Alex was taken aback. He tried to turn around, but Myriam grabbed his hand. When he looked at her, she gave him a strange sneer.
Suddenly, he was hit on the head. He yanked his hand out of Myriam's grasp. He turned around. The man who attacked him was Myriam's boyfriend, Jake.
Myriam jumped up and ran to Jake. "Honey, thank God you're here! He just took my hand and started squeezing, and he said that he would take me to a hotel. It was so gross!"
"No, she asked me to rub her hand because it was hurting." Alex's heart cooled as he finally understood what Myriam had done.
"So you want to touch my girlfriend, huh?" Jake stepped toward Alex, raised his fist, and swung at Alex's head.
Alex stepped aside, grabbed Jake's arm, and tried desperately to explain. "Listen to me, she's lying. I never said—"
"It doesn't matter what you said! I'm going to kill you!" Jake had only one thought in his head: beating Alex to the ground.
Alex knew that the fight between them was all because of Myriam. He didn't want to fight with Jake, so he tried to avoid his punches instead of hitting back. Jake was an upper-middle-class boy with little money. But when it came to fighting, he was far inferior to Alex. Every time he tried to hit Alex, he swung too hard, making himself fall over.
When he realized he couldn't hit Alex, Jake went back to Myriam. "Honey, I'll call someone now. When my brothers come, I can get him."
Jake took out his cell phone and started to make a call. However, trouble was brewing in front of him. Before anyone could respond on the other end, he was slapped in the face.
It was Myriam who hit him. She was grabbing his arm and looking at him with scorn.
Jake covered his face, looked at her in surprise, and said, "Baby, cut it out!" Then he went back to focusing on his phone. But before he could say anything else, Myriam slapped him again.
"You punk! You can't even beat Alex, a little loser!" she said coldly. "Do you know why I hit you? Because you don't deserve to call me 'baby.' From now on, I want nothing to do with you."
Jake was now even more confused. He suppressed his anger. "You're breaking up with me? Why?"
"Why? Jake, the whole time we've been dating, you've treated me like a total joke! I know you're fooling around with my classmates behind my back! Once, at a dinner, I saw you touching feet with one of them under the table. Did you think I wouldn't notice? I hate scums like you!"
Jake had thought that Myriam was just annoyed that he had not managed to beat up Alex. Now he realized that she knew about everything he had done.
"You've been happy to go along with it as long I was buying you fancy stuff," he sneered. "You ignored it because it benefited you! I've been with you for over a year. I've seen what kind of woman you are."
"Shut up! You think you have money? Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? Your family just has a small company with a six-figure income. You're nothing in this town. You have the gall to say that you can take care of me. You should be embarrassed!" Myriam rebutted.
"That's enough. I'll shut your mouth for you!" Jake was furious and raised his hand to slap her.
Before he had time to do it, he was kicked in the chest. He lost his breath and fell backward into a group of tables and chairs.
"You lowlife. Who said you could hit her?" a man's voice said. Jake covered his chest and looked up. He was surprised. The man who had kicked him was Darryl Brennan.
"I'm just a half-rich kid in Washington", Jake thought. "Compared to Darryl, that's nothing."
Darryl walked up to Myriam and wrapped his arms around her slender waist. He glanced over to Alex.
"Darryl, did you enjoy yourself?" Myriam wrapped herself around Darryl. She looked over at Alex again and sneered. "Jake is so stupid he can't even beat Alex. He just fell over himself! But the dogs finally had a fight, and dogs are what they are!" She laughed.
Darryl had been sitting at a table nearby when Alex and Myriam had come into the restaurant. He had been watching them the whole time.
Since the incident at the Olympic Sports Center, Darryl and Myriam had been working together. Today, they had planned to use Jake to beat up Alex, but they had not figured that Alex would be able to easily beat Jake in a fight.
"Let's see how the two losers are doing," Darryl said triumphantly. "One is doing a little better. He's still standing, while the other lies on the ground like garbage. And the woman they're fighting over is with me. How sad for you two!"
While most of the onlookers didn't know Alex or Jake, most of them knew Darryl and started heaping flattery on him.
"Those two are brainless. How shameful," said one person.
"Two guys have a huge fight, and Darryl wins the girl. Idiots," said another.
"Well, you don't get the girl if you're too busy fighting," said a third.
"Come on, honey. Maybe these two still think they can have you. Let's show them that it's pointless." Darryl pouted his lips, and Myriam obediently kissed him.
"I love it! These two will never get to have what I have," Darryl said with a triumphant smile.
He hooked an arm around her waist and was about to push his hand lower, but she stopped him with a sheepish smile. "Darryl, no. There are so many people here!"
"All right, then let's go to a hotel and have a good time," Darryl said and laughed. They left the restaurant together.
Alex noticed that Myriam was still holding his backpack, and he called out in a hurry. "Stop! Give me back my backpack!"
Myriam remembered that she still had the backpack. She sneered at Alex. "You loser, what's the fuss about a broken backpack? You want it back that badly? Too bad! Let's go, Darryl."
She pulled Darryl out of the restaurant, and they got into his car. Alex rushed out of the restaurant door just in time to see them driving away.
Staring at Darryl's taillights, Alex grew angry. He was angry at Myriam's plan to frame him, but also angry at himself. "How could I have believed her lies?" He thought. "It seems I'm not done being cheated by women. Karen, Zara, Melissa... why do I keep forgetting the way things are?"
Then he realized that Debbie's diary had fallen into Myriam's hands, and he felt a pain in his chest.
**
Darryl drove Myriam to a hotel. They spent over an hour in the giant bed in their room, and afterward, they lay there exhausted.
Darryl's Whatsapp alert rang out. In the group named "Washington Elite," the group leader had written: [I came back yesterday!]
The leader of the group was David Drake, head of the wealthiest family in Washington D.C.
As soon as David spoke, the quiet group immediately became active.
"David, you've come back! Why didn't you say in advance? We're coming to pick you up together!" beeped a text.
"David, I missed you so much!", said another.
"David is getting married to the second daughter of the Marvel family", beeped in another text.
"David, where are you now? I'll find you", the messages kept on flooding the Whatsapp group.
The members of this group called themselves "the next generation of wealthy Washingtonians," and they were all from the city's wealthiest families.
David wrote again: [I'll invite you to have dinner at the Continental Hotel tonight. Please come.]
The phone started buzzing with responses.
Then, David sent out a picture of Leona with another message: [How is the eldest Marvel girl doing?]
Next, people started spamming messages, writing things like [Leona is as beautiful as a fairy], [the first beauty of Washington], [like a fairy], and so on.
Darryl perked up. "Why would David send a picture of Leona? Has he even met her?", Darryl's heart stirred with the memory of their first meeting and how desperately he had wanted to make her his own. "Could David have fallen in love with her?", he thought.
"Darryl, what are you thinking?" Myriam asked and touched his arm. He didn't answer. Then she saw that Alex's backpack was still on the bed. She wanted to throw it away, but when she picked it up, a notebook fell onto the floor. "What's this?"
She picked up the notebook and opened it. There was a name written on the front page: "Debbie Stonehill." She flipped through a few pages. Seeing that it was a diary, she was amused. "Darryl, Alex has been stealing other people's diaries!"
"Give me that!" Darryl had heard Myriam murmuring "Debbie." He remembered that Alex had called Leona by that name, so he became very interested.
After grabbing the diary, he looked through the pages. When he came upon a certain page, he read it thoroughly, thought for a moment, and then grinned.
"Darryl, have you seen anything interesting?" Myriam asked.
"No, I just think David would be very happy to see this notebook."
"Isn't David the wealthiest guy in town?" Myriam asked. "Why would he be happy to read some diary?"
**
At 8:00 p.m., in room V001 of the Continental Hotel, young members of D.C.'s wealthiest families gathered, including Darryl and Colin.
In the middle, at the center of it all, sat David.
A young man stood up with a glass of wine and made a proclamation. "A toast! We're all here to celebrate David's return to the United States. Welcome back!" Everyone stood up and raised their glasses to David.
David poured some wine into his glass, but he did not stand up. He just raised his glass and motioned to the others. "Thank you, I'll have mine first," he said. Then he sipped gently.
The rest of them all drank and then sat down.
"Now, who can tell me what's going on with that girl Leona?" David asked and looked around the room.
Everyone looked at each other. Nobody understood why David had suddenly asked this question.
Jason Morley looked at David and opened his mouth to speak. "David, we've never seen anything like this girl before. We didn't even really notice her a couple of months ago. The Marvels have always kept a low profile, but because Leona is so beautiful, she attracted attention. The family couldn't hide her, so they announced publicly that Leona was Charles Marvel's daughter. Now they're looking for a husband for her."