ears. This can’t be true, it is too hard to be true. He was going to ask him when the police men arrived and asked Who is Camilla Dickson?
” She’s here, the murderer” Lola seethed, pointing at Lola. The body of Ambrose Kelvin was taken away in a body bag as many of the employees started sobbing.
Camilla tried her best to hide her pain and turmoil, her almost pouring out tears and decided to her on, to act until the end when she would reach the finishing line.
The officers came forward and cuffed her hands. But she fought harder ” Why are you staring at me speechless? You don’t believe your mother and sister too?
Nothing seemed the way they appeared. I don’t care what you think, you are stupid to believe that I loved you or that I am working here as your secretary, the truth is I was planning something else.
But you were too blind to see, too daft to notice that I was not wholeheartedly with you. If my plans weren’t ruined, I would have gone far away from her. But Ambrose Kelvin has paid for interfering with my plans.
But I would like to let you know that this company has fallen into someone else’s hands and you have lost Forever hahaha” Camilla laughed loudly and long.
Grandfather Larry came in at the end of Camilla’s words and suddenly, he slumber. He was called by his daughter in-law that something was going on in the company but he shouldn’t bother to come.
Why wouldn’t the old man bother to come, the company he had laboured hard to raise and his son had built it, established it and it has grown to become this great before his death.
Rodrigo had travelled out and didn’t know if he was back hence, old man Larry Campbell came to see things and know what was happening but what he heard as he came in totally made him lose his ability to stand and he slumbed.
Next thing, he fainted and Lola ran to him. Without another word, Mirabel slapped Camilla across the face several times, causing her face to go red.
One of her slaps sent a chilling coldness to her left ear and Camilla knew instantly that something was wrong with her ears. She was going to develop a terrible ear malfunctioning after this whole thing ends.
Rodrigo raised his hand to stop Mirabel but the latter was pulling Camilla’s hair furiously as if trying to pull the hair off and this one pained Camilla more than the slap.
She was screaming now, the police officers tried pulling Mirabel away but the more they pulled her, the more Camilla’s hair received more pressure and some of her hair indeed pulled out into Mirabel’s hands.
” Enough miss, you can treat someone like this before the police. Let the law take his full course” one of the police officers intervened as he saw Camilla’s hair uprooted. Mirabel looked at the hair in her hands and felt Satisfied.
“Ambulance, someone get me an ambulance!” Lola was sobbing. Rodrigo totally forgot about Camilla and ran towards his grandfather.
Just then, a paper fell off Camilla’s back pocket and Mirabel took it and opened it. She read it, and bellowed ” you even had an abortion last week?”
That got Rodrigo to pause and look at Camilla with a feeling he cannot express. She had an abortion last week? That means before he travelled. She really was pregnant and aborted it because she was with him for gain?
This time, there was no time for Camilla to say anything. The abortion was not part of the script. Where did it come from? They investigated and knew she was pregnant?