Chapter 54 Her dirty deeds
54\. Her dirty deeds
Madam Martha hung next to Aurora for about fifteen minutes, crying silently as she caressed the sleeping beauty's hair.
Her wet lashes blinked with the flashback of the event that took place some hours ago from here forth— when Damien walked in with an unconscious Aurora in his arms.
Flashback…
Madam Martha was cleaning the hall smiling widely. She confronted every employee with an ear to ear grin and twinkling cheerful eyes. Because her daughter has given the biggest news of her life this morning. Aurora was going on a date with her love— Alpha Damien.
The old lady was going about her work delightfully as she kept wondering ever since Aura left, about the special ways with which he would be making her feel special tonight. Aurora had not mentioned anything regarding a proposal, but Madam Martha somewhere predicted it coming. That's because she had heard Alpha Damien talk over the phone to Brian about buying the most expensive and precious diamond ring from the best diamond merchants in the city.
The lady with black and pepper hair desired to deliver the words to her daughter's ears. Later she decided to let it be a secret and not spoil Damien's plan. In fact, she was growing excited thinking about Aura's excitement when she'd come to show her her ring and inform her of the proposal.
Her thoughts had been dedicated to Aurora as this was her night. Nevertheless, just as the clock struck nine, Madam Martha saw Damien carrying an unconscious Aurora in his hands. His eyes were red with tears as if he had been crying all his way to here. His face entertained expressions of defeat— As if he lost a war concerning his life and happiness.
"Aurora? What happened to her, Damien?" She was setting the cushions properly on the couch in the foyer when she watched alpha Damien.
She immediately joined him as he plodded to Aurora's room.
"Aurora?" Madam Martha caressed Aurora's red cheek gently.
She took a look at the Alpha's face awaiting a reply, but he neither spoke a word or reacted to her inquiries. He marched directly towards the room of this unconscious beauty he was holding in his arms. Madam Martha restlessly followed him.
"Would you mind telling me what happened to my daughter?" She tried again yet she received his silence in the name of a response.
She opened the door of her room and neared the bed while Damien safely placed her on the mattress. His moves were sluggish. He took his own time to transfer her weight onto the mattress. His eyes longingly, with a painful dejected look, gawked at her face as a pearl cascaded under his cheekbone.
Erecting back to his original position, Damien ran a hand through his hair and sobbed, taking a glance at her one last time before he twirled around and dashed out of the room before Madam Martha could ask him a thing.
The old lady looked between Aurora on the bed and the door through which Alpha Damien walked out. She was totally puzzled by his silent demeanor. He didn't care to share but Madam Martha perceived something happened at the date.
Henceforth, she quickly bent down to cover Aurora with blankets and came running to Alpha Damien's room.
Without dropping any warning in the face of knocks on his door, she walked through his privacy and stilled what she saw inside the room.
"Damien?" He was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands.
It was extremely low but she caught the sound of him crying. When she neared him and put a hand on his shoulder, "Go away, Miss. Martha." He hushed in a cracking tone.
"What's wrong Damien?" Madam Marth squeezed his shoulder, urging him to answer her.
"Everything with me is wrong."
"Why would you say that, Damien?"
"Because everytime I thirst for something good in life— I see defeat. There's no happiness or loyalty for me in this world." He lifted his head from his hands to blinked his moist eyes at the old lady he always looked up to as a motherly figure. "Why do people use me all the time?"
Madam Martha sank her teeth in her lower lip, having no idea what went wrong all of a sudden. He was so happy in the morning but right now, he looked like an alpha that lost a big battle.
"What exactly happened to you, Damien? And what's wrong with my daughter?" As she spoke, Alpha Damien's back straightened.
"Why is Aurora not in her senses? What transpired between you two during your date? Tell me everything, Damien. You both left the mansion so excitedly! I am so worried for my daughter, Damien." Madam Martha's queries expressed worry only for Aurora, and this made a curt yet anguished smile twist his lips.
Alpha Damien got up. He looked around the room to keep himself calm as he asked, "Miss Martha, why do you call her your daughter?"
"What's wrong Damien?" Though he was calm, there was an ominous nature spicing his voice up into dark and scary.
"Just answer my question first. Why do you call that woman your daughter?" Madam Martha was taken aback at the choice of his words. He was referring to the lady he loved as someone he didn't know.
"B-because I see myself in her. As my younger version." Madam Martha softly stuttered.
She couldn't suppress a painful smile bursting on her face at the comparison she made as she dived through the old good times she lived as a young woman. Not the beauty wise but as a selfless and down to earth woman, Aura resembled her. She was surfing through her memories when Alpha Damien made a remark which broadened her eyes.
"So you were as characterless as her when you were young?" He raised an eyebrow of mockery.
She never assumed Damien's eyes to cloud with extreme gloominess and scoff at her. But here he was, not only throwing spears of indignation but also with looks that seemed anything but respectful.
"Sorry, what did you just say?" Unable to take it, she asked.
"I asked if you were as characterless as HER, Miss Martha."
No sooner did he repeat than her flat opened palm met with his damp cheek. She struck him hard, causing him to tremble a step behind.
"How could you utter such a degrading word for her? How dare you call my daughter that, Damien hunter!"
She clutched his collar and shook him vigorously with her old hands. He didn't move at all from his spot except for grinding his teeth tighter and tighter as she jerked him back and forth.
"Didn't you feel she was characterless when you ripped her virginity? Didn't you think she was characterless when you used my daughter for fulfilling your sexual desires?" She let go of his collar with a jerk.
Alpha Damien restrained a fall. His hands fisted at his sides. He attempted to stay nonviolent but the old lady seemed to get on his nerves as hard as possible using her words.
"She told me everything, Alpha Damien. Everything you two saw together starting from the first day until this morning as a couple. I know how you used her every night. I know how you clung to her for comfort. She did everything to meet yours needs— you still had the guts to call her characterless. How dare you?" She screamed on top of her voice with her eyes running rapidly with hot tears.
Characterless— It was not just a word, but an insulting tag on a woman's virtue. Madam Martha wouldn't have lost her shit if he didn't call her that. She wouldn't have dared slap the alpha if he didn't humiliate Aurora like her boyfriend had done to her years ago.
He brought back the darkest memories. Unfortunately, one of the events that had scarred her memories deeply, he made it fresh.
Madam Martha could see history repeat. Years ago it was herself who was being called characterless for doing nothing, and today it was her ever so fragile and innocent daughter. Only the thing that hurt Madam Martha was that she didn't see this coming from Damien.
"Interesting. This is very interesting." Damien's voice was heavy with irritation. "The woman who raised me is fighting me for a cunning fox who's not even been a part of her life for more than three years. I am surprised Miss. Martha."
"Mind your tongue, Damien Hunter. You must be the alpha of this pack but I won't think twice before shoving a silver dagger through your heart if you utter one more word against my daughter." She spat back with similar hoarseness as his. Only the difference was that she was trembling in anguish he inflicted on her through his words whereas he was as calm as a night.
"Then don't coerce me to utter dirt against your filthy daughter and take yourself out of my room." He was about to turn around when she grabbed his arm to keep him fixed in his spot as she made him look into her eyes darkly. Fiercely. Angrily.
"I won't tolerate any of your filthy behavior towards her. She loves you doesn't mean you have the right to insult her the way you want." Madam Martha said. "Just tell me what the fck has happened to my daughter and I will go away from here— perhaps away from your mansion too. I don't wish to work for a pervert like you. Just tell me what did you do to her?"
"What did I do to her? What did I do to her?" Repeating her words maniacally, he turned around to his side and smashed a masterpiece retained in a corner.
He kept breaking the masterpieces of his bedroom one by one while a thrilled Madam Martha observed him create the mess quietly. The soft side of her that raised him from a boy to who he was today pained. She couldn't see it but she didn't stop him.
"I would never do what she did to me. I could never do what she dared do to me. Your bloody fcking daughter played with my feelings. She bloody fooled me with her fcking beauty and virginity!"
"How did she play with your feelings, Alpha Damien? Would you mind telling me exactly how her beauty and virginity fooled you?" Damien looked at her fiercely.
"So you want to know, right?" The hoarseness in his voice made her spine shake with a current of fear.
Even then Madam Martha lifted her face and nodded in a confident yes.
Her eyes were spitting fire. She had a desire to sit him down, caress his hair and ask what changed his divine mood to a stormy one. The mother in her refused to soften for him after he defiled her daughter with his words.
"Fine. Fine." Crazily he muttered with eyes narrowing as he clenched his jaw tighter.
He rushed to his bed, picked his coat, rummaged through the inside pockets, and pulled out a bunch of photos, "Here.. This is your daughter's reality!"
Handing them over to Madam Martha aggressively, almost slapping the photos on her palm, he moved away growling, "This is your daughter's reality. Her dirty deeds."
Madam Martha controlled her anger while looking down at the photos. As soon as her eyes focused on the pictures, breaths knocked out of her lungs. She stumbled and collapsed on the bed as she shuffled through the picture.
"Th-this is… this is not…" She couldn't even finish the expression of astonishment as the new photos dilated her eyes wider and wider.
"After loving her so much, changing myself to a person I never thought I'd be for her, handing over my all to her— this is what she rewarded me with. Your daughter cheated on me. Not with one man but three." He screamed while at the same time he punched his hand on the wall in front.
It was Aurora captured in the photographs with three different men. One was Rosario. Second was Oscar, Damien's trusted driver. And the third was, to Madam Martha's dismay, Peter Dursley.
"She cheated on me, Miss Martha. She cheated on my faith. What did I ever ask from her? Her trust and herself. Though she gave herself to me, she broke my trust and heart. She fcking ruined me. Ruined my life." He cried like a baby.
Madam Martha flipped the photo again and again, thinking that the captured scenarios might just change. Sadly, no one can change reality.
What Madam Martha saw in the pictures looked like Aurora's reality.
"Damien, these pictures…" She blinked her teary eyes, her voice suddenly falling three octaves down to soft mumbling.
Woefully she was at a loss of words. The pictures, though Madam Martha believed were falsely taken, contained Aura with those men in such proximity that to the viewers it would look like she was making out with them.
The ones with Rosario appeared as though they just made out and she was extremely tired and he was walking her home. It was unfortunately taken in the street outside the Manor, in the back side. Madam Martha recalled that day when Rosario had come over to meet Aurora, and take her out.
Captures of Aurora with Damien's driver looked as if they were making out against the car he gifted to her in a lonely place. She was pressed to the body of the car and Oscar was standing before her, his head angled in a way that it seemed as if they were smooching.
Lastly, the pictures with Peter were horrendous. She was completely naked in bed with Peter and he was playing with her hair. The other few pictures showed that she was under that pervert being banged by him, while the last few pictures were shot here in this mansion. The ones where Aurora can be seen kissing Peter though her back was at the camera, but it was her since she was wearing her favorite floral dress everyone recognized.
"No no no no, this is not true. This is not my daughter, Damien. Both of us know Aurora! Th-this is not her. You trust her, don't you?" The old lady's grip on the pictures loosened and scattered all around her feet on the floor.
She walked on them, uncaring whether they contained her daughter, and pulled Damien by his arm.
"I don't think I know her. Maybe I was too blinded by love to see through the mask of her innocence. Maybe this was her reality from the very start and I was way too stupid to perceive it." He said.
This time, with all her heart, Madam Martha sympathized with him. She can also understand why he was so mad. His words, his anger, and everything else now made sense. His heart was broken. He felt dejected. However, it was necessary to wipe the clouds of misunderstanding from his thoughts and urge him to look at the truth.
Because it was not about them two alone, but their baby too. Madam Martha was afraid that if Damien decided to send her away, that innocent baby's life would automatically turn into hell without the shelter of his father's protection.
"Damien,"
Holding her own tears post noticing the hurt and misery streaming in the form of tears on his front, she tried to caress his cheek. Earlier than her motherly touch grazed him or triggered his weak point, he whirled around and dashed out of the room, leaving a grieving Madam Martha sweep to the floor and cry, looking at those pictures around her.
Flashback ends…
Meek noises coming from an unconscious Aurora's mouth snapped Madam Martha out of her thoughts. She stuttered her heavy eyelids as she took a glance at her daughter's face. She was mumbling in her sleep. Mumbling Damien's name.
As always she looked fragile and serene. She was in a peaceful sleep which Madam Martha knew was not going to last for long. Bending down to skim the tresses from her daughter's forehead, the old Housekeeper kissed her hair.
"I won't let you have a future like me. I know you are as innocent as that baby in your womb. Those photos are not true, and I will make him understand. Do not worry, baby. You called me your mother and I will play my part well. I promise it to you. I promise." Madam Martha slipped in the bed next to Aurora as she kept stroking her hair while the moon outside grew big and dark silvery, witnessing the old woman's cries.
Tbc…
Let's see what is in store for them. A sweet happily ever after..... Or a drastic separation?
Don't forget to comment and vote please.