Daughter-in-law Strikes Harder

Aria didn’t go home that night and just slept on the couch throughout the night, after she turned off all the lights in her office at the shopping mall. It was a lonely and sad night alone for her as she was unable to sleep, coupled with the hunger that was biting on her tummy.

There was no coffee maker in her office to even prepare coffee that could suppress her hunger, and the waffles that always accompanied the packs of coffee were at departmental offices.

It was hard to keep the hunger that she was feeling in her till around 2:00 am at night, as Aria’s eyes flashed open away from forcing herself to sleep futilely.

She opened the door to her office and came out to the hallway with barely visible lights, as she crept towards the stairs down to the next floor so as not to cause too many problems by using the elevator.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

Having memorized every floor and room directions in the mall, Aria was able to locate the doors even without bright lights and also found their inner room. From the floor she started from to about five more below, Aria picked every pack of waffle from every worker’s office and made coffee too for herself.

By the time she was done with everything and was to return back to her own floor, it was almost 5:00 am in the morning and she was too tired to even climb the stairs back.

By six in the morning, Aria had taken a brief bath in the bathroom that was in her office, and just wore the clothes from the previous day. Sitting in front of her laptop to type a message back to MAS, she fell asleep till it was time for everyone to resume for their day’s job.

When Amelia arrived as usual without taking the day off to see if the CEO’s office was in good shape, she was shocked to find someone sleeping with her hair all over the table.

She wondered if her boss had gone home the previous night and resumed the following morning, or slept off in the office only to wake up the next day. Repetition of her clothes from the previous day confirmed the answer.

Hours later, Aria woke up to find ordered chicken and some other food on the table, and she was so thankful in her heart knowing who would have done that. She was also more thankful that the sedatives that she injected into her body worked well, enough to allow her body to take some rest.

As she bit on all the food that Amelia had ordered for her to eat, she also drank from the bottle of juice that accompanied the food package. She couldn’t understand why she was eating that badly and feeling so tired, but she needed something to make herself feel better from every anxiety that almost choked on her.

She knew Dalton would have been worried sick that she didn’t come home, and would have probably started looking for her by then. She called for Amelia and begged her not to tell Dalton that she was in the shopping mall, if he or his assistant ever called to ask about her.

After she was done eating and packing her work table, she injected the remaining injections from the previous day and trashed the rest.

Quickly, she navigated back to her laptop and checked to see if the masked dancer had replied to her message, and there was something rather shocking about the message that she read from her screen that had been dropped by dawn.

‘If you can stop investigating this, then stop as fast as you can. If you can try further, go to the ML gallery to find clues. Please be safe,’ she read the letters over and over again like she had done days ago, when the same person sent her a message that something could happen at the party which later did.

[How do you know all these things? Who are you? Why are you helping me? You know the perpetrator right?] Aria typed so fast in anxiety and sent it to the unknown dancer, hoping that she would at least tell her something. It was frustrating to be in the dark.

After waiting for a while without any reply, Aria picked up her bag and told Amelia that she would be back in a jiffy, as she ordered for a chauffeur to come and pick her. The car that she had driven to the party had been towed back to the mansion by Alex, and she could not go back home because she didn’t want Dalton to get through to her.

He was becoming her distraction and she hated to know that. She was beginning to want more from their relationship instead of focusing on what mattered, and it really sucked so much to know inwardly.

It was better they stayed apart so that she would focus. And be able to separate peacefully from him after finishing everything once and for all.

~•~•~““`~•~•~

“Shit! Have you searched everywhere that she can be in? Have you?!” Dalton raged angrily as the mansion shuddered severely that early morning, when he found out that she didn’t come home even till the next morning.

Everyone had started to panic again as they asked one another suspiciously, if they had done anything to her and that they should confess. They were scared that what Dalton would do this time, would be worse than the one that he had done before. He would probably throw them all out.

They had not seen her since the time Dalton left with her at the party, and it was unfair of Dalton to accuse them for her disappearance.

However, they couldn’t say that as they all tried their best even if they knew it would do nothing, calling places that they knew someone to confirm if any lady that matched her appearance came by.

“This is so unfair. Dalton would end up freezing our personal credit cards at this rate,” Ellen cried out, when nothing was working after calling quite a number of people that she knew.

“I wonder where she could be. Eva is so lucky to not be at home now. If I were not taking a rest from now, it would be you and mummy,” Emma muttered in clear frustration, as she packed some drinks from the refrigerator, and picked some of the snacks that were on the dining table, “He could come back and order that no one eats,” she reminded them.

And with that reminder, Ellen rushed to carry the basket of fruits and chicken from the refrigerator, as she ran up the stairs with it to her room. Their mother, who was trying to act all sophisticated when her daughters were talking, picked some for herself too when they ran off to their rooms.

It had become really stressful for everyone ever since it was evident that Dalton was crazy over Aria, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

It was no news to everyone in the house, and the new gossip secretly among the servants was that she bewitched him. However, they really hoped that he would find her this time.

Alex was in confusion as he worked different search methods that he could to try to find some clues, which included calling the shopping mall to see if she had visited that morning. Having no idea that she was in fact upstairs, they all denied seeing her in the company that morning.

Amelia, who was scared that things could fall back on her because of the kind of person that she was dealing with, had to confess the second time Alex called to ask again.

She however twisted the story that she found Aria in her office when she went to her office for file sorting, and that she left immediately when she realized that she had been discovered. It was really frustrating for her to be caught up between the web of the couples.

On her way to the art gallery, Aria stopped at a phone shop to purchase a new cell phone, and alighted the first cab she took. She entered another cab a few minutes later and branched at another shop where purchased a sim card, so that she was going to be able to access the internet immediately. She boarded another cab again after the second one had dropped her halfway.

“Do you think she is trying to run away for good? Why did she alight from the first cab?” Dalton questioned frustratedly, as he stared at the CCTV footage of the road that they barely got.

“To remain untraced, sir,” Alex responded.

“She might be planning to escape. Check all borders right now,” he ordered.