Daughter-in-law Strikes Harder

“What… What did you just say?!” Aria asked in livid disbelief that had overwhelmed her body immediately, when she heard what Dalton uttered out to her without any feelings or emotion.

‘Was he crazy? How dare he play with someone’s life for his own benefit?’

“You heard what I said clearly, dear wife,” he stated with a straight face, which evidently indicated that he wasn’t in the mood for jokes. He meant every one of his words.

The fact that Alex had moved her away from the house in a jiffy, was too much for her to comprehend at that point in time of her waking.

She barely had enough time to put on her slippers when he acted so restlessly, like something serious was going on around the mansion and made her evacuate immediately.

Due to the weakness that her body was immersed into and the partial sleep that clouded her eyes, she was not able to ask where he was taking her, when they approached the door of the whirling helicopter which was open.

Not too long later after they were up in the air, she was already sitting in front of a mirror and getting her face done by makeup professionals.

It took extra efforts from them to cover up the black bags under her eyes, as Dalton waited around while monitoring the time so intently, with so many thoughts running through his mind. Everyone had left so quickly after they were done with their jobs, leaving Aria to finish dressing up on her own.

It was after then that Dalton entered into the dressing room, while she was adjusting the sapphire necklace that she had on. She definitely could not believe that she looked like what she was looking at through the mirror. Every look and detail was so beautiful.

When she noticed his presence, she thought to jump in front of him and demand what was going on with the makeover, as he mentioned an issue that she had least expected them to ever talk about.

“So, we are going to a ball party and are going to meet your grandfather, then you threaten me not to say anything to him by bringing Anna into this?! How do you even know who Anna is and how we are connected?” Aria shot up in anger when she heard what he had said to her, with the thought to pick up her heels from under her feet and smash it against his head.

“I have my ways, darling. If you want her to get a surgery as planned in any hospital, then you just have to act normally without running your mouth to grandfather,” he declared impassively.

“Why the fuck are you bringing her into this? And who says she is getting the surgery at the family hospital?!” Aria cut in immediately.

Her body had started to quake at the mentioning of a subject that she would definitely like no one to talk about. Not in the Miller’s family.

“Whatever hospital it is, Aria. She will never get the surgery if I please, and there is nothing you are going to do about it.”

“You are evil Dalton. You are so heartless. Using me for your own selfish gain and wanting me to act like everything is fine? You think that is going to work out everytime?!” She cussed at him under her breath, while trying to hold the outburst of emotional pain that was trembling her heart.

‘How could he?’

“You have a choice to make, and you have just five minutes to meet me in the car after a decision. Do not waste any time further,” he warned, and immediately turned to leave the room. The decision she would make was obvious.

~•|•|•~

Considering the entire drama that occurred during the party and Dalton’s threat to Aria, she left the party shortly after Mark Miller left, unannounced and unnoticed to anyone.

The fact that he had used Anna’s surgery to put her in a terrible spot, made her drive out of the mansion in the early hours of the morning before anyone left the house. If there was anything she wanted to do after, it was getting Anna’s surgery scheduled as soon as possible at the hospital.

“So you have checked to see that all the footage from yesterday was wiped off right?” Dalton asked calmly than his usual self, which made Alex slightly relax from his initial self imposed tension, that was preparing to receive any harsh lash back from Dalton.

“Yes sir. Rather than a systemic problem, I rather say or think someone, must have tampered with it,” he hesitated to say the last sentence, as it would look like he was trying to accuse one of the family members.

“Is there any way to recover the lost recordings?”

“The IT professionals are trying to do that, sir. But they say that the success rate of recovery is less than five percent,” Alex said in a very apologetic manner. In a literal sense and way of things, it totally looked like his fault for not being able to manage every of the mansion affairs.

“From now on, the monitor and equipment used in the CCTV operation room should be relocated to my room. Call an interior professional to redesign and reconstruct everything that needs to be done in the room to a perfect fix,” Dalton instructed, with his eyes on piles of files that were to be checked on the table. He wasn’t getting angry like his normal self too, and it really got Alex speculating many things.

Alex, who was still wondering if there was a need for such a formal process since Dalton’s room was extra large, tried to decipher if the mood in the room was the time to tell him what he wanted to say.

He noticed that during and till the party of the previous night had ended, the coldness between Aria and Dalton was so palpable to maybe only him.

They had never talked to one another in the past which made it seem normal, but seeing them without having to bicker in a day was really weird.

‘It has just been a few hours to conclude such thoughts already,’ he told himself.

“Sir. Mrs. Miller left the mansion with her car very early this morning,” he finally told him, “We have the men following her to know where she is going.”

“Okay,” Dalton replied concisely, and continued to flip through the files without minding what his assistant had said.

His nonchalant attitude towards this report got Alex really curious to know if anything had happened between them during the party, that had made him not interested to even know why she had left the mansion that early like his usual self.

He had expected him to get all worked up about why she had left the mansion, and even order him to do the trailing job by himself.

“Why do you still allow Mrs. Miller to leave the mansion, when you can, order for the gate not to be opened to her, sir?” Alex finally asked the formidable question that had been eating him up so much, that he just had to know, so he could figure out what his boss was thinking in his mind.

“To know what she is up to. It would be difficult to know if she has been caged home.”

Aria drove the car to the underground parking lot of a restaurant together with Anna, and ordered a cab to pick them up from the restaurant after having breakfast together with the young girl.

The car stopped in front of the gigantic hospital as they alighted, as they made their way into the main door of the hospital with many floors. It had been the one that she had been using after doing a good research, and she had grown to love its simplicity more than any other best ones that were rated.

The young girl held Aria’s left hand in her right as they made their way into the elevator, with a brown, black eyed teddy held tightly in the other hand.

While the elevator they entered moved up the floor that they were going to, she smiled painfully at Anna and rubbed gently on her back, who gave a wide and cute smile that she rarely gave to anyone.

“So, she can have her tests done now?” Aria asked the doctor who was sitting before her, who seemed to be in his early twenties, even if he was thirty three already. The glasses he had on his face didn’t make it seem so.

She was sitting comfortably on one of the two chairs before the doctor’s table, with Anna who sat on the second one, while staring so keenly at the doctor.

Her mind was the type to always wander off so many times in a few minutes, but she never seemed to lose interest whenever they were at the doctor’s. It made Aria more hopeful that the young girl could finally get someone, she would be comfortable with.

“Yes, Miss Hamilton. We would do more tests and check the state of her respiratory organs, speech nerves, and compare if she has gotten any better since the last treatment, and also through the use of the prescribed drugs,” he explained carefully to her, and showed to her the scan of the previous test that they had done, on the monitor he had on his table.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Though Aria could not understand what the black diagram with a white background meant, she just nodded hopefully and allowed the nurse who had entered inside to take Anna away.

After the nurse left with the young girl and shut the door behind her, Aria turned to the doctor and stood up immediately as she made her way towards the door to lock it.

Pressing on the floor was the noiseless sound of her heels, as she made her way back to the doctor who was already on his feet too.

“I do not want this in any form of paperwork, Dr. Xavier. Just a test and a result,” she reminded him with a very stern face.