A letter

Ophelia hurried out of the car without even looking at Draco, desperately hoping this was the last time she saw him. 

If he would not help her, he was useless to her and had better stay away.

She hurried to the mailbox of her unit and found the brown manila envelope. 

When she opened it, she saw a black gift box in it. 

She smiled and hurried upstairs with it.

Now that she had this in hand, she momentarily forgot all her problems, overjoyed at what she was about to do to Ariel.

She opened the door and the first person she ran into was Akira. 

She smiled. 

Was fate not just absolutely wonderful?

Her mind strayed to Olivia, but she decided to check on her after this, and take her when she was ready to leave. 

Akira turned to her and bowed quickly, and Ophelia could see a small fear in her eyes.

“Are you familiar with hide-and-seek?” Ophelia grinned at her.

“Ma’am?” Akira leaned forward, squinting in confusion. 

Ophelia grinned wider and brought her hands up to her face, then she moved them quickly, singing, “I have found you.” and threw her head back in laughter. 

She really looked forward to playing these sorts of games when Olivia got a little older.

Children were only fun when they had gone past the baby and toddler phase and before their teenage years.

Akira was still looking at her in confusion, the bloody dimwit.

“Come,” Ophelia beckoned to her, and the woman actually came forward.

Damn. The woman’s preservation instinct was truly dead. 

Ophelia stared at her, and suddenly punched her between her eyes, like her father had thought her to, as a teenager in case a man tried to attack her.

It worked, because Akira fell flat and Ophelia had to throw her purse beneath her head, just before the woman hit the floor. 

She could not die here.

She pulled the box out of the envelope and injected the tiny bubble into the woman’s bloodstream. Then she placed a cold compress on her head and sat down to wait for the woman to wake up.

Nearly an hour later, she was almost beginning to worry, because she could not afford to waste any more time here. 

Her father was calling non-stop and she knew his men would be here any moment now.

But Akira’s eyes opened, and she blinked, but hurriedly sat up, and then she winced in pain.

“Bad move,” Ophelia said, grimacing at her. 

What a pity. She remembered her first impression of the woman. Classy and probably raised in a wealthy home whose misfortune took their wealth. 

And smart too. Definitely smart. It was a pity that would all go to waste now.

“You have death sitting in your forearm.” She turned to stare at the woman’s right arm where the bubble had expanded till it was visible under her skin.

Akira gasped at the sight, hurrying up to her knees.

“You’ll say nothing. Or I’ll just change my mind and finish you off,” Ophelia said, and the plea the woman had wanted to begin reciting died in her throat. 

She nodded, wide-eyed as her whole body shook like a leaf.

Damn. Was she a coward? 

Ophelia had no idea someone could shiver so much. 

“I need you to send a message back to Ariel.” She picked up a note and pen beside her, and dropped it in front of her. “Written message. Write a summary of what she made you do, and how you did it. 

At the end, write that you can no longer continue.”

The woman was crying now and shaking her head even as she spoke.

“What? Never written a resignation letter before in your life?” Ophelia made a mock sad face. “Come, I’ll show you.”

“She will kill him.” The woman broke down in tears. “Please don’t make me do it, she will kill him.”

Ophelia frowned at her, having zero interest in knowing who this HIM was. This HIM who was so important she placed his own life over hers.

“Come, come,” she said gently, “We don’t have all day. Pick up the pen,” She said and as Akira continued pleading, she said. “The Sullivan residence is quite far from here. You have to go there and back in time to take the antidote before this thing kills you.” She said, smiling sweetly, knowing she had no antidote, knowing no matter how fast the woman drove, she would not make it back to this place.

The woman finally picked the pen up and began to write, with really shaky hands and her tears dotting the paper.

As soon as she was out the door, she picked her phone up and dialed. 

“Listen. Shoot her dead. If she resists an arrest or even twitches, shoot her down!” She yelled now. “Do you hear me? Find every goddamn reason to kill her tonight.”

She hung up, breathing heavily. 

She finally stood up and hurried to her daughter’s nursery, but when she opened the door, she found that her daughter was gone.

Blaine was sitting on the bed, wondering what father and daughter were talking about for so long.

It could not have taken the man so long, just to tell his daughter that he had been in the country for ten years now.

He strained his ear, but he did not hear any shouting. 

The door opened suddenly and Ariel walked into the bedroom.

“How long have you known my father’s true identity?” She said, standing straight as the door slammed shut behind her.

Blaine stared, surprised. Was she going to take this out on him?

“I did not make the connection until after I had to take you to the hospital,” he said, and she squinted at him. “The Grigor who I anonymously used for my task was different from Grigor, Ruby’s boyfriend in my mind,” he said.

And she shook her head and came to sit beside him on the bed.

“There are too many mysteries. Too many complexities. I don’t want Oliver growing up like this.” She turned to look at him, “or Olivia either."

He moved close to her now, and hugged her close to himself, and they said nothing for a while.

“I need to tell you what happened with my mother.” She moved away from his arms, and Blaine winced. 

He hated to think about this.

It was unplanned that he and Ariel would find each other after twenty-two years of her life and fall in love, but it still made him somewhat uncomfortable to think about the truth of it all.

And as she began to tell him what REALLY happened all those years ago, he stared at her in disbelief, too stunned to speak, too stunned to even think.

He had been living a lie. 

He had been living a lie this whole time.

“What?” He could not help saying. 

The grudge he had held in his heart the whole time, the bias with which he had used to judge Ariel when he found out that she was Ruby’s daughter, the thing that caused all this trouble. It was all a lie. 

Ruby never deceived him on purpose. 

He stood up now, and walked far towards the window, unable to look Ariel in the face.

Selfish. She had called him, told him that he never saw past himself. 

His whole life had been a lie. 

Even the personality he believed he had was a lie.