Yours, Forever

Chapter 66

Damien checked the address Alvarez had sent him for the fifth time, as he neared the neighborhood.

He glanced at it once more to make sure he was correct, and then looked up at the signboard at the beginning of the street, but it was the exact same thing.

He couldn't help but feel astonished.

He knew Madison wasn't living as comfortably as she used to, and that she was having a very hard time, but he never expected that it would be this bad.

The street narrowed as he progressed, and although it had not been raining much, the whole place was basically a swamp.

Every house Damien's eyes fell on was dilapidated and tiny, with barely any windows and weak strips of wood that were supposed to serve as the door.

For a moment, he began to wonder how she was surviving in this place. It was so terrible.

She was really having it bad, and he also realized that this was where she must have been living even before she came to New York, as his private investigator had also made it known to him that she had only come to New York for the waitress job.

It was not like she was living in The States, that Mr Rudiger had dutifully told him.

Suddenly, he felt a heavy pang of guilt as his chest tightened at the same time. He had given her such a hard time, when she had been there to work and earn a living. She lived in a slum for crying out loud.

Damien raked his fingers through his hair, swearing under his breath.

Either way, more so than her current condition, he wanted to know how she had gotten here. How had she gone from having everything she could ever want or need and even more to... this?

This only gave him more incentive to find out the full story, and to say he was curious was an understatement.

He was hungry for the details, and he could literally feed of it. Right now he only felt a combination of shock, regret, and a heavy bit of sadness.

Finally, he got to the particular neighborhood Madison lived in. It was exactly like the other ones he had passed, and the area wasn't busy at all. In fact it looked like no one was around.

Looking for a good spot, he parked a few feet away from the house Alvarez had described as Madison's, hoping that his guess was correct.

All the houses on that row looked alike; one-bedroom flats with black doors, but then Alvarez had explained that Madison's was the only one who had a small garden outside her hands which she tended to. How Alvarez had known about this, well she must have told him during one of their numerous calls.

Thankful for that piece of information, well the house was obvious from the fresh flowers there, and it was not hard to find at all.

It stood in the middle, the flowers sprouting beautifully in front of the tiny garden and a small smile began to form on Damien's lips as he remembered just how much Madison loved flowers.

She had always loved them, and he chuckled as the past memory of Madison ranting on and on about flowers came to his mind. She used to say that the only thing more precious than a flower, was a child.

He remembered that he would always bring her a different flower each time they met, and she would act like he had given her the best gift in the world.

His heart clenched painfully.

That was the one thing about Madison... the thing about her that made him fall deeper in love with her was how much she loved the little things, and how grateful she was. The little things mattered to her, always, and she never craved extravagant gifts.