Chapter 919 - After the fashion show (4) (1/2)
Sometime later, Aiden was in the living room with his laptop. Jasper was next to Aiden, observing what he is doing.
Since the beating of the gang leader, neither Ellie nor Jasper spoke.
Suddenly, Aiden was the chatty one in the room.
Ellie entered with icepacks for Jasper's hands.
Jasper hissed at the cold sensation. His knuckles hurt like crazy.
”That is why I prefer to use my legs.” Aiden threw a side glance at Jasper. ”Hands get hurt easily unless you hit with the base of your palm. But even that can't last as long as the legs.”
Few seconds later, Aiden smiled. ”Here we go. The other phone is a disposable one, and it was used only to text with this gang leader. I traced it to a purchase made with a credit card on name Lilian Cavadini.”
Aiden didn't miss change in expression of Jasper and Ellie. ”I assume you know who she is.”
”A shallow bimbo who thinks that she should be Jasper's girlfriend.”, Ellie squeezed through her teeth.
”I don't know about bimbo… but don't call her shallow.” Aiden saw that his comment earned him questioning gazes from both Ellie and Jasper.
He exhaled while thinking how he is missing Sarah more than ever. She does not require these explanations, and if they need to be given to someone, she is the one who does the talking.
”First, she hired someone else, unrelated to her to do the job. Second, she paid in cash which is difficult to use as a proof against her. Third, she used a burner phone which is nearly impossible to connect to her. So, either she is smart to do all this in order to hurt Ellie and not to be implicated, or she took advice of someone who is… which again, makes her not completely stupid.”
Jasper looked at Aiden. ”You said that the phone is nearly impossible to connect to her. How come you did it?”
Aiden grinned. He wanted to say that these phones come without a contract so they are not tied to a person. If she didn't pay with credit card, he would have to look into security footage of the store to see who purchased the phone... but that is too much information. He decided to keep it short: ”Let's just say that you are lucky to have me look into this.”
Jasper knows that Jeff does for him occasional jobs of digging information which is not easy to find. And at the wedding's dinner rehearsal, Jeff hinted that Sarah is working on those. Based on this, Jasper concluded that Aiden is into that as well… hacking. But he knows that this is not a topic that should be openly discussed.
Aiden didn't want to give them a chance to ask more about that, so he switched the topic. ”What do you plan to do next?”
Jasper looked at Ellie whose gaze was fixed on his hands with ice packs on them. He looked at Aiden.
”I believe that you have experience with these kinds of situations. I hope that you can give us some advice.”
Aiden nodded in understanding. ”First thing is to deal with the current situation. You have a half-dead man in the garage. He does not know where he is now, because he arrived in the trunk. But he knows Ellie. He is a liability. If you let him walk and he talks to the police, there is no evidence. If he talks to the media, do you have a way to control the damage?”
”I do.”, Jasper confirmed.
”Good.”, Aiden approved. ”Second is Lilian. She already hired someone to hurt Ellie. The fact that this group is out of the way, does not mean that the next one will not come. And these tend to escalate. She will not stop until you stop her. Do you understand?”
Jasper looked at Ellie while guilt consumed him. ”I'm sorry.”
Aiden rolled his eyes. He has zero compassion for these situations. ”This is no time for feeling sorry. Both of you need to understand that Lilian is one of many. I am surprised that neither of you had any problems so far.”
”What do you mean?”, Ellie asked.
Aiden took a deep breath while his thoughts wondered toward Sarah again. He enjoys holding her hand while she does these explanations.
”Let's start with Tom. I heard that he left because of unrequited love. You need to ask yourself: why now? He had a crush on you for years. What made him lose his composure now? What if he didn't leave, but stayed close to you while allowing his resentment to grow over time?”
Aiden glanced at Jasper. ”That applies to Lilian and to everyone else who will come in the future with an intention to break you two apart. While you were single, without a steady relationship, they had plans. They had hope. But now that the two of you are openly together, that hope is crumbling, and it's replaced with desperation. People who so far had harmless crushes will start spiking your drinks and coming up with schemes to break you apart. And there will be extremes who will say that if he (or she) can't have you, no one can. You can't be careless and keep your guard down even for a minute. It's not just people who find you attractive and have a crush on you. There are others who want to be with you because of your money, status, family connections. There might be others you are not even aware they are interested in you, and some which you don't even know personally because their parents are grooming them to be your partners.”
”You sound like you speak from experience.”, Jasper noticed that Aiden is oddly specific.
”Yes, I am.”, Aiden admitted. ”I was careless, both of us were… and we ended up hurting. Now we have no mercy left for anyone who tries to get in-between us.”