DESIRE FOR PEACE

“You’re here again?” Hayden asked lazily when he walked in through the door.

“What’s up with that reaction? I’m about to marry your brother and this is how you treat me?” Amelia

asked with a look of disbelief on her face.

“You’re not married to him yet. Stop turning up to our house so often…” Hayden muttered.

“Don’t talk like you come back here so often…” Amelia snapped lightly at him.

“Good night…” Hayden mumbled as he walked right past her.

“Wait! Hayden…” Amelia quickly called after him.

“What?” Hayden asked without turning around.

“Can we…talk?” she asked in a small voice.

“Alone…with you? No, thank you. I don’t want my brother blowing my head off…” Hayden replied

without hesitation.

“What’s up with that reaction? What do you see me as?” Amelia snapped as she came to stand right in

front of Hayden.

“Someone who asked me to sleep with her the first time that we met?” he replied with ease.

“Can you forget about that please? Just forget about it!” she wailed although she knew that he was just

playing around with her.

Hayden turned and started walking away from her without saying another word. Amelia quickly grabbed

and pulled on his arm to stop him from running away from her.

“What is it now?” Hayden asked irritatingly. This content provided by N(o)velDrama].[Org.

“It won’t take long. So please, can we talk for a bit?” Amelia pleaded desperately.

Hayden could see that Amelia probably had something important that she wanted to discuss with him.

Although he knew that it was probably nothing but more trouble and headache for him, he knew that he

couldn’t just leave her to deal with it alone. The main reason being that it probably concerned his elder

brother in some way. Knowing that he had to deal with this, Hayden closed his eyes briefly as he let out

a long sigh of resignation.

“Fine…” he whispered, sounding bored.

“Thank you so much! Hayden, you are the best! Come this way…” Amelia cried out happily before she

started pulling him along after her.

Hayden spent the next ten minutes or so of his life listening to an overly excited Amelia explain about

her fantasy idea of forming peace between Torex and her ex-fiancé’s gang, Silva. He sat on a leather

sofa as his eyes followed Amelia while she paced back and forth right in front of him. Her idea wasn’t

something that was new to him at all. When he was much younger, he had spent a lot of time listening

to Jack’s dream of basically the same thing. The method they had in mind may have been slightly

different but in the end, it still involved the heir of the two gangs and unfortunately, that meant that it

involved Ethan.

Amelia’s idea did not excite Hayden in the least, but he could very much appreciate where she was

coming from. Although her reasons of wanting peace was different from Jack’s, in the end the result

that she wished for was the same. After listening passively to her, he had to give her credit for thinking

that far ahead and most of all, he realized how serious she was about building a family with his brother.

“So, what do you think? Can you help me?” Amelia asked brightly as she turned to face Hayden.

Hayden smiled a tight and uncomfortable smile as he tried to think of a way to break the bad news to

Amelia. She wasn’t the first person that was going to try to bring about peace and the other person that

he knew very well that had attempted the same thing didn’t exactly have a peaceful death.

For a moment Hayden was torn about what to do. Deep down, he too wished that there would be

peace between the two gangs. Honestly, if he could choose, he’d choose for all gangs to simply

respect each other’s territories and business so that there would never be any conflict. However, he

knew that it wasn’t an easy thing to achieve.

“Amelia, I tried convincing my brother many times before. More times that I can count. Of course, he

listened but he never agreed to anything,” Hayden said calmly.

“I see…” Amelia said before she flopped down into the sofa opposite from where Hayden was sitting.

Hayden’s eyes watched a deflated Amelia lean back against the back of the sofa like she had lost all

her energy and her will to live. He knew that he was just being ridiculously optimistic, but he felt like he

wanted to believe that things could turn out differently this time around. Perhaps it was her positive

energy rubbing off on him or perhaps it was his wish to see his brother happily married, he didn’t quite

understand. However, in that moment, he dared again to have some hope that maybe peace was

something achievable.

“I don’t know but…if it’s you…if you’re the one convincing him, perhaps Harvey will change his mind or

be more open to the idea,” Hayden said after some thought.

“I’m not so sure if I’ll be successful or not but I really want to try. If I can convince him to think about

creating peace, then I’m sure that we’ll be a happier family after we get married,” Amelia said as her

eyes sparkled brightly.

It was amazing how hope could bring so much color and life into her face, Hayden thought as he

watched her.

“I’m sure that things will go well. After I talk to Harvey, I’m going to reach out to talk to Ethan. I’m sure

that he’ll listen to me. We were engaged but he never wanted to marry me anyways. I’m sure that he’s

relieved that I’ve decided to marry someone else altogether. Who knows, maybe it’s fate that I help

unite the two gangs?” Amelia said confidently before she beamed a bright smile over at Hayden.

“Maybe…” Hayden replied without much enthusiasm.

“You know…I never cared this much about the future before. For the longest time, I was told that all I

had to do was grow up and marry Ethan. Everything was about doing this and that for the future of my

family. Somewhere along the lines, I guess I accepted my fate that my life wasn’t mine. From then on, I

didn’t care about anything at all. My future, included. I partied. I spent loads of money on things that I

didn’t need. I slept with men I knew that I would never see again. Nothing mattered because my life

wasn’t mine…” Amelia confessed a little sadly.

--To be continued…