Chapter 38 Chapter 38 The Morning After Aria Hartwell.

Chapter 38 Chapter 38 The Morning After Aria Hartwell.
Chapter 38
The Morning After
Aria Hartwell.

I left before he woke up. The suite was quiet, the curtains filtering out the early morning sun, and Cassian was sleeping on his stomach with one arm stretched across the space I had just vacated. I stood at the edge of the bed looking at him, and then I picked up my heels and walked out barefoot.

Downstairs, the second day's setup was already underway. The wedding was supposed to last for two days and I wondered how Cassian was going to explain his disappearance from his marriage. I didn't even want to think about it as guilt clawed my throat.

Staff moved between tables with fresh flower arrangements, and two caterers argued quietly near the entrance about the centerpieces. Nobody looked at me twice. A woman leaving a wedding venue in last night's dress was not unusual enough to earn a second glance.

I got into a cab and gave the driver my mother's home address. The house was quiet when I arrived. Maria was in the kitchen, and the smell of coffee drifted through the hallway. Rosa appeared from the sitting room in her housecoat, reading glasses on her head, and looked at me without surprise.

"You're back early," she said.

"The second ceremony doesn't start until noon." I kept my voice even. "I wanted to change."

"Of course." She smiled. "Are you hungry? Maria made eggs."

"I'm fine." I declined politely.

She nodded pleasantly and went back to her sitting room, and I stood in the hallway for a moment watching her retreating back.

She didn't ask where I had been. She didn't ask why I was in last night's dress. She didn't ask anything at all, and my mom was a woman who asked questions about everything.

She already knows.

Cassian's voice from yesterday afternoon moved through my head.

You can't trust your mother or Marcus. She had your phone. She was listening.

I didn't believe him because why would my mother want to even sabotage me in the first place? What gain could she possibly get from doing any of that? But something irked me at the back of my mind, and I knew I had to quieten my doubts by looking into it.

I went upstairs quietly and sat on the edge of my bed. I looked at my room... the room my mom had given me, the room I had been sleeping in for weeks since the fire, and I started seeing it differently.

There was a small decorative clock on the dresser that Rosa had placed there herself, insisting it matched the room's aesthetic. Then, there was the reading lamp on the nightstand that had appeared one morning without any explanation because I never turned off my lights to even need a lamp. And lastly, I noticed the smoke detector in the corner that I had never once seen blink.

I got up slowly and walked to the clock first. I turned it over in my hands and found it within thirty seconds of prying around with it... a small circular device no larger than a button, adhered to the base. My hands went cold. I set it down carefully and moved to the lamp. There was another one tucked inside the base where the cord fed through.

The smoke detector took me ten minutes to get down and open. Inside, alongside the actual detector components, was a third device with a small blinking green light.

My mother had planted three listening devices in my bedroom... In the room she had given me out of love.

I sat on the floor with all three in my palm and breathed through it. Everything I had said in this room, every phone call, every conversation with Priya, every time I had spoken to Cassian on the phone in here, every word I had said to myself when I thought I was alone...

I thought about Marcus's face when Cassian arrived that morning at my door. He had known Cassian was coming. He had been smiling at the window before the car even pulled up.

I pulled out my phone and called a property agent I had used once for a friend's relocation. There was no way I could continue living here if I couldn't trust my mother or find her motives for doing any of these. I hated my privacy being breached, and she knew it. She knew it so well especially how we used to fight about it when I was much younger. Suddenly, I began feeling suffocated at the thought of anything I might have said that could be incriminating. I began wondering why Marcus and my mother were even close in the first place. He was my ex boyfriend, and somehow, I always found him in the same space as my mom.

I suddenly gagged as I thought of the dirtiest thing possible.

...No, Aria. That's disgusting. Don't think about such nonsense...

The phone in my hand rang as I dialled the number, and she picked up on the second ring.

"I need a furnished apartment," I said when she picked up. "A secure building with a private entrance which is available immediately. My budget is a little tight."

"How soon do you want a place?"

"This week."

She hummed a response before replying. "I'll send you three options by this afternoon."

"Thank you."

I hung up and looked at the three devices in my palm. Then I placed them carefully back exactly where I found them. If Rosa knew I had found them, she would only plant new ones elsewhere and I would lose my advantage.

I showered, changed, and came downstairs for breakfast with a composed face and a quiet fury I intended to keep entirely to myself.

"You seem tired," Rosa said over her coffee.

"I didn't sleep well." I buttered my toast. "The hotel bed was too soft."

"You should have come home earlier."

"Next time," I agreed pleasantly.

She smiled at me across the table, the type that was filled with maternal love, and I smiled back at her. I couldn't help but wonder how many times I had fallen for this look.

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