Chapter 39 Chapter 39 Two Calls Aria Hartwell.

Chapter 39 Chapter 39 Two Calls Aria Hartwell.
Chapter 39
Two Calls
Aria Hartwell.

I was still at the breakfast table, making conversation with my mother about nothing that was really important, when my phone buzzed face-down on the table. I flipped it over, saw an unknown number. My brows knitted into a frown as I stepped aside and excused myself from the table.

My heart was racing. Was it Laila? Had she found out about last night?

"Miss Hartwell?" I heard the sharp and professional voice of a woman, which made my heart sink to my stomach. Who was this? "I'm calling from Westside General Hospital. We have a Daniel Bryant listed as a patient admitted early this morning. Your number was found in his phone as the last person who spoke with him."

I stood very still in the hallway. "What happened?"

"He was involved in a road accident last night. He's currently in surgery. Are you able to come in?"

"I'll be there within the hour."

I went back to the table, told Rosa I had an errand, and left before she could ask anything.

The hospital waiting room was beige in colour, the same colour that all hospital waiting rooms seemed to share regardless of how much money the building had cost. I sat in a chair near the window and watched the car park and thought about Daniel Bryant. He had been perfectly fine twelve hours ago, laughing over dinner, walking me to my car and flagging down a cab to go home. He was one of the men I went out on a date with in my bid to forget Cassian.


I was still in the waiting room when I received another call from a different voice.

Harrison was dead.

His office building had caught fire two nights ago and he had been found during evacuation. He had been burned to crisp, added with injuries when the building fell and its scaffold broke some of his bones.

I held the phone in my lap after the call ended and looked at the floor, absorbing everything that had happened to me within the past forty-eight hours.

Harrison had been my father's attorney for thirty years, and from what I could gather, every single file and papers concerning the company had been destroyed in that fire. I still remembered the flash drive he had given me, talking about my father's will being altered, and I couldn't help but think if this murder had something to do with that. If someone was trying to shut him up for good. But then again, that person would have known that he had given me something of that importance to give them a motive to blow my apartment up. This meant this had to be done by someone really close to me. I closed my eyes and thought about it. I hadn't told anyone about the flash drive or even meeting up with Harrison.

Wait, no... I told Cassian, but it couldn't be him. Cassian would never take the life of another person. I was too tired to think clearly about anything again. First it was Daniel who was currently in surgery, and now it was Harrison.

I was not a person who believed in coincidences. My father had raised me to recognize patterns and put clues together.

"Hey." Ethan appeared at the waiting room entrance, slightly out of breath. I didn't even realize that I had texted him to come over because calling Cassian was pointless. He was probably at his wedding, and I didn't know how to face him after last night. "I got here as quickly as I could."

"You didn't have to come." I said slowly as I shifted for him to have a seat.

"You called me." He sat beside me and handed me a coffee cup from the hospital café. "Of course I came."

Ethan was a failed talking stage in my university. We met at one of the parties I used to host back then, and hit off immediately. He was one of the rich kids who never told anyone his last name, and I never asked. His presence was the comfort I needed now, and he listened carefully and asked questions where necessary.

"And Harrison," he said carefully. "The attorney. Did you know him well?"

"He was my father's lawyer. I met him a few times." I turned the coffee cup in my hands. "He died two nights ago, Ethan. His office was burned down."

"God." His expression morphed into shock. "Aria, that's two incidents involving people connected to your family in forty-eight hours."

"I know."

"Have you told Cassian?"

I looked up at him, wondering if I wanted to broach this topic. "Today's the second day of his wedding. He probably hasn't gotten the news yet."

Ethan held my gaze for a moment, "Then you need to be careful," he said quietly. "Until you understand what's happening, you don't go anywhere alone."

"Ethan..."

"I mean it." His hand covered mine on the armrest. "Whatever is going on around your family right now, it's not a coincidence. You're smart enough to know that."

We sat there for hours until the surgeon came out. Daniel was out of surgery, stable but his condition was still serious, and he had to be constantly monitored. He had a fractured pelvis, an internal bleeding, and a really long recovery ahead. His sister arrived twenty minutes later and I stayed until she was settled and had everything she needed.

Walking to the car park afterward, Ethan kept his pace beside me without being asked.

"Dinner tonight?" he offered. "We could go somewhere quiet because you need to eat something that isn't hospital coffee."

"I'm fine."

"That wasn't a question." He said it lightly, with a smile, and held the car door open.

I got in after shaking my head, that particular action of his reminding me of Cassian. Before he closed the door, he squinted slightly as if he had seen something up ahead and his expression shifted to something terrifying, but the look was gone before I could take full note of it. It was probably all in my head.