Chapter 3

On the day I was discharged from the hospital, Delilah pushed me out in my wheelchair and carefully draped a blanket over my lap. She even crouched down to tie up my shoelaces with everybody watching her.

The passing patients saw her and exclaimed, "Look at her! She's such a good woman, still being so attentive even while caring for her paralyzed husband."

I gripped the voice recorder tightly in my hand, which was hidden inside my sleeve. I had asked a young man in the same ward to secretly buy it for me earlier.

After getting back home, Delilah and Dakota both helped me onto the bed.

While they were gone to fetch me some water from the kitchen, I dialed Elijah Santos' number. He was the head of the HOA in our area.

"Mr. Santos, can you please come over to my place? I have some 'truths' I want to reveal about the fire a few days ago. I'm afraid… I'm afraid that I won't have the chance to say it again next time," I said, my voice shaky.

Elijah was a very kind-hearted person. In less than ten minutes, he and several other neighbors came knocking on our door.

Delilah was shocked when she opened the door. She immediately plastered a kind and warm smile on her face.

"Mr. Santos! Come in, come in! Ron was discharged from the hospital today. He's been telling me how much he missed you all."

I watched the neighbors swarming in and fetched the recording device from under my pillow.

"Everyone, Delilah is not the good person she wants you all to think! She was the one who locked the door on me that other day in the fire! She even physically abused me…"

I clicked on the "play" button on the recording device.

However, instead of the sounds of Delilah abusing and threatening me, the recorder played a loud, startling static noise instead.

"Ron? What do you think you're doing?" Delilah exclaimed, walking over to me impatiently and snatching the recording device from my hands.

"You were the one who asked me for this a few days ago. And you wouldn't tell me what you wanted it for. What did you do to it now? Did you break it?"

How could this be? I had clearly recorded her insulting and threatening me last night at the hospital!

I instinctively looked at Dakota, who was standing at the door. She was leaning against the doorframe as she toyed with a black electrical device in her hands. It was a signal jammer!

She simply smiled at me with disdain clearly in her eyes as she said, "Dad, you know, the doctor said that you'd inhaled too much smoke, causing mild oxygen deprivation in your brain. He also said that it would lead to paranoia.

"I didn't believe him at first, but look at what you're doing now. You're trying to frame Mom for something she never did."

She went up to the neighbors and nodded at them apologetically.

"I'm sorry, everyone. Ever since Dad got paralyzed, he'd been suffering from a huge psychological blow and always thinks that we're trying to harm him on purpose.

"Mom even gave up on an opportunity to be promoted at work just so that she could stay back and take care of him, but yet, Dad…"

Her voice then choked with emotion.

"Oh, my poor, poor Dakota. She's had such a hard life."

"Ron, you know that you shouldn't be doing something like this, right? Can't you see for yourself how well Lila has been treating you all this time? We're all witnesses to that!

"How could you accuse her of something so ridiculous? You're hurting your own daughter like this!"

Elijah sighed and patted me on the back of my hand.

"Get well soon, Ron, and stop overthinking things. It's been really hard on you, Lila."

The neighbors then left again, sighing while shaking their heads.

As soon as the door was closed, the warmth on Delilah's face disappeared at once. She flung the recording device to the ground in a rage and slapped me in the face.

"You think you're all that now? You think you can try and get help from outsiders now, huh?"

Dakota walked over and tossed the signal jammer onto the table. She said calmly, "Mom, you should avoid his face next time. Grandma and Grandpa are coming over tomorrow. It's going to be hard for you to explain things if they see the injury on his face."

"Dakota? Aren't you worried about retribution helping your mom harm me like this?"

I stared intently at her, trying to find a trace of remorse on her face.

However, there was none.

She simply organized her notes on law and said without even looking up at me, "Only the strong have the right to talk about retribution in this world, Dad. As for you, you're just a nuisance we have to be liable for."