Aria finished her story with a simple sentence.
“Forgive me. I was jealous and I agreed to his instructions. Moreover, I had to save my father. Please, I’m sorry, forgive me.”
Ash and Nelly were both speechless for a long time.
“I’m sorry. I have to leave,” she said and off she went.
“Oh my Gosh! Is it really true? Did all this happen? Is she…” Nelly was too shocked to comprehend all that Aria had said.
“Ash please, let’s just go home. Please, I’m loosing my mind.”
Ash helped her up, despite his own unsteadiness. The news had displaced him as well. It was too shocking.
Nelly sat on the floor, supporting her head in her hand. Her lips are slightly parted but no words emerge from her mouth. Her eyes were red and swollen, she was already tired of crying. She has exhausted all the tears left in her eyes, possibly. Ash was seated on a sofa beside her.
“So, everyone just betrayed me. Even Amon. Damn! We were friends. Did they really want to kill me? What did I do? What crime did I commit?” I can’t believe…” her words choked up in her mouth as tears beclouded her words. Ash didn’t make any attempt to console her. He allowed her to cry and lament to her heart content. Nelly sat still, her body shook violently as she struggled to put herself together. She dropped her shoulders like a wet chicken, the weight of the betrayal crushing her. She knew Aria slept with her boyfriend on the day her contract was terminated in the entertainment industry and she was still mad at her for that. She couldn’t believe other things Aria had done! She was responsible for the termination of her contract too! She managed the blogs that said all sorts of untrue stuffs about her, making life even more difficult for her at that critical time. Aria also trailed her to Germany and told Easton about her, making him send someone to keep her in check. As if that wasn’t enough, Aria tried to murder her!
“We should not have let that bastard go back with her legs the way she came!”
Ash didn’t still say anything.
Amon!
He was all over her, so caring and loving a neighbour. Who would have known that he was on a mission to get her out of mother earth?
“What else is being kept from me? Who else do I need to be wary of? I thought Amon was my friend but instead, he’s my assassin. Why’s everything happening at the same time? Dad’s dead and all dark stories are coming to light! What more is yet to happen?” She broke down in tears and wept again. Five minutes later, Ash put his hands on her shoulders.
“Stop crying. It’s going to be fine. Now, you know who to avoid and you know you need to be more careful.”
“Aria needs to die! We should have broken her legs when she came. How did she even escape?”
“It’s best the way we handled it. Although she left before we recovered from the shock, it’s the best thing. If we hurt her, we don’t have any legal backing or any right to do that irrespective of what she had done. We will be punished for it. There could be other ways to catch her. Let’s give it sometime.”
“No. We have to catch her now. I recorded the conversation.”
“Huh? You did? How did you do that?” Ash asked in surprise. Before Aria started speaking, she asked them to get rid of all recording devices. She checked to make sure they had none on them before she agreed to open up.
Nelly opened her wardrobe and took out a simple shirt. She was going to wear it for the lunch with Aria. It had just the perfect button size for the recorder. As she buttoned her shirt, she fastened a button type camera and recorder to it. It was hidden safely that no one would suspect a thing.
“Wow. That’s incredible. You are very smart, I must say.”
“Can we report her now?” Nelly asked, ignoring his compliment.
“We will. But not yet. I want you to always keep it at the back of your mind that we promised not to do anything by impulse. We’ll have to check properly before we make any move. I know you are upset but you have to calm down so you can think straight. I was up all night getting the cloned files straight. Let’s go and look at it together.”
There were five phones in all. Ash, who was a computer wizard knew his way around and he input the right codes and everything in the phone was soon available to them. They checked the first three phones but found nothing.
“Ahhh. Why don’t they have even the slightest clue?” Nelly muttered.
“This isn’t what we expected but we have to keep checking. Who knows, we might stumble on something.”
An hour later, Nelly got up and yawned.
“I’m tired. Let’s take a break. We will look at that later. Let’s rest and plan other things. I need to find who that Ethan fellow is.”
“Don’t you want to stay a little more? We can get something if we keep looking,” Ash urged.
“Nah. I need a break please.”
Ash let her go but he kept checking. One hour later, he was almost done with all the phones. He opened the last application in the last phone and there was all he was looking for!
“Nelly! I found it!”
Nelly hurried to her room with a bowl of popcorn.
“What did you find?”
Ash showed her and her fists were soon curled up in a ball. An unnamed anger rose in her heart and she gritted her teeth in fury.
“Can you get it printed? I’m going there right now!”
Before Ash could say anything, Nelly was changing her clothes. She grabbed the printout from him and drove to Vintage group. The biggest CEO in the country had stepped on her toes!