Daughter-in-law Strikes Harder

Dalton’s expression became stiff to shock when he watched the video that was played before him, when he and Alex met later that afternoon at the company. He had dropped Aria off for her therapy which was at the second floor to the last of the hospital, while he rushed back immediately when he heard that Alex was able to get his hands on the footage.

However, the video that he was watching before him was so terrifying, that never in his life would he have thought something of such happened. It was quite too much for him to handle when he saw the evil that had happened against her, that it broke his heart so much to stir tears out of already stinging eyes.

The camera captured the moment that Aria dropped to the ground from the elevated spot, after someone pushed her from behind which the camera also captured.

Though the view of the person dressed in all black was too dark to witness and see, it was evident that she had fallen to the ground after she was unknowingly pushed.

“What happened after?” Why is there no video anymore? What happened after the fall?” Dalton demanded with a shaky breath, as he tried to wind and rewind to see if anything was captured after the ending of the video.

“Not at all sir. I have tried to get other footage from the cameras around too, but they were all unable to capture what happened next because the building has a low height,” Alex explained with an apologetic voice, wondering how Dalton would be feeling in him to know that Aria was pushed from that height.

“Maybe….. Maybe that was what messed up with her brain. Maybe that changed her behavior. Do you think she had a concussion? Do you think she…. she probably has an internal bleeding somewhere?” Dalton stuttered as he stood up in confusion to get his phone, so as to call the doctor by himself.

“Calm down sir. After all that happened, the family came back home after three days. Do you think a spontaneous recovery would have been possible if anything happened? I think everything must be fine, sir,” Alex tried to calm Dalton down so that he would not do anything rash.

“Why do you think my family didn’t tell me anything? Why?! Why are they acting like nothing happened? Get everyone to leave whatever they must be doing now, or come back from wherever they may be and gather at the dining room, right, now!” Dalton ordered angrily, as he grabbed his coat from where he hung it, “I will go and check up on Aria and see if she is done too.”

“Please sir. Calm down,” Alex tried to persuade.

“How can you tell me to calm down?! Who are you to tell me such bullcrap?!” Dalton yelled furiously as he tried to storm out, but Alex knew that he had to be strong-headed for the first time, and that he had to go against what his boss wanted.

“They already have a fixed story sir and nothing would make them change it if Mrs. Eleanor Miller is leading everything. One thing is we have to know if they knew about what happened, or if it was a plan from one of them to get rid of her initially. We have to take things slowly as we have always done to arrive at an answer, sir,” Alex increased the intensity of his voice as he held the knob of the door, to prevent Dalton from going out.

“And for Mrs. Miller too. There must be some reason why she is saying nothing, even if she by chance remembers everything. No one would want to say the truth that easily because this is a serious case, sir,” Alex continued without a filter. He could not allow Dalton to ruin the very case that he had been taking his time to crack slowly, just because of his irrational anger.

“And who gives the orders?! I would have everyone locked in the prison and tortured till they confess!” Dalton threatened fiercely. His anger sure knew no bounds.

“You have been practicing how to be a calm person, sir. Mrs. Miller might open up with time if she sees your sincerity. I will find more information and update you with anything I find,” Alex assured and at the same time succeeded in soothing his boss, who turned his back and vented his anger by crashing anything he could around him.

Dalton hated to know that he had acted like that once again, even if he had been trying to practice being calm for days. The knowledge that Alex was absolutely right and correct about how he should act in the situation, didn’t sit right with Dalton knowing that he should have thought for himself and controlled his anger.

However, there was no way that he could be okay after knowing the truth. He felt so sorry and deeply guilty in his heart that he had allowed Aria to suffer so much in the past, even when he had the idea of a few things that his mother did.

‘You should have stopped them. You should have stopped them, Dalton. You are a monster. You are a monster just like everyone, and you do not have the right to love her. You don’t!’ Dalton cried in his heart as he grinded his teeth against one another in pain. He had started regretting every single thing that he had ignored.

~•|•~. ~•|•~.

Aria entered into the hospital grounds and climbed the elevator in Dalton’s presence, and went to knock on the doctor’s door as expected after she was given a pass to his office. As soon as she knocked on his door, she turned to the other side of the hallway and left immediately to the nearest elevator.

As soon as she entered the elevator, her vision became blurry and head hit bang so hard. She tried to steady herself in the elevator with the terrible pain that she was going through, as she sweated profusely and groaned silently in tears. The pain was too much to handle.

The elevator stopped on the last floor after minutes of coming down, and she had scooped a handful of drugs into her throat. Though it was not helping as much as she needed it, it suppressed the pain a bit and she was able to make it out of the hospital to the streets.

She hired a taxi immediately that took her straight to the shopping mall which was a twenty minutes drive away, as she wept silently in the car so as not to distract the person that was driving. The doctor’s words continued to ring in her head.

The night before that she and Dalton kissed, it was so phenomenal for her than any other kiss they both shared. It was an action that was strictly anchored by how she was feeling at that particular moment, and it was hard to tell why she was feeling that way even if she hated it.

Things stopped abruptly when she had the feeling that she might end up going too deep into their kiss, and also end up having sex with him as that was the last thing she would wish for. Dalton obeyed what she wanted even if he was hard in his pants already, and just allowed her to take her bath peacefully.

They slept in each other’s arms too after he struck a bargain with her, and she slept well through the night with his arms around her. They were feelings she had never gotten to really experience, which were difficult to place in her heart. For her, what she was feeling was too sad. Hopeless. She couldn’t throw everything away now.

Aria cried till the car stopped in front of the shopping mall, and even when she made her way inside without getting noticed. Amelia was right in her office changing some wall designs that were all Dalton’s taste, even if no one really used the place.

“What is wrong, Mrs. Miller? Why are you sobbing?” Amelia’s eyes were sharp enough to see, as she came down from where she was hanging to hold Aria. It was hard to see her vibrant boss in that state.

“I can’t do this,” Aria cried much louder this time than she had thought she would, as the unending painful tears dropped more and more to the vicious aching of her head.

“I am really sorry for whatever happened. Please come take a seat here and calm down,” Amelia offered to her and tried to calm her down, but figured out that it could be more than that, when Aria ended up with a terrible headache on the spot.

The terrified assistant tried to call Dalton but Aria stopped her immediately, which made her result into self medication from the pharmacy. Aria told her to get some specific injections instead of drugs, with a syringe, gauze and some other things.

Even with her fear of what could be happening, Amelia bought everything Aria wrote down for her and returned back to the mall almost an hour later to find Aria sleeping already. She just dropped everything near the sofa chair on the table, and adjusted the temperature of the room to a desirable one.

It was evening already and Aria had not gotten a new phone, which made it so difficult for Dalton to get across to her. The doctor told him that she was only seen in the hospital premises through the CCTV camera outside, and that she didn’t enter his office when Dalton called. It almost drove the billionaire crazy.

Aria woke up hours later to see Amelia resting on the other couch opposite hers, and she was really thankful to know that someone cared about her enough to wait even if it was evening. She woke the lady up and apologized for stressing her so much, and even gave the next day off since she had been working too well.

With Aria left alone in the office again, she walked to the door to shut it tight and walked back to take her seat. She brought out everything that Amelia had brought from the nylon. She began to inject herself after she had prepared the syringe.

She also tried to find her pulse at where the flow of her blood was most restricted, and she found the point at her arm region. Carefully, she cut the flesh open and also the blood in that spot to gush out for a while, releasing all the deoxygenated blood that was found there. With a gauze and plaster, she covered the wound afterwards.

“You can do this. You are not weak. You can finish it all,” she said to herself again and again.

‘Time is running out,’ her mind whispered mercilessly to her.