CHAPTER |13
1004 Words
Aiden's POV
By the time the police vehicle drove away, the road had become quiet again, but the anger inside me had not settled.
The sound of the metal door closing behind those men stayed in my head. Their voices still echoed, first bold when they thought they had control, then frightened when they realized they had chosen the wrong person to attack in front of.
I stood there for a moment, watching the police lights disappear down the road, my hands still tight by my sides.
The night air was cold, but I barely noticed it.
My attention returned to where Amarahh sat on the ground a few steps away from my car.
She had not tried to stand.
Her bag lay beside her, one side of her dress was stained with dust from the road, and her hair, usually kept together carefully, had fallen loose around her face. Even from where I stood, I could see the swelling beginning near her cheek.
For a second, I could not connect this image with the same woman who had once stood in my hallway and answered me with enough courage to leave me speechless.
Now she looked tired in a way that spoke of more than tonight. She looked like someone who had been carrying too much alone.
I walked toward her slowly.
The closer I got, the clearer her condition became. Her hands were trembling badly, her breathing came unevenly, as though she was still fighting panic even after the men had been taken away.
"Amarahh." I called quietly.
She lifted her face.
The moment our eyes met, whatever strength she had been holding onto broke, her face crumpled, and tears came immediately.
Not controlled tears, not the kind someone wipes quickly and pretends not to feel.
She cried openly, with the full weight of fear still inside her. For a second I did not know what to say then instinct took over before thought.
I bent slightly and reached for her arm. The moment my hand touched her, she leaned toward me as though she no longer trusted her own balance.
So I pulled her fully into my arms. At first I held her carefully, uncertain how badly she was hurt, but when I felt how much she was shaking, my hold tightened.
Her forehead pressed against my chest, and her tears soaked through my shirt almost immediately.
"I thought..." She whispered, her voice broken.
Then she stopped because the words would not come.I understood enough without hearing the rest.
Her body still trembled, and for a moment I found myself angry again, not at her, not even at the night, but at the fact that she had been alone here long enough for this to happen.
"It is over," I said quietly, though my own voice still carried tension.
She cried a little longer before trying to pull away, embarrassed perhaps by how much she had shown.
When she moved, I noticed the way she winced immediately.
My eyes dropped to her side. "You are hurt."
"I am fine," she said too quickly.
I knew at once that she was not still, I did not argue there on the roadside.
I picked up her bag and opened the back door of the car myself. "Get in."
She hesitated only a second before obeying the driver, remained silent and started the engine once I entered beside her.
For the first few minutes, the drive happened in complete silence, not the comfortable kind, the kind where too much remained unsaid.
Streetlights passed over her face one after another, making the bruise on her cheek clearer every few seconds.
She kept one hand against her side.
Her clothes were still damp from the ground, and I noticed how tightly she held the old bag on her lap, as if everything she owned was inside it.
That thought stayed with me longer than I expected.
Finally, I broke the silence. "I owe you an apology."
She turned her head slowly, as though she had not expected that from me. "For what?"
The question came quietly, almost uncertain. I looked ahead before answering. "For what Vanessa did."
She lowered her eyes immediately. "It was my fault Ava almost died."
"No," I said firmly. "A kitchen mistake happened. Vanessa was afraid, but she had no right to strike you."
For a moment she said nothing, then she spoke with that same calm voice that always sounded stronger than her condition.
"She was protecting someone she loved."
I studied her face briefly.
Even now, after being slapped, dismissed, and forced out, she still defended others first.
That made the guilt I had already been carrying grow heavier because I remembered very clearly how I had also treated her that day.
Then she asked what had clearly been sitting in her chest from the moment she entered the car.
"How is Ava?"
The way she said my daughter's name held genuine fear that alone answered many things I had wrongly assumed about her before.
"She is alright," I told her.
"The reaction stopped quickly after treatment. The doctors discharged her the next day."
Her shoulders dropped a little with relief. "Thank God."
The words came so softly I almost missed them, I continued, because she deserved more than that small answer.
"She asked about you every day."
This time she looked at me fully.
"Liam too," I added.
That silence returned, but now it felt different, not heavy, just full. I noticed then how thin her face had become in only a few days.
Too thin.
Her hands too looked rougher than when she first came to my house. A question formed before I could stop it.
"Where have you been staying?"
She did not answer immediately, that hesitation had already warned me.
I turned slightly toward her.
"Amarahh."
Her voice came low. "At an unfinished building."
For a moment I thought I heard wrongly. "You slept there?"
She nodded. The rain still marked one side of her dress.
- Writer
