Blacken Alandra Rankin (the alpha prince and his bride full story free TXT) 📖

“Yes.”

“Have you been in Blacken your whole life?”

“Yes.”

“Good, Mr. Zagorski, could you state your occupation for the record?” He leaned over on bent elbow, asking easy questions for him to start out with.

“I was a librarian for Blacken Public Library.”

“Thank you. Now was that also when you first met the victim, Avie Conrad?”

What the hell did that have to do with anything? A first meeting couldn’t have anything to do with the correlation, and he didn’t remember discussing this with him at all.

“That’s correct.”

“Can you explain in your own words how the first meeting went?”

He adjusted in his seat, talking over the first meeting, finding her at the front desk shaking and cold, still bruised and bandaged from her car accident. They bonded over the mystery; Owen explained how Avie interjected herself into the picture that was originally his private project.

“Sounds like the two of you got on pretty well initially. Would you have considered her as a friend at that moment?”

“I did.”

“What about when you bought the Taurus Judge revolver six weeks later?”

“Avie was my friend then too.”

“What, exactly, did you purchase the gun for, Mr. Zagorski?”

“Protection...” He sighed deeply before continuing, “I bought it because I had a feeling that whatever Avie and I were working on at the time, was linked to someone hostile and living outside of the town in the woods.”

“How do you mean working on, and someone in the woods?”

“Both her and I were working on what causes people to come into town since she was one of them. Avie Conrad went out into the forest alone one night, she was chased out by someone, I thought they may have wanted to harm her in some way, and by extension me. I also thought at the time the two instances were connected.”

“At any point, did the victim know you had the firearm?”

“Yes.”

“Did the mysterious person ever make themselves known to yourself, or only to the victim?”

“Just the victim.”

He followed his rehearsed script to the letter, changing the narrative. Hopefully, it could get him off scot free, it certainly painted Avie in a bad light, that’s all he cared about.

Mr. Gabriele hummed thoughtfully, “That never struck you as odd?”

“It did, that’s when I really started to notice her change in behaviour. I asked her the next day about it, but she relented that she was unable to even see what they looked like. I knew she was hiding something from me, but I didn’t push.”

“Did you have any altering opinions of the victim before the night of October twenty-sixth?”

“I fell in love with her. But the more time I spent with her, the more I realized she was acting differently. She put herself in danger by exploring the woods constantly in the middle of the night. I expressed my concerns over and over again, but she never listened. She stopped listening to me for everything, all my advice, all my declarations, finally breaking off the relationship on October twenty-fifth.”

“She was the one to break away from the friendship... How were you after that date?”

“Empty. She was the only friend I had.”

“And you wanted to continue the friendship even after her blatant disregard for her own safety?”

He shrugged, “I thought I could help. It’s what friends do.”

“Mr. Zagorski, were you present the night the incident took place?”

“Yes.”

“Could you please run us through what happened that night?”

Owen nodded. He flashed his gaze to where Avie would have been seated for a fraction of a second, desperately wanting her to be there to witness his testimony, before looking up.

“It was her birthday. We previously made plans together, but after the falling out, Avie wouldn’t speak to me. I went to her apartment to give her a gift and at least say happy birthday in person before the night was up. When she answered the door, she was very short and impatient. She expressed that she didn’t want me there, even as I gave her the present. I noticed a mark on her chest area, right here,” he gestured to the clavicle on himself.

“What did the mark look like?”

“It looked like some sort of puncture mark with light bruising on the bottom of the area. I thought she had gotten hurt from traversing the woods again, so I brought it up. She then loudly exclaimed that she was seeing someone, and to leave her alone.”

“That must have been another blow to you, did you end up leaving after the exchange?”

“No, I knocked endlessly at her door, I was terrified she was now being promiscuous, adding to her out of character act. I was terrified she wasn’t being safe in that regard as well, I just wanted to talk about it further, but she didn’t answer.”

“And in this worried state, you decided to wait at her door all night?”

“No… Her neighbour caught me and told me to quiet down. I had a spare key that I ran home to get. And I entered her apartment to find that she left, presuming in the time that I had moved.”

Mr. Gabriele was pacing back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Mr. Zagorski … Did you see what happened when the victim returned to her apartment?”

“I did.”

“As clear and with as much detail as you can, please explain what happened in those moments.”

Leaning back, Owen huffed, “She returned to her apartment about eleven-forty in the evening, coming through her bedroom window. I was waiting for her inside in the living room, the door between both areas was closed so I could only hear her return through her voice. Avie came out of her room, seeing me immediately. She smelled so heavily of alcohol while she screamed and grew hysterical, calling me a slew of curse words and shrieking how she hated me. Avie ran up to me hitting at my chest and kicking at my legs, trying to attack me. It was completely unprovoked as I didn’t retaliate, I only tried to hold her back. I feared for my life, she was